I was in a meeting with a company once that was concerned about the low level of Twitter followers it had and was considering using a bot to bump the numbers up. I told them straight not to do that. The followers would be fake, just a number, useless to the brand and – if authenticity is the currency of social media – would compromise the credibility of the company. Building a social media community is a long-term project, so here is how to go about it…
Too many organisations in my experience concern themselves with social media follower numbers. Genuine followers should not be seen in numerical terms. Cheesy as it may sound, every earned follower is really important to the brand they follow, as they have given the brand permission to talk to them. They can withdraw that consent at any moment with a single click, so it’s essential that once a brand earns that follower, they keep them.
Here’s how to grow and maintain a loyal and engaged social media following.
Be a useful brand
Arguably this is an overused term, but no one wants to follow organisations that talk about themselves all the time or provide irrelevant information. Every social media experience is deeply personal, so a solid content strategy focussed on the user and their needs, and answers their questions.
If your content is irrelevant or low quality, no one’s going to be interested.
Be consistent
People like consistency. If they’re going to follow a brand on social they want to know when that content will arrive. With regular content and social media engagement, brands can appear in their audience’s feeds and search queries more often.
Be shareable
You won’t believe the number of sites I visit that do not contain social sharing options. Even if visitors do not use the social share buttons on a blog post, they do serve as a psychological prompt to share. It enables invested audiences to do the brand’s marketing for them. Also, while that visitor is on site, it’s an opportunity to recruit them – encourage a social follow or an email sign-up while they’re there.
You never know when or if they’ll be back…
Be engaging
No one likes being ignored. There is way too much one-way publishing in social media. Ask questions, like it and thank when people share, do the basic things. Social media is a conversation, after all.
Be a curator
To position the brand as useful, it helps to share interesting news and content (so long as it does not directly benefit a competitor). This is especially useful when a brand does not have any news on the horizon or to fill the gaps between new content posts.
It’s also an opportunity to pass opinion on a topic.
Be inclusive
Brands should leverage their extensive networks by inviting partners, customers, analysts and other influential parties to be interviewed on their blog, podcast or video channel.
Those partners will then share that content on their network, increasing visibility and reach.
Be timely
Industry events are great opportunities to recruit followers as many industry people will be following the same event hashtag. Providing unique content and insight in real-time can really boost communities.
Tie in with your PR activity
PR teams should be placing thought leadership articles for their brands, so these should be promoted on social, media, mentioning all those cited in the piece – this will often lead to retweets and therefore more attention.
Leverage your staff’s network
Imagine how big the collective professional network of your staff is? Encourage them to follow the brand’s social media accounts and ask them to invite their network to follow your accounts.
If you need help growing your community and developing your content or social strategy, please get in touch.