HOW TO: GET MORE FOLLOWERS

Figuring out the hows of social media shouldn't be complicated. These are just a few guides to build a social media strategy piece by piece.

So you are on social media. You’ve got a twitter account. You’ve got a Facebook page for your business. Now what? Charlie Sheen amassed over a million followers virtually overnight. The Vatican has over 6 million views on YouTube. Justin Beiber has over 17 million followers on Twitter. Why hasn’t everyone realized how awesome you are and begun following you as well?

Here are 5 steps to get more followers.

1.       Let everyone know you’ve arrived. It sounds silly, but a “Wilma, I’m home!” ah la Fred Flinstone goes a long way. Let your supporters know that you have arrived on the respective social media channels. Send an email to your email group. Post about it on your blog. (Add links to these accounts on your blog) Post on Facebook that you are on Twitter and vice versa. About once every 3 months – refresh your audiences and remind them of all the places they can find you.

2.       Start following people in your field or with similar interests. For example, if you are a non profit, you should follow Beth Kanter. If you are in Marketing, you should follow Hub Spot. If you are into NYC politics, you should follow Mayor Bloomberg. Just listening in the right categories helps gain followers.

3.       Interact. The easiest way to do this on Twitter is participate in #FollowFridays. Find topics through hash tags and add to the conversation. Be sure you don’t add more than three hash tags in one tweet though (big no no!) On YouTube, post a comment to someone’s video. Share the video, tagging them in the post on Facebook. Cross networks and always link to someone directly when you can. Once people start seeing you in the channels that they care about, they will start following you.

4.       Be Useful. Connect people to other resources. Don’t just RT or Share or Post content that you are seeing. Contribute to the conversation – and NOT JUST BY CONNECTING back to your blog or website. Sometimes this means asking questions in Twitter chats. It may mean being known as the go to resource for a specific topic. Forward content you think is useful to others and people will start to view you as a resource.

5.        Don’t give up! So many people start running right out of the gate and despite their best efforts – run out of steam quickly. Dedicate a small amount of time each day (5-10 min) to check your accounts for comments or questions. Take another 5 min to schedule content for later. Then go back and comment or draw attention to people when you can.  Remember, everyone else is trying to figure it out, just like you.