If every single post you make involves calling attention to your business, you will lose followers in droves, and possibly never recover.
The most important thing we can advise you about your social media posts is that they must be interactive and engaging. For example, Disney – if you are in one of their parks and use their hashtags, Disney will respond or repost/retweet/share posts created by those in their park every day (but obviously not for every user). Once you establish the reputation for being interactive or engaging, the delicate balance is to figure out how to get your audience to stay with you, follow along, and become your best online advocates – without turning them off with spam or the use of high-pressure sales techniques.
Here are some suggested approaches to grow your following effectively that should work across all social media platforms:
- Search for a topic that is relevant to your business or marketing efforts. Once those threads are identified, comment on them without being spam oriented. This will get people interested in your feed, and if done with enough consistency will grow your following.
- Do not spam everyone talking about the subject of interest. This will cause some real online hatred, and the old saying that there’s no such thing as bad press is really not
- Ask questions. If there is a place to gather opinions, it is through social media. Everyone has an opinion and loves to share. Asking questions will increase engagement and ultimately the following on that account.
- Never respond to every question asked with a link. There is a time and place for this, but it is not every time, as it becomes obvious spam. This is true not only for your followers, but also for the algorithms on the different Social Media platforms.
- Show some personality. Responding to every post or crafting every post with sanitized corporate speak is not going to gain any followers or reputation. It is important on social media to remember that you are talking to individual people, so treat them as such.
- Do not rely solely on scheduled posts. It is a great advantage to schedule posts; it can be a huge time saver. But those should not be your only posts.
- Respond to questions. It is not possible to re-iterate this enough. Make a point to respond to questions and comments. If people tag your account and you never respond, that reputation will be seen and will not be looked upon favorably.
- Never ignore a negative post. If you are tagged in a post that might call negativity to you, you must respond. Handling negativity is better than letting it take on a life of its own.
- Do not only post links. Have posts that do not have links – it is vital to your audience and to the algorithms determining your placement in different timelines.
- Share links to other people’s content. This can be informational or beneficial to the other person, and it shows that you are not only in it for yourself. This helps you establish a reputation as a thought leader, instead of just a sales leader.
- Never reshare a link unless you have read it fully. If you only look at the headlines, you might share something you didn’t intend to share.
- Learn the best frequency and timing to post on each platform. Some platforms prefer that you post something every single day, and others prefer more than one post per day. The soon to be open to the public OneForAll Social Media system includes an analytics section available to help you determine the best frequency for you to post on every platform, and it will vary by platform.
- Do not let your social media accounts go stale. Once you have them active and recognized by followers and the algorithms, do not let them go stale. Make sure you continue to post regularly.
- Do not auto-DM. Some accounts are setup to automatically direct message everyone who follows them. This is amazingly annoying, don’t fall into this trap.
- On occasion, talk about yourself/your brand. It is about balance, but it is important to do. It shows not only are you a thought leader but you have put those thoughts into action.
It may sound like it is inappropriate to make any kind of sales pitch on your social media profile, and that just isn’t true. If you approach the process as you would a conversation with a friend, it can be useful and will lead to more sales. The personal touch always helps.
