It’s very common to hear from small businesses owners that they ‘want to increase their likes or follower count’ but when asked ‘why’ there is oftentimes no logical answer given. Isn’t it better to have more followers and likes, you might ask – generally of course but let’s look a little deeper.
Many Facebook Page administrators or business owners in general get so caught up in social media statistics and analytics, likes, retweets and follows that they stop thinking about the bigger picture – why? Many people will focus on gaining an increased follower or like count irrespective of source or quality. Some even buy likes and followers without even asking where these accounts come from.
It’s easy to look surface deep and only see the superficial benefit of having a large follower or like count. Of course, this can give clients/followers the impression of a company that is more popular and trustworthy, but with these types of methods the return from having these likes and followers is fruitless.
So are ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ pointless?
This couldn’t be further from the truth – we just need to pay more attention to the quality of these numbers and look beyond the digits.
For example, most businesses should be aiming to gain a following online naturally over time attracting users that have a genuine interest in the service or product that you offer. We can talk about how to refine the quality of your followers a bit later in the article but firstly lets identify the incentive behind refining follower and like quality.
To use an overly obvious analogy, you wouldn’t want to be a business selling ice and have all your followers be snowmen. There are many methods in which you can gain followers online but if they aren’t converting to business, there really isn’t much point spending your money on wasted accounts.
With that being said, you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a large follower count without muddying the water with unwanted accounts that are never going to be interested in the products or services you offer, never converting to business / sales.
How to gain quality likes, follows, retweets & interaction
The best way to start gaining useful connections isn’t as hard as you might think.
Let’s start with the easy stuff – promote your social media accounts to regular clients that you already know. If you connect online, chances are they will pass the information when a friend needs your product or service. Not only that, but it’s a great way to keep them in the loop regarding promotions offers or new, similar products / services you might be offering.
Here are a few ideas on how to get a more relevant following:
- Monitor hashtag streams using software such as Hootsuite. Enter keywords you wish to monitor and get interacting with people tweeting about problems that you can offer the solution for.
- Run promotions on social media, giving away samples / free trials of your product or service. If your service is the type that frequently has repeat customers, it’s a great way to get more people testing out an alternative compared to the solution they usually use for that purpose. If running promotions on social media, try to only give away discounts related to your product line or services. People that won’t find a use for the service or product won’t be as eager to get involved.
- It’s fine to go off topic but try to be consistent regarding the topics / subject matter you post to social media. Include hashtags relevant to your product or service and try to ensure that at least 75% of your updates are relevant to your industry. Most people follow you to hear information regarding your industry or product, not the latest Game of Thrones episode!
- We frequently mention how important it is to become an authority in your field so make sure you are putting out useful content in the form of blogs and articles while sharing on social media. Again, this will help pull in a relevant demographic that has a genuine interest in what you are selling.
Those are just a few initial and basic ways you can start to refine your social media following so that you aren’t just looking at empty numbers each month that will never result in any ROI. Remember, it’s better to have 100 followers that have a need for what you are selling than 1000 followers from bots or users that aren’t interest in your service or product at all. We all get caught up in the vanity side of social media but be smarter! Work towards useful connections that will push your business forward.
Opace have been providing social medial marketing services to clients for over 10 years. If you wish to talk to us about your social marketing strategy, please get in touch with by using our contact form or giving us a call on 0845 017 7661.
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