Do You Even Want Your Friends to Succeed?

The other day I was scrolling through Facebook and I noticed something that actually made me pretty happy.

(That’s weird for Facebook, isn’t it?)

I noticed that I’m getting to the age now where a lot of my friends and classmates are getting their first “real jobs” or starting up their own businesses.

So the part that made me happy was seeing that these folks are making posts to try and promote themselves, and then others are SHARING those posts to actually try and help out.

I love the support and the intent behind this, but I also have to be a negative Nancy and point out the fact that those shares and story shouts don’t really do much of anything for anyone.

Let me break down some better ways for you to support your friends, and for them to support you, so we can all do better and really feel supported in the long run.

1.) Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

The first and foremost thing that you can do to support your friends is actually put your money into them and/or their business.

Your friend just opened up a store? Buy from them.

They just started making videos on YouTube? Subscribe, and become a Patron if they’re doing that sort of thing.

Always start your support by giving the actual support and not just the “exposure.”

2.) Go Beyond Saying “Check This Out” with Your Posts.

This is another mistake I constantly see is shared stories and posts that just say “Make sure you check out Joe’s gym for all of your fitness needs” or “check out Taylor’s music on Spotify.”

When you are trying to really support your friends, you’re essentially being their PR guy for a moment.

Instead of just making a call to action of “check them out,” make sure you start by giving some sort of reason to people as to why they should check out this page or this business.

A reason without a call to action will drive drastically more traffic than a call to action without a reason.

3.) Consistency, as Always, is Key.

When you share a post from a page just once, or give a recommendation just once, it doesn’t mean squat to anyone.

It feels fake, and it feels like you are just giving an empty recommendation.

In the marketing world, it is often said that someone needs to have seven touches with your product before they really even start to consider it.

Meaning they have to see it or hear about it seven times, at a minimum, before they consider buying.

I don’t know how true that is exactly, but it is fairly obvious that we don’t just buy into anything that is being recommended to us once and only once.

So when you are trying to show your support, you need to show your support on an ongoing basis.

It isn’t a matter of making a social media post and just praying that it goes viral, it goes back to being a matter of using the product or service, and then continuously talking about it.

For example, I used to follow a guy on Twitter who sold information products.

Courses, in other words. He sold courses.

When I first started following him, and the little section of Twitter that he was in, I didn’t give a care in the world about his courses, or really his company. I just thought his tweets were good.

But that’s why consistency is so huge.

Not only did this guy constantly talk about his own courses, his students that were seeing success from his courses, and his own companies, but he had students and peers that were also talking about his courses.

Consistently.

It wasn’t “Hey, I just took a course from XX and it changed my life.”

That wouldn’t make me buy.

But after I saw about a dozen people saying

“I achieved XX because of this guy’s course.”

I started to become sold on the idea that this guy actually knew what he was doing.

I started seeing reasons to buy, instead of just a call to action to buy.

And I started seeing those reasons consistently.

Then I eventually bought a course.

4.) Make Things Personal.

The last thing that you need to do when you are actually trying to show your support is make your recommendations personal.

Again, this goes back to those extremely vague social media posts that we’ll all see on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter that seem suspicious to us.

If you make your recommendations personal, you have a much better chance at actually making a difference in one person’s life.

Actually two lives, if you think about it as making a difference in the life of the person you’re supporting, and also the person you’re recommending to them.

So how do you make things personal?

For starters, get outside of social media.

Bring up the friends and businesses that you want to support when you’re in conversation at work, in the gym, or wherever the case may be.

Pay attention to the problems that the people around you have, and offer them advice that actually pertains to them.

Always remember that if you can bring just one new customer to your friend’s business, that means a lot more than bringing awareness to the minds of millions.

Awareness can be good, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

Make things personal, and help build brick by brick.

Get your friend one new customer, and then that customer becomes a part of the system that can also help bring more customers through recommendations.

The Bottom Line.

The world has become riddled with all sorts of MLM operations, network marketing, and also people that are genuinely just trying to help, but being annoying with the recommendations on social media.

It’s fast-paced, and it seems like most of us don’t want to take the time to stop and actually ask ourselves if what we are saying makes any sense, or more importantly, makes any impact.

Use these tips to become a better supporter of your friends and your local businesses.

When you become better at giving support, you’ll likely also see an increase in the support that you receive.

Business is a people game, and people like to be supported.

Go out there, and support others in the most effective way possible.