04 Dec How to Increase Your Social Followers – Guaranteed!
Avoid any advice with a guarantee. Different companies have different customers who want to be treated… well differently! Any guarantee in digital marketing like this or “Guaranteed #1 Ranking in Google” are usually using blackhat techniques that could end up hurting your website or brand. I want to give some guidelines on how to increase your social following, but this is not a guarantee. YOU know your customers better than any article. Try to think about the content that your customers value. Be creative and experiment!
Remember not to get caught up in the numbers. While I encourage setting goals for yourself, don’t treat a smaller audience like they are less important than a bigger one. Treat your social networks with the same respect you would give to any customer that would walk in your store. Fans of your network are more likely to listen if they have a connection with you. Work on making connections.
But how do you get them there in the first place?
Compelling Content
Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard this before that content is king. In general, when I am surfing my social feeds I do not want advertising messages popping up unless it’s from a company I feel I have a connection to. One of my favorite examples of creating compelling content is from a celebrity gossip website that creates great hang-ups like “you’ll never believe what celebrity is pregnant!” with an image with the face blurred out. I can’t help but click on these because they are leaving me in suspense. Play around with your messaging. Leave your followers wanting more!
Post exclusive content that you can’t find anywhere else like new ideas for a marketing campaign, ask for ideas and take the feedback from your following. Make conversations, and connections.
Engage
Show your followers that you respond when questioned. Find relevant hashtags on twitter to your business and search (CTRL F) for tweets with question mark. Engage in a conversation. Don’t try to sell, but start making connections with people and becoming a trusted source that when they are ready to buy they will remember how helpful you were.
Facebook Ads
If you have a budget to play around with, I suggest trying Facebook Ads. There are many different targeting options to target by demographic, interest, education, target your Facebook fan’s friends, and more. Try to evoke a connection to your audience from your ad. Historically Facebook users do not like to leave Facebook so clickthrough rates are low. To save money bid by CPC (cost per click), if a user doesn’t click, it’s essentially free branding since you are still getting exposure by impressions. Eventually ads with low clickthrough rates are disapproved, so make sure you are switching your content up regularly. Unless you have a very specific call to action on your landing page to your website, I highly suggest directing users to your Facebook page so users can stay within the Facebook network. Make sure that your Facebook page has plenty of content that would incent someone to follow your page.
Contests/Sweepstakes
This is a common strategy that people revert to, to increase buzz and exposure. It can work but you can open yourself up to fraud and public disagreements on who the winner was. It requires a lot of monitoring to make sure that people follow the rules and determine who the winner is. To make the contest worthwhile, you probably want to give away a higher value product, which could get very costly. Again, it could work for your business, but you have to keep a close eye on the activity of the terms of the contest.
