I like to think of my social network followers as part of my online business infrastructure. They are the means by which I promote myself, my businesses, my websites and my products on the World Wide Web. It's like having my own online advertising agency working to promote me.
Social networking, as well as any other resources at your disposal, is a resource you should strive to maximize in its potential to reach as many people as possible. In order to maximize that potential, you need a strategy. So let me break things down for you to demonstrate what I am talking about.
First of all, social network marketing is a time consuming process that you need to devote time to each and every day. It has to be done with some regularity and across multiple sites. At a minimum, I dedicate at least one hour in the morning to social network marketing. I usually do it first thing in the morning to get it out of the way so that I can then focus on other things. Whenever possible, I will spend more time throughout the day.
One thing I will do is try to increase the number of followers on my social networking accounts. I will follow a few new people and hope they follow me back. Some will and some won't. Then, eventually, a day will come where I can no longer follow more people on my Twitter account because I have reached the limit. So then I will wait a few days and will then go through the process of removing the people that I follow but don't follow me back. After all, if they don't follow me back, what use do I have for them? Unless of course it is someone in an industry I work in that I follow for vital industry information.
Eventually, I will remove all of the people that don't follow me back. That can take a number of days to achieve. The thing is that you have to be careful not to delete too many followers or follow too many new people in a day. Try not to do any more than 60 of each in a day. Otherwise Twitter will suspend your account.
After I purge all of my non followers, I begin the process of following more people in the hopes that they follow me back. So every day, I do something in the attempt to increase my number of followers. I also post things as well. After all, what good are followers if you don't post anything for them to see?
So I will then pick out a few things that I want to post. I may post links to some features on my websites, I might post a link to one of my blog posts or a link to newly created merchandise that I just made available. I don't go one day without posting something on my Google + pages, Twitter accounts or Facebook fan pages. I try to post on all three of those sites at least once a day and that is usually first thing in the morning. That is the absolute minimum I will do for each day.
Now the thing is that most people who have various social networking accounts on the various social networking sites have a preferred time of the day where they check out the sites to see what's new. Some people like to check their accounts first thing in the morning. Some may prefer to do that around lunch time. Others may prefer to just do it after work. So posting multiple times per day will actually help you to reach a higher percentage of the people who actually follow you.
Always be careful as not to post too much of the same thing or post too often. Because then you just start to become annoying to some people and they will no longer want to follow you. Also, you may notice that after a while the responses your posts receive have waned a bit. That may be a sign you are posting too often. You might want to cut back on your posts for a few days and then resume once again.
Sometimes I will break things up and just post something that doesn't have anything to do with me but it's something that I think is interesting. This can help to break up the monotony of your self-promotional posts. It shows that things aren't always about you. Also, those other things might help to make you appear more interesting. Maybe a funny video from YouTube or an interesting article from someone else.
Be sure to track the responses you get for each post and the types of posts you do. You need to measure your results. That's very important.
So the activities I am emphasizing in this article are:
1. Always do something to try to increase your number of followers each day.
2. Always try to post something at least once every day.
3. If possible, try to post three times a day like in the morning, lunchtime and evening.
4. Try not to post the same things too often.
5. Occasionally post something not related to you but might be considered interesting to people.
6. Always track the responses you get to see what works and what doesn't.
Give those things a try and see how you do. Good luck.
Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau
