What is "new age social network marketing"?

The "Old School" Model

Network marketing has been around for decades. It has been the life blood for many entrepreneurs and obviously has root sound business principals to have survived as a business model for so long.

If you were starting out in network marketing a few years ago you would have been taught the following model

• Define your want
  
• Make a list of family and friends to prospect (warm market)
• Make a list of other people you could contact about your business (cold market)
  
• You would have plugged into the marketing system for your business which involved attending meetings, seminars and purchasing promotional and motivational teaching materials.
  

While all these things worked for some people there were still those who struggled to make any money in their business, some lost more than they made and eventually dropped out of the business.

The "New Age" Model

What differentiates the two models is that instead of you searching for prospects your prospects come to you. You have a pool of people who are already interested in your business, therefore you don't have to waste time trying to convince them that you are the answer to their prayers.

What you do need to do is to help them to develop their business then show them how to teach others to do the same.

What enabled this new model?

With the increase of what became known as the Web 2.0 properties marketing on line moved to a new level. More people are able to communicate with each other and build relationships than ever before.

People are no longer bound by geographical boundaries or cultural differences. People with the same interests can be "attracted" to each other as if being pulled by a magnet and share information.

The rise and rise of social media

In the month of April "the social networking category experienced a record month, growing 12 percent to nearly 140 million visitors, or nearly three-quarters of the U.S. online population. MySpace Sites led the category with 71 million visitors, followed by Facebook.com with 67.5 million visitors, an increase of 10 percent from the previous month. Twitter.com, now the third ranked social networking site, experienced another explosive month of visitor growth, jumping 83 percent to 17 million visitors." Comscore

At no other point in our history has mankind been able to "reach out and touch" so many people.

How does all this socialising help the network marketer?

In essence you are selling yourself as an individual on these sites. People get to know you, trust you and look into the activities that you are interested in. They may become involved in your business or someone else through interaction with them may get to know about your business and interact with you, which is why the more people who have access to what you have to offer the better.

How do you harness the power of social media?

Fortunately for us three network marketers independently sought the answer to this question and came up with very similar solutions. Mike Dillard, Ann Sieg, and Mike Klinger. Mike Dillard called his concept "Magnetic Sponsoring", and Ann Sieg called hers "Attraction Marketing". They basically used the same concept, that is you provide quality information to people in a format that they can easily follow.

Ann Sieg teamed up with Mike Klinger and together they produced the Renegade University, Renegade Professional and the new Renegade Mentoring Program.

Want to know more about how to use social media in your network marketing business. Join me on my blog at http://newagesocialnetworkmarketing.com. Follow me on Twitter.   Be my friend on Facebook.  Lets socialise on MYSpace.