Just being a member of several social networking sites because your sponsor or business coach told you to doesn’t mean you are automatically going to make your home business successful.

Twitter is the latest craze that is all the rage right now, and just like all the others, everyone is flocking to it without really understanding how to harness its power.  So, I’m going to share with you 10 dirty little secrets that work for ALL social networks alike that will pull in leads like a big game fisherman casting a wide net in the ocean. Reading the following tips with teach you to get massive amounts of leads from social networking sites:

1. Tell your personal story on your profile page – avoid putting up a bunch of content about your business or your products.  Open up and let people see that you’re a real person. People will stop by to learn about you, so give them something they can relate to.

2. Join specific groups that are targeted for your business – this is where you can begin to identify your target audience.  You can do a search in the sites group section using your target keywords to find them and you will want to join them all.  More about that in a minute.

3. Now that you have joined a few groups it’s time to start bringing some real value by writing some content. People are always looking for help, tips, tricks and other creative ideas to help generate leads.  Be consistent with your writing and make it compelling.

4. Post your content on all the groups that you belong to – not everyone that is part of one group belongs to all the others, so make sure to spread your knowledge around in mass.

5. Follow up on EVERY comment posted to your article – when someone takes the |time to write feedback on your content, take a moment to thank them for their contribution.  Hint:  when you get up to about 10 comments, your readership DOUBLES.  So, help those numbers rise by commenting behind everyone.

6. Connect with the people who have made comments. Go to their profiles and request to be their friend. This is a great step at gaining trust and developing an avid readership.   It’s better to have added value to someone first which proves to them you are someone they should connect with.  Send another private note thanking them for their feedback and requesting to become friends.  80% of the people will connect with you.

7. Only accept friend requests if it is relevant to your purpose on the site – you’ll get people trying to connect with you at random, but don’t accept it just to build up a friend list. Remember, you are on the social networking site to market and generate leads by targeting a specific audience, and it’s important to keep your friend list as pure as possible.

8. Make comments on other group member’s discussion topics – this is a powerful way to keep you in front of people.  It’s a simple as writing a few lines of praise and picking something out of the article you liked.   At the end of your comment, make sure to ONLY sign your name and maybe use a link to your website.  Do not try to sell anything, this is tacky and no one will take you seriously.  It’s important to be consistent with this as well. Set a daily goal on how many comments you want to make and stick to it.

9. It’s a good idea to survey your friends on the social networking sites to see what their needs are and try to meet them. Once you get this information from them you can send out targeted help to them and soft promote your site.  Now you’re starting to drive traffic outside of your articles!

10. At least twice per month, send an invitation to participate in an event that’s not part of the community – you’ve been adding value to them so this is a comfortable and acceptable approach to promoting your business.  If you were doing this step on the front end, it would not work.

Remember, it’s always about adding value up front, not about selling your MLM business.To build a group of loyal followers give your best stuff away for free.  I guess that makes you an internet rock star, right?  Not bad!

Carin Davis is the editor and webmaster of Carin Davis’s Home Business Training Secrets. A site dedicated to the development and training for Network Marketers and Home Business Owners.

Tags: home business leads, how to get leads from social networking sites, lead generation, mlm lead generation, social networking leads