Is Your Online Marketing Plan Building Strong Reciprocity?

August 25, 2015 by Sherman Smith 46 Comments

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What does it mean by Reciprocity?

When you think of reciprocity, think of it as mutual exchange. In the blogging world you can say that it’s an exchange of value, whether it be getting exposures, shares, or monetary value.

You want to be able to have more of a push and pull effect.

It relates to your ethics in terms of blogging etiquette.

But the real question would be how are you correlating reciprocity into your online marketing plan?

There are many bloggers/online marketers that use Pareto’s Principle of the 80/20 Rule as pushing out valuable content 80% of the time, and writing about their products/services 20% of the time. This is a great way to attract more traffic back to your blog.

So why is it that those that follow this routine do not get the traffic they need in order to build a great reputation as well as other positive results? This was something I was going through, and there’s many of you that are going through the same thing despite implementing the 80/20 rule.

So what seems to be the problem?

Well there may be some important actions that you’re leaving out of your marketing plan. Sometimes it’s not enough to just showcase your content and I’m going to dive into what could possible be missing within your marketing plan.

“To me, it really seems visible today that ethics is not something exterior to the economy, which, as technical matter, could function on its own; rather, ethics is an interior principle of the economy itself, which cannot function if it does not take account of the human values of solidarity and reciprocal responsibility.” ~ Pop Benedict XVI

When I think of having a marketing plan, I ask how am I connecting with others and how will I attract others?

Is this something you think about or are you more focus in promoting valuable content?

We keep saying “Content is King” or “Publish valuable content”, but what may be great and valuable content to you may not be so to your audience.

Here’s something you want to think about?

How will you keep an ongoing currency exchange between you and your target audience?

And I’m not just talking about Money. I’m talking the exchange of what both you and your target audience deem as valuable.

When you can come up with an Online Marketing Plan where there is constant exchange going, then you have a legit plan.

Despite all the tools and strategies there are out there, it wouldn’t be enough for you or your audience if no one is really getting anything out of it.

So let’s see how we can come up with a simple, but yet powerful marketing plan that generates constant reciprocation that will help your reputation and catapult your success.

Start With Connecting With Genuine People In Similar Niches

First you want to start off with connecting with genuine people.

When you’re able to connect with others that reciprocate the same or similar value that you give, then these are the type of people that are keepers.

Now some of you may have a hard time in finding these types of people.

You keep running into people that usually have an agenda to make money off of you. Yes, there are a lot of them out there, but if you keep attracting them, then maybe there’s something about you that need to change.

Besides that, you want to be cautious and have a set profile of who you really want to connect with.

In This Post I go into detail about who you as a blogger/entrepreneur should really connect with. I share my experiences of who I look for when it comes to meeting genuine people in the blogosphere. So check out my guest post entitled Who Should You Really Connect With In The Blogosphere?[ Tweet this! ]

It does take a good judge of character when it comes to finding these types of people. But you definitely want to compare them to the profile you created.

If it matches great

But how do you come up with a profile?

Easy! Make sure that your “perfect person” is the same or similar to the person you are.

Speak The Language Your Audience Desires

We all talk about putting out value when it comes to our target audience, but why is it that some can get more responses than others who share the same valuable information?

Well there’s quite a few factors behind this!

But one solution to this problem that I find intriguing is using NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) tactics

If you don’t know, NLP is a way of how we communicate with ourselves and others through the use of different words in their context and sentence structure to produce a certain behavior.

For example, when I use the word down, I can use it in 3 different sentences and yet it’ll produce 3 different reactions.

I don’t like when you talk down to me.

Can you go down the street to the corner store to pick up a bottle of milk?

I’m down for whatever you want to do this weekend.

As you can see, there’s three different sentences with different contexts but yet they use the same word to produce different responses.

But NLP goes a lot further than these 3 sentences. There are different methods you can use to resonate better with others. In this post I go further into more detail of how you can improve your communication with your target audience.[ Tweet this! ]

Commenting and Mentioning Others Create Great Reciprocation

The one invention that I benefit from now are mentions.

Why?

Because whenever I share their blog posts on social media, I make sure I write a little something about it as well as mention their names.

As a result, not only do they respond and thank me, but also many of them will come back to my blog and do the exact same thing I did.

Can you see the power of the reciprocation here?

We both benefit from each other! Not only do we add our comments to each other’s post, but also we get social proof when we share each other’s post to our audience.

