A lot of people place emphasis on having a large amount of fans and followers on each account. While having a huge amount of followers and fans does indeed attract other fans and followers - there has been talk about how many people you actually reach and whether you are actually engaging with all your fans and followers.
Ask yourself; how are brands/businesses reaching their fans and followers? Are they good at their business? Are they making sales? Do their fans/followers like their products and services? What other marketing/advertising do they do? What are people saying about a business/brand online? Is it really just about numbers?
You have to consider reach, loyalty, ROI, customer service, sales, advertising and whether posts/links are read and how each brand/business is viewed publicly.
Facts about businesses are very hard to determine by judging the amount of fans and followers that an account has on the basis of numbers alone.
A lot of people will tell you to buy fans and followers and I would advise you not to. If you do buy fans and followers, it is highly unlikely that these bought fans/followers will share your content, comment on your content or really communicate with your brand.
Try these tips to increase your fan base on each account organically:
1. Content is the most important tool to naturally increase your fans or followers. Consider your target market, know your brand or at least the personality of your brand. Share your own business content yet be social on social media! Read, comment on, share, respond to, like, link to and recommend other content from elsewhere (after you have carefully checked the sources) Having great, valuable content is the best way to gain fans and followers!
2. http://www.masteringsocialbusiness.com/2012/05/07/how-to-get-more-followers-today/ - this podcast discusses ways to naturally increase followers/fans on a number of social media platforms
3. List your business/brand in free business directories
4. List your Twitter account in Twitter directories
5. Join groups on LinkedIn
6. Participate in hangouts on Google+
7. 7 more steps/ways to gain more fans organically - http://socialmediatoday.com/lauren-parajon/473583/7-steps-gain-more-fans-and-followers-organically
8. Be more interactive on Twitter – have conversations with others and pretend you are at a networking function. Talk about other subject matters, join in conversations, answer questions, share resources and if you like you can even host Twitter chats or pose questions to followers (if you do decide to ReTweet content or people – please check their bio/profile and the link before you share anything!)
9 . Join Twitter chats
10. On Pinterest, you can like, comment on and repin (after checking the source!) other people’s content
11. On Instagram you can like and comment on other people's images (this applies to other photo sharing sites as well)
12. On Facebook you can share other business page content on your page; if it is appropriate and in line with your brand
13. Some advice for Twitter - http://iccmarketing.com/blog/how-to-get-more-twitter-followers-the-right-way/#.UCCtU6OpaVo
14. Decide if you want to have a competition or giveaway to organically attract more Facebook fans – you have to use a third party app for this - https://www.facebook.com/notes/social-media-nz/no-likes-allowed-facebooks-competition-rules-that-no-one-seems-to-know-about/200378816641665
15. Email marketing – perhaps consider a monthly or quarterly email; make use of social share buttons and inform readers of each account they can find you on and connect with you on.
16. If you have a business blog; you can connect with other Bloggers in your industry by commenting on and even linking to other peoples' blog post/s. Set up a link list of blogs and build a community of like minded or like industry Bloggers.
17. Bloggers have blogging communities, events, meetups, blog meetings and even seminars/conferences throughout the year. Consider connecting with other bloggers and attending events.
18. Consider Facebook adverts https://www.facebook.com/advertising to either advertise a product or your business
19. Consider Google adverts https://accounts.google.com/
20. Consider print advertising as well
21. Participate in industry events. Consider speaking at industry events. Consider holding an event of your own. If you are able to; you might even consider hosting/sponsoring an event - this will certainly drive traffic to your website and awareness of your brand
22. Attend networking events and meet people! Hand out your business card and chat about your business/brand. As you are well aware; at industry networking events you will meet with at least 1-5 other people, swap cards and talk about other things! Events are a great way to meet people - after all social media is really about PEOPLE.
23. In order to gain fans and followers; it really is about using your accounts every day, finding, sharing and providing great content, updating daily, blogging regularly and reading about/ researching your industry.
24. It takes time to build up fans and followers. Try spending at least 5-10 minutes a day on each social media platform you use, reading, liking, sharing, commenting on other people's content. This will probably increase your knowledge of happenings in your industry and will inspire your own content.
25. Remember also to monitor all your accounts (daily!) and read everything you can to stay on top of trends, changes and happenings in your own industry.
I believe that social media is really about 3 things:
1) content (your own as well as other
content)
2) connecting and engaging with people
3) people
3) people
 |
| source: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23621/4-Ways-to-Use-Email-to-Increase-Followers-and-Expand-Social-Media-Reach.aspx |
