While you may certainly join #TeamFollowBack on Twitter and gain thousands of followers in a matter of weeks, there are no guarantees that your fellow Follow Back-ers are interested in what you may post. In fact, other than seeing other posts encouraging people to follow-back, you will probably never have another interaction with that person again. What is the point of 10,000 followers or fans if none of them are interested in your brand?
This is why social media is about quality, not quantity. While you do want to grow your fan base organically through fans sharing your interesting posts, you want each of your fans to actually have an interest in what you are posting.
One way to help grow your fan base and gain quality followers is to increase positive interactions with some of your more enthusiastic fans. If you have a fan (or three) who are always promoting your product on Facebook without prompting, find ways to thank them, which will encourage future promotions.
Your interactions on Facebook or Twitter may be seen by other fans or friends of that fan and provide free advertisement for your business. As potential fans see that your company responds to posts and thanks their followers, it will encourage them to also “like” or follow your business.
We are going to sound like a broken record, but here is your best plan of action:
- Post quality content, which encourages interactions with your fans.
- Be consistent with your posts (by that, we mean: don’t post several times per day for a week then disappear for a month).
- Identify key fans and offer them a discount or free gift as a way of saying thank you.
- Be patient. Building an army of quality followers requires time.
How do you define a “quality” fan? How many fans do you feel like you need to have in order to consider social media a successful marketing avenue?