Here are great bloggers who mentioned me, liked my fan page and tagged me on Facebook of a post I did.

Also here’s mentions, shares, +1’s and adds I’ve gotten from google+

When it comes to branding, then comments are a great way to market yourself for reciprocation.

You and me both love being able to get comments on our blog posts. It’s definitely a social signal that search engines recognize, and it just makes us feel good, right?

Here’s some examples of intriguing comments I’ve gotten from some fabulous bloggers who also receive a lot of awesome ones themselves.

Imagine if you were getting comment’s like this and mentions all the time? What will that do for your blog?

Make Sure Your Social Media Profiles Reflect Who You Are And What You Do

We heard it time and time again!

Get people to know like and trust you

But how many of you are putting yourself out there for people to do this?

Yes, I know, you want to network, and talk with people everyday, and yes, you do want to follow’s Pareto’s 80/20 Rule where 80% of your content shared is on value and 20% of it is promotions on your products/services.

Your audience see’s that you’re working hard to deliver valuable content to them.

But one thing I noticed is that many people who are working at this level are still not getting the results that they want. Is this you?

Well here’s the thing? People like to investigate, and you are the one that they like to investigate.

This is why it’s good to set up your Social Media Profile to give your audience another great reason to get to know, like and trust you.

One thing I like to do is create a flow of people going to my profile file and back to my blog.

There’s 4 things I have in my profile

1. I give them a summary of who I am

2. I share how I can help them

3. Leave a link to my blog or website

4. Let people know about my email list as well as ebooks, training, etc…

5. Ask questions to find out more about my visitors

Here’s a piece of my own “About You” Profile on Facebook that may give you some ideas.

Killing A Bunch Of Birds With One Stone With Opportunity Requests

The one good thing about marketing reciprocity is that you’ll start to attract more opportunities to you.

[Tweet “The one good thing about marketing reciprocity is that you’ll start to attract more opportunities to you.”]

And I’m not talking about the type of opportunities where people see your name on social media and present you with their business opportunity without getting to know you.

We’ve all been through this.

I’m talk about the opportunities where everyone benefits.

The fact that I’ve been meeting genuine people and promoting their content allowed for them to present opportunities such as Guest and Roundup Posts.

If you get asked by anyone who present these types of opportunities, then apparently you are doing something right!

If not, then you definitely want to look at how you’re branding yourself, and if you’re not being of value to others, then you’ll need to make some adjustments.

But once you have the currency going between you and other bloggers, then you are more than likely to attract these opportunities.

Once you take them on, then you will be able to double the exposure of yourself, your blog, and what you promote.

All it takes is a bit of etiquette reciprocation and you’re good to go!

Now What’s Missing In Your Marketing Plan?

When I think of marketing I think of it as “Give and Attract”.

Whatever you give tends to attract those things that are on a similar level.

If you don’t like what you’re getting back in your marketing campaign, then there is something that you’re not doing or something that you are doing that’s holding you back.

So how can you solve this?

Well I’ll give you 4 questions that I ask myself from time to time that may give you some ideas:

How are you attracting other bloggers to you?

How are you attracting influencers?

Why would others want to connect with you?

What are you doing to reach out to other bloggers?

After answering these questions, see if what you’re doing is enough to really fulfill the answers that you came up with.

You probably need to do more of what your doing, you may need to cut some of your activities out, or maybe you need to work smarter and take advantage of untapped portions of your marketing.

In Conclusion

We can put out what we consider as “valuable” continuously, but if there’s no reciprocity that comes back from what we put out, then the big question is are we coming out as of value to others?

Would it be wise to help others get what they want in order to get what we want?

Well when it comes to marketing, publishing and promoting valuable content is just one part of the marketing equation.

You want to be able to practice WIIFM in this case which is What’s In It For Me?

People want to know why they should help and promote you if you’re not willing to do the same for them.

This is why marketing reciprocation is so important!

Two important factors that comes out of marketing reciprocation is that everyone Builds a great reputation and get social proof!

So with that said, lets make sure we all collaborate together so that we all can win!

Now It’s Your Turn

So how is your marketing?

Are you just pushing out your content and opportunities instead of doing the same for others as well?

Does your personal brand need some revamping?

How is your reputation among the blogosphere?

Are you meeting the right people that practice the Law of Reciprocation?

Please share your comments below and share this post with your friends. I look forward to read them!