Social marketing theory is really quite simple. All these marketing agencies and advertisers are trying to tell you that it’s big job and it costs lots and lots of money. The truth of the matter is that social marketing is about making friends. As simple as that.

What happens when you over complicate social marketing is you start to make people mad. Before long they’ll unfollow you or unfriend you because you doing nothing but try to sell to them. If you’re looking for mass subscriptions, people blasts, mass friend finding, or anything other than opt in e-mail marketing, you’re approaching social media the wrong way.

The idea behind social marketing is really threefold:

Find people like you with same interests
Form relationships with those people
Treat everyone with respect

Now notice where marketing comes in to that equation? It doesn’t.

Social marketing theory is about being a better friend and forming better relationships than anyone else. What happens when you form good relationships is those people buy from you, refer you, and send all of their friends to do business with you.

In fact, I like to think of social media as the world’s simplest opt-in service. Rather than double opt-in and open up e-mail clients, all people have to do is press one button to follow you or send a friend request. Now, they’ve entered your thought stream. They can see everything that you post to the rest of your fans.

So for everybody out there trying to build an e-mail marketing list, realize that social media is really just the first step. If they start to follow you and realize you’re an expert, then they’re going to start to pay attention. Now I’m not saying you can never market is people in social media, but do it sparingly. The ratio should be about 5 to 1. Five non-marketing messages to one marketing message.

Really social marketing theory is that simple. Be a good friend, treat people well, be interested, and gain a following like no other (except maybe Tony Robbins).

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