First off, what is the main objective of your social media marketing campaign? We often hear and see this on the internet, but can you define it?
In the bigger picture, you will expect a lot of companies and individuals – well, most companies will answer these questions by presenting you with a number of infographic data and charts. It is evident that they do have obvious quantitative goals, and it primarily involves growing their influence and followers simultaneously.
It is an excellent plan because it will serve as your measuring tool to monitor your success. However, it can also present a different perspective.
Gaining fame in social media is essential, especially if you need it purposely for your business yet. It is also vital that you care about the consistency of those who follow your social media sites.
It is essential to pay attention to the importance and consistency of your follower’s development.
Quality Follower: What is it?
If you have engaging, targeted, and defines themselves as a ‘fan’ of your label, they are the ones that you can consider as quality followers.
Based on the popular marketing and branding book “1,000 True Fans,” it suggests that once you have achieved 1,000 genuine fans and followers, your brand is sure to survive the competition and will continue to thrive.
And in between the lines, having over a million followers who simply don’t care about your label are basically worthless.
Let’s further explain.
Here’s a scenario, say you have an army of extraordinarily engaging and loyal fans and followers. They are the people that are excited to hear from you and will always support your brand.
Since they are authentic followers, they will always read your post, watch your YouTube videos and podcasts. They will even set a notification for them to be updated every time you have a new post.
This the kind of community that will make your social marketing thrive and become successful. They are the ones that will invest time in checking out your posts and published content. Just imagine yourself being stoked every time your favorite series comes up with a new episode. You can definitely say that the feeling is indeed mutual.
Therefore, if you have 1,000 substantial and legitimate followers, that means you’ll get to have 1,000 guaranteed views every time you post a new video and 1,000 authentic likes and shares on your social media posts and content. See the better picture? It’s an assured profit from every bit of content you publish and upload on your social media channels.
What’s even more essential having real fans is that they will definitely hit ‘like’ in every post you make on social media. Just imagine the enormous boost your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms will get from your loyal 1,000 viewers. It doesn’t even include the number of people from these people’s networks. Isn’t that amazing, right?
Once the link has been seen, it will be trending where such contacts will see that their friend likes or recommends not only your post but your site in general. Imagine the vast impact that a domino effect can do on you.
Now, imagine yourself selling a product. Or requesting some site to donate or become a sponsor of your brand. Any average viewer will not risk spending their own money to support the things you love to do. However, there is someone or even a group of people who truly loves your brand, and your objectives behind it WILL support you in all possible ways possible even more if they see you their name next to your posts. It’s a small yet heartwarming feeling to whoever that fortunate person will be.
You’ll also find, on top of all this, that real fans are buying your stuff. Of course, they are – they’ve been won over by the nature of the job you’re doing, so they’ll be more likely to buy more than anybody else!
You’ve got a bottomless revenue stream – guaranteed profits on just about any product you bring out – plus your own free publicity department that’s yelling at any single thing you do and making sure the world knows about your unique brand! If you can guess, this makes a difference.
The Best Option
Now consider the alternative: to get an account of 10,000 entirely unengaged followers. I’ve already witnessed this, seeing as I had a YouTube channel that was really popular when I first started it, but then somebody scrapped because I didn’t have time for it.
So when I came back to restore it, I still had fans, they knew all about me, and I didn’t engage at all!
Posts I put out will first get 10 or 30 views—ten thousand subscribers with a view of 10 or 30…the least.
And sadly, many companies find themselves in this same place, so they trap customers into joining them (with a free product or incentive, or even by pressuring them to sign up), and then they do nothing but sell to them.
The subscribers who are already there are only there because they don’t have enough reason to press ‘Unfollow!’ This is worse than pointless. Not only are you not getting any effects, but you are also totally skewing the data and making it unusable.
Time To Create Outstanding Followers
But now you know that you need good performing followers. The next thing is how you’re going to make this work.
There are a variety of moves and methods to that end…
Root for your Followers:
The first thing to make sure you’re doing is targeting your followers to get started. We spoke about this in previous posts, and to keep things simple, the general principle is that not all followers are equal.
You’re going to have customers on board who suit your ‘buyer persona’ and your target customer. That means that they should have a certain age, sex, gender, and special interests.
There’s a lot of ways you’re doing this. It’s partly down to how you sell yourself and partly down to where you’re marketing. Look for the “way to the market’ – the location where the ideal consumers come together.
It could be an anonymous forum, or it could be a real-world club you can visit and chat with the owner of.
Establish an Amazing Brand:
It is one of the most necessary items for your social media strategy, as well as your progress in the business as a whole.
