After working hard to build up a presence on social media, it can be daunting checking your follower count to discover you’ve lost some. Of course, you will ask yourself the question, what did I do wrong? It is very likely that you got under their skin by posting about promotions/gimmicks too often, which in turn clogged up their newsfeed/timeline and left it looking as though they’d been spammed. According to Sprout Social, “86% of social media users want to and do follow brands on social”. The company then goes on to say, “But when they do, they’re most often looking for relevant content, not another cringe-worthy post from an out of touch company.”.
Engagement
Engaging with your followers is crucial, because by doing so you cause them to become invested into your business through social media, and in turn, they will look out for posts and updates about new products/services etc. You can have followers and not engage with any of them, but your returns will be below par until you do so.
Analytics
Social media is an ever-changing world, meaning you must pay meticulous attention to detail regarding what your followers and customers are talking about, whether that be through analytics or interacting through YouTube comments, for example. Those are good things to keep in mind.
Scheduling
It isn’t always convenient to keep up with a tweet/status schedule, so it’s useful to invest in software or even employing someone to do it for you. Programmes such as Sprout Social make scheduling posts a walk in the park. There is a genuine term for accounts that post all of their tweets/statuses for the day at the very same time. This is called “bursting” and it will cause you to lose followers rapidly, as again, this is essentially spamming.
“I’m Not a Robot”
Having an automated direct message response is a big no-no, and will plant a seed in the mind of the follower that you will be constantly selling and promoting to them. If a customer or follower extends a direct message to you for whatever reason, they would like and expect to be greeted by a warm-blooded human being, not a bot with generic responses.
Sharing is Caring
It is okay to post content from other blogs and sources if you find it useful or you think it will be beneficial to your followers. It is widely believed that sharing a link to a third-party will cause you to lose that customer. However, posting content other than your own will build relationships and also let your followers see that you are posting useful information, even if it’s not your own.
#Hashtags
Hashtagging can be an effective tool for your marketing on social media, if used properly, that is. Using irrelevant hashtags is a frequently made mistake. Be sure to make yours easy to remember and short: the shorter the better. Using hashtags as a way to get more followers looks unprofessional. For example #Follow4Follow, #Like4Like. Don’t use more than two hashtags most of the time, although three is ok, providing it’s a one-time thing.
Just don’t be annoying
Ultimately, you want your followers to stick around on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. If you post too often, be overly promotional or do any of the other things that I have listed above, you will find it difficult to maintain a healthy following. You want to give your followers value for following you, and that means giving them content that isn’t always your own and keeping your own promotions to a minimum. Adhere to this guide and you’ll be absolutely fine.
