25 Ways To Increase Fans and Followers on Social Media

There are a number of options you can take to increase fans/followers.

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

source: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23621/4-Ways-to-Use-Email-to-Increase-Followers-and-Expand-Social-Media-Reach.aspx

Let's Talk About Twitter

I love Social Rabbit, whose very helpful post will provide you (and beginners) with 5 essential Twitter tips, to help you get to know and use Twitter effectively.

Have a look around the Social Rabbit site, Lara Solomon is an excellent business women, who provides very valuable tips and information about social media (and training) she is very interactive on social media, follow her example and you will learn how to use social media wisely!

Twitter is an excellent business tool, it will help you find people in your industry, find you like minded people and help you market and promote your products and services.

One advantage with Twitter is the ability to know your competitors and you will find that a lot of companies are followed by or do follow companies who have similar products and services. I feel that places your business or organisations amongst peers who have different ways of getting their messages across. It helps to see what similar organisations are saying and you can ReTweet their links and get inspired to write Facebook updates and blog posts from regular updated information which you can source on Twitter.

Following competitors at the beginning of your Twitter journeys means you can get a feel of the content, links and blog posts you can add. It also gives competitors a feel of your company and as far as I know, this method of sharing, ReTweeting, being inspired by content to write your own will not be harmful to your business.

I recommend that you find and follow people who have your interests in common and such as charities/authors or anything really where you get your inspiration and motivation from. Being human on Twitter, communicating with others, responding, answering questions, going off topic ( just a little bit) will help. This means that you will be truly connecting, think of it as being at a professional networking function, sure you talk mainly about work and work issues but you end up talking about other things - on Twitter many people have benefited by the authenticity of their accounts and by being connected and receptive.

Please note a link at the bottom of Lara's Post refers to Google + please have a look, this is Google's social media platform , which will be open to the public soon. Google+ is going to be another form of social media, another way to get your message across, a site  to find and to reach your clients and certainly will be another tool which will be useful for marketing your products and services.

Looking for a Guru?

I Tweet and I am on Facebook and I have a blog while assisting with and advising clients and helping them wade through social media.
I say wade through because for someone who is starting on social media, the reality is that it can and does add an hour more of work a day and that is if you are doing social media properly.

For me, properly means the same as how you use and access your emails. In the mornings (I am assuming) you check your emails to deal with anything that is needed to do for the day as well as enquiries, priorities, plans, meetings and you respond accordingly.

On average, business and companies (from CEO to any level of staff) access their emails at least every 20 - 25 minutes. I am assuming that the busier you are at work, the bigger your business is, the more products and services you provide and they way you service your clients, probably means that you email and receive emails all day long.

So soon, social media (new media) will become just as important and vital for those people who are providing their business with social media services.

As well as checking emails, I recommend checking whichever social media sites you are active on, to respond to any comments, or queries or messages or even likes on Facebook, Twitter, your blog and LinkedIn.

In a company which offers a service (such as mine) you are responsible for providing services. In my case it's tips, suggestions, helpful hints and references to apps which can help you business and my Twitter account, has proved an invaluable tool for finding, sharing and using information to benefit my clients.

There are always recommendations regarding social media and one is knowing where your audience is.

I have a Facebook business page where I link this blog and my Tweets (links, updates, shared content) but the reality is I use Facebook as a search tool to find and drive content regarding social media practices so I can ensure that I am knowledgeable and essentially helping my clients by providing a better service.

Jess Nichols who wrote a blog post about knowing your product and that if people search for you (if you are calling yourself a social media expert/guru), they need to see that you are using social media actively.

Jess responded to on Twitter when we were discussing this post " I try not to put too much pressure on my blogging; I'd rather now do quality > quantity. Once a month is ok for me" She also emphasises that she thinks "It comes back to being authentic and legitimate in the industry"

If you sell products and have daily weekly or monthly events, you will have to be active on the social media accounts where your audience, your buyers are coming from. By active I mean anything that needs to responded to (whether positive/negative) needs to be actioned within 24 hours.

Over the past few months, I have to agree with Jess's post. It is about quality and being human and authentic when you are providing a social media service. Sure some people (or people who are doing their social media) schedule their blog posts and activate their links via platforms which help them drive their links over a certain period of time. If your buyers are in the UK and USA and are reading your blogs and buying your products, while you are asleep, there certainly needs to be an awareness and implementation of best practices for your business.

I realise that people who are at work doing the work that they do, always say that they have no time for social media.

My recommendation is to hire someone who will act as a marketing person and/or community manager who deals with monitoring and analysing your social media, responds to fans and followers by providing an additional and much needed customer service role, while reading, researching, building a brand and engaging with your business and community (no matter what type of business you are in, you can build a community who will benefit you online)

I am not honestly a fan of people who call themselves social media gurus/experts. Social Media is still new media there are hundreds and thousands of people still who have not embraced Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, LinkedIn and hundreds of other tools and platforms that can drive their message, their business online.

So Google your company/business. What comes up?

More importantly what doesn't come up? A charity event you put together and advertised everywhere on print? A new line? A list of events/courses. A recent interview? A podcast or video that you spent time and money on?

The answer is that social media will ensure that all of this, comes up - links, sharing, events lists, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SMO, SEO, labels, tags will provide you with ways to further market and drive your business alongside traditional marketing techniques.

I recommend being active on social media and driving traffic. Yet I also recommend being part of a community, providing valuable content and getting to know your audience and what people get and want from your business. I work alongside businesses to ensure that we put practices into place which are suitable for their needs and I concentrate on one important aspect  - community.

I am not a marketing manager. I am not a guru. I need to put my recommendations into practice more and ensuring I do and represent what I teach. I discovered that I love this industry, this ability to reach people globally and I saw the benefits of this new media and how we can all put this into our practices at work.


But like Jess points out in her blog post, are they active, or lurking or aggregating? Are they embracing tools and social media sites themselves? When was their last Facebook, Twitter update and their latest blog post?

Regardless of whether you are a small business or a giant corporation who has a social media team, I recommend doing. I don't recommend feeling pressure to do and adding additional work to your already jam packed work day. I do not recommend doing at the cost of other things which are a priority at work.

If you can hire someone to manage your social media holistically by embracing and sharing and engaging, try that for a few months and then Google your business again.

And if you cannot, (don't have the time) or if you feel that you should hire someone with the knowledge to do so, check how and what they are doing first online, Google the person, read what they link to, blog about, tweet about and share - and look closely at when and how they do so.

And then by all means Google me and Google the word guru.

Picture below belongs to and is thanks to Ryan Jones's blogpost Having 1000 Twitter followers doesn't make you a social media guru. Thank you Ryan