Sometimes the best place to catch fish is not the easiest place to reach!

Growing up, I had the very special pleasure of spending a lot of time with my grandfather. I loved being around him, copy-catting everything he did. It wasn’t always obvious at the time, but there were also lots of important life lessons shared walking through the garden or learning to skip rocks. One of them seemed so simple to him at the time and yet so baffling to me. He said, “If you want to catch some fish, you have to fish where the fish are.”

How the heck am I supposed to know where the fish are?
It just seemed natural to him that fishing where the fish were was what you were supposed to do. And now with some, um, “experience” under my belt, makes sense to me too. But how do you know where they are.

You get the best rod and reel you can afford, the best looking bait and find the most comfortable spot on the bank to spend the afternoon. You cast and cast, over and over without even a nibble. Why?

Sometimes marketing your business can feel a lot like fishing where there aren’t any fish! You invest tons of time and money to have a beautiful web site built, buy all the bells and whistles you’re supposed to and park it with a wonderful web host. Maybe you even hire someone to handle your “social media marketing”… then sit back and wait. Do you see the problem?

Fish Where the Fish Are
Every business has a perfect customer. Customer who are perfectly suited for your product or service, who have the capacity to purchase and benefit from what you have to offer. And its pretty likely that they are online, somewhere. So why aren’t they nibbling on your hook? Because your hook is in the wrong place.

Niche networks of people form and grow everyday both on-line and off-line. The trick for the savvy business owner is to find these niches and tap into their collective conscience. How? I’m glad you asked.

The Secret Sauce for Finding Customers On-line
It really is as simple as one little word. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on market research. You don’t need a high priced SEO Expert soaking six months of your hard earned cash out of your business. You only need to do one thing to find customers on-line.

That’s right, just listen. They are already out there, talking about their problem, telling you exactly what you need to do to win their business. All you have to do is listen, help them discover you and your product, then solve their need.

Volumes can be written (and I’ll probably write a few of them pretty soon) about where to listen and how, but let me start you off with this simple suggestion.

Even if you don’t have a Twitter acount, go to http://search.twitter.com (opens a new window). In the search box, type in a statement or question your ideal customer will utter. Here are some examples:

• If you run a road-side assistance business, search for “flat tire”
• Dentist? Search for “my tooth hurts” or “tooth ache”
• HR Consultants can search for “fire one of my employees”
• Chiropractors should look for “my back hurts near:(your zip code here)”

These are just some suggestions, use them to get ideas on how to search for what your customers are saying. Use what you hear to help you formulate a message that will resonate with them, answer their compelling desires and urgent needs.

Listen to what they are saying, and you will already be ahead of the rest of your market that is still busy yelling at the same potential customers you are getting ready to respond to!

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First, what exactly does it mean that Facebook is exposing their user-contributed data to developers? Well, mainly it means that there is about to be an explosion of apps that interface with and make use of Facebook data, not the least of which will be the messaging available on “The Wall.”

Marketing folks, especially Internet marketers, have been salivating over the thought of having unfettered access to Facebook user data. Just think, not only do I know who you are and what you like and where you live and etc, etc… but I know it about all your friends too! AWESOME!

So, is this going to be another backlash like the Facebook terms of use update a few weeks back? I’m not really sure, I kinda think the terms of use update was aimed at making this possible. I think that the real power of this new avenue into Facebook user-contributed data will manifest itself outside Facebook. Kinda the same way the impact of AOL email manifested itself outside of AOL. Yeah, they made it available and easy to use for the masses, but that just opened the door to a whole new world of possibilities.

I think the AOL example is important for Facebook in another way too. Yes, AOL did really well for a while and made TRUCK LOADS of money, and now look at them. They got way too happy with themselves and worked their way right out of a job. Could the same thing happen with Facebook? Maybe, the scary thing is we don’t even know what we don’t know yet!

Look for mergers too… or at least some way to mash up all your feeds that’s better than anything we have today. I’m a HUGE fan of TweetDeck, in fact its open right now as it is almost all the time. Now that I can send and receive Facebook updates in TweetDeck, I don’t got to Facebook nearly as often…and I can’t tell you the last time I was on the Twitter site. Add to that FriendFeed and all the numerous knock-offs and you simply have too many status update like feeds to keep up with. Something has to give.

Anyway, look for lots of news out about Facebook tomorrow, April 27th and if you’re a Facebook fanatic, watch closely!

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