Getting a great brand is the difference between being a company, a dry and unexciting company, and having a fun, enthusiastic company and something people want to get behind.
The explanation why people are so rabid about Apple has nothing to do with technology (although that helps, of course!) and has a lot more to do with branding and promotion. It’s what Apple stands for that is vital to people, so they want to stand up for that too!
People are passionate about Apple because it reflects artistry, free thought, high content, and a new way of thinking. People want to share all the values, so being behind Apple is a perfect way to do that.
You will do the same thing on any of your websites. They have the likes of the T-Nation. It is a forum for people who are passionate about strength training and everything related to that. It has regular fitness and muscle building products, but it also has a lot of content about weightlifting culture and life as being heavy.
It’s talking about effective supplements, and in short, it’s definitely not for everybody. But that’s all right because the ‘T-Nation’ that supports the site is extremely devoted. It’s talking to them.
If your website is called ‘GetASixPack.net’ and the only thing you stand for is trying to make money from advertising, don’t expect people to get excited!
Make them feel valued:
Remember how I referred to the T-Nation fans as the T-Nation just then? There are a lot of other individuals and brands that do this. They create a common noun for their followers, giving them a sense of identity and significance.
Suddenly, they’re no longer passive consumers or travelers—they’re people who really belong to the brand. They’re all a part of it. It’s all theirs.
You will do so by giving away goods. Giving the logo printed on t-shirts has clear publicity advantages, but all it does is unconsciously affect the psychology of the people wearing those shirts. Suddenly, they’re part of an army of supporters or fans.
In the same way, asking for money on Patreon will potentially support this, too. Believe it or not, asking for money will improve your status, so people who support your efforts are already part-owners of your brand in various ways. This sense of possession makes a big difference.
You will also inspire users to join social media in this manner. Instead of clicking here to proceed, consider something like ‘press here to become a VIP.’
Connect:
Another really critical tip is to make sure you connect with your followers. It is something that social media is excellent for, but something a lot of designers and marketers actually fail to do.
If you just uploaded a photo to Instagram and someone thinks it’s fantastic, and they’re your biggest fan, what are you doing? A surprising amount of users doesn’t do much because responding requires a little too much time. It’s impossible to know what to think.
Yet this is effectively tossing away one of the most precious possessions. In reality, a minimal percentage of people will comment on your content. If anyone does, it means they’re active in social media and interested in your company. That indicates, in turn, that they can become a top fan.
If you neglect them, they will finally get bored and fed up. It’s authentic to a certain degree, but if a number of posts go unanswered, then it’s hard not to start taking it personally!
But if you just write back and say ‘thank you,’ the person suddenly knows that you’re there and knows that you’re listening.
It can make a big psychological difference, and it’s something you can take the time to do.
If anyone gives you a long list of questions, it may require a reasonable expenditure of time to respond. But if you do, the person will feel indebted to you – they will feel like they trust you – and they will be far more likely to like and retweet your content in the future.
And better yet, don’t wait for them to communicate with you, communicate with them! Can you realize how awesome it would be if a company you know and love were to comment on one of your photographs, unprompted, and say it looked fabulous?
Think about it as a friendship. And in any partnership, there’s got to be a give and a take.
Create Lasting Relationships:
That leads us to the final point: to create authentic relationships. If you can build a core legion of fans, the enthusiasm will spread, and that will lead to a lot more interaction with the majority of your fans.
That means it’s really worth spending some time to develop some fantastic partnerships that will drive the brand up and down.
And one of the best ways you can do this is to invest some time in an online environment. Many of the biggest names on the site began this way. You waste time in the neighborhood, and you don’t do much to help yourself.
What you do is make friends with other people, help them out wherever possible by answering questions, and be supportive and helpful whenever possible.
Around the same time, you show your experience and skills and chat about your ideas. Only then can you finally discover that you have your own brand/site/product and then encourage them to try it out.
What you’re going to find is that this leads to a large number of visitors, networking, likes, and encouragement, as those people with whom you’ve formed real connections are excited not only to see what you’ve made but also to help out.
Know Your Call to Action!
Like all social networks, Instagram is a chat, not a broadcasting site. What kind of action do you want people to take in your post? If you don’t remember, start over and find things out. Staples is excellent at creating interaction by letting users know what they plan to do with their posts (bonus points if you find it fun). Sometimes, this call to action cleverly gets people to post or virally distribute Staples’ content.
Conclusion:
And for that matter, don’t forget your real-life friendship, either!
Social networking sites like Facebook are developed initially to promote real-world networks, ensuring that you can reach out to old school friends, workmates, and even family members to encourage you and spread the news.
Remember that you’re never going to have a bigger fan than your own mother.