They say that the rich get richer while the poor just keep on getting poorer and nowhere is this more accurate than on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The algorithms that these sites use tend to favor profiles with lots of existing followers so while popular accounts keep growing by themselves, gaining an initial toe-hold can be a struggle.
Factor into this equation the fact that displaying on your site that five people like your page on Facebook or you have seven Twitter followers hardly helps you to stand out.
Indeed, studies have shown that the concept of social proof can work both ways – not only can social profiles with lots of existing followers more easily attract new followers, but accounts with little activity can struggle to attract new followers.
It’s clear therefore that we need a short-cut – a way to go from zero to hero – to create hundreds or even thousands of followers in a short space of time.
This will not only allow the social media algorithms to kick in and start driving new followers for you on autopilot but also as a form of social proof on your own website.
But what are the most effective ways to really kick-start your social media following?
Cross Promotion
If your website has been around long enough to attract something of a following then kick-starting your social media following can be as simple cross-promoting your social profiles to your existing contacts.
Perhaps you already run a newsletter that has thousands of engaged subscribers receiving regular content from you. Perhaps you’re already active on one social network like Facebook but you want to scale out to cover Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. Perhaps you get thousands of high quality visitors to your site each day.
If so, then planning a social media content schedule that ties into your existing inbound marketing strategies can be a very effective way to get your social media profiles plenty of followers and engagement straight from the get-go.
Examples I have used in the past include adding follow buttons to my newsletter confirmation page and/or adding an email into my autoresponder series that not only promotes my social media profiles but also provides a reason to follow you (discounts, unique content, interesting discussion with like-minded people etc.)
Another powerful technique if you already have an existing audience involves creating a fangate on Facebook or setting up an automatic response on Twitter so that whenever someone follows you there, they’ll gain instant access to a valuable