So can YOU or YOUR business benefit from Social Networking? Are you resisting the idea of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.? Technology changes are always hard for me and I was resistant at first too.   In fact, I have been only using twitter for a few weeks but I have been trained in it now and I am confident of the benefits.

The best news about it is that . . . it’s FREE!   MOST IMPORTANTLY, in my mind, it’s the BEST REFERRAL PROGRAM ever invented.   I expect our enrollment to increase because of the way we are using it.

For my local business, I focus on getting local news coverage which is free, and I advertise and pay about $400 per month to be in a Parent magazine.  In addition,  I have a small listing in the yellow pages (which is almost a dinosaur),  and do several children exhibits, water safety talks at schools and libraries, etc..  But over the years I have drastically reduced my advertising budget (I have done radio, TV, billboards, other magazines, newspaper, etc.)  and have eliminated most of them.   I really depend on customer referrals which has improved from our in-house “customer loyalty” training program which leads me back to social networking.

There’s no better advertising than a referral from one friend to another.  The “trust” barrier is almost eliminated from the start and presto: you have a new student!     The hard part about referrals is while your swim parents may love you, they are not going to walk around with a “sign on their chest” promoting you.  With facebook, it is easier and more comfortable to tell all their friends about you!  It’s actually quite exciting and amazing when you see how your “friends” or “followers” begin to multiply.

Sounding tempting yet?  Get this, as of 2009, Facebook had over 250 million users and that number is growing rapidly!   If you haven’t used facebook before, it is very user-friendly and it won’t take you long for you to see and understand the benefits.

What I have learned to be most important about twitter is that what I “tweet” is informative and worthwhile.  This way your customers will “want” to stay in touch with you.   For Swim Lessons University, I am tweeting to swim teachers, both my local teachers here at The Swim Lessons Company in SC and Swim Lessons University teachers from all over the world in over 20 different countries who are using my teacher training DVD’s, lesson plans, online testing program, etc.   Now with Twitter and Facebook, I can give back by “tweeting” a TEACHING TIP A DAY from Twitter or Facebook or both!  So when my followers get my tweet (which is simultanously posted of facebook), all those signed up can receive a useful teaching tip every day that will help them with their teaching.   Because the information is useful, valuable, and even personable, it is an invaluable training resource to my staff and yours, and it takes just 5 seconds a day to read!   I have listed below some of my recent tweets I have done via facebook with my blackberry that go directly to twitter.  Here you can see what I’m talking about in terms of tweeting info. swim teachers want: