Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Dear David,

When it comes to social media you want quality, not quantity.
You also need to ask yourself what this large following is for.

Some of the most successful business people I know use social media to create interest for other sites: blogs, podcast and video sites, and so on. One guy, based in Malaysia, generates almost $4 million in revenue per year from just one blog, yet he has just under 3,000 Twitter followers.

Having a huge following is one thing but looking after that list is another. If you're spending any more than 30 minutes on social media per week you're wasting time that could be better used producing something of greater benefit to you, and your missing the point of social media.

It's about being social. It's not about being mobbed.

The key to social media is not huge numbers of followers, it's relevance of content. Make your posts interesting and relevant and people will tend to follow you back. Tweet about crap and everyday nonsense and people will stay away from you.

Beware of the offers that promise 30,000 followers in 30 days because what you need to avoid is being follower by a mass of semi interested or totally disinterested people. It's far better to target a smaller crowd that, as a group are ALL interested in what you have to say.

When it comes to social media you want quality, not quantity, and you need to avoid the trap of auto following systems because all these things do is tick people off.

Before you go off into the Twitterverse, ask yourself what's of greater importance: 25,000 followers on Twitter or 250,000 people who have subscribed to your relevant, significant, and meaningful (to them) blog from which your create dozens of streams of revenue?

People using social media are not in buying mode: they're browsing, just looking. If your plan is to build sales, use other online sources to drive traffic by giving things away and by encouraging people to sing up their friends. You can then use e-mail marketing to greater effect than you can with any communication on Twitter.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Here's how you can get a lot of Twitter followers very quickly:

Go to Twellow - https://www.twellow.com

Sign up and search for 'Marketers'. Follow everyone till you hit the follower limit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course, that's an easy way to pad your follower numbers, and few, if any, of those people will actually care to interact with you.

So if you're thinking that you'd love to get 10,000 followers so you can get them to RT your links, then you'd better get to work. Because as Gary said, it's not about getting more followers, it's about making MORE CONNECTIONS.

Connections require effort. You can't get those connection overnite, you have to be social and give people a reason to WANT to connect with you.

@mackcollier

Yes, correct it is important not just go click to follow as many people as you can, but also to be a regular contributor to subjects you are really good at. Here is a good post about this:
https://www.lightmix.com/blog/2010/01/social-media-methods-marketing-to-imp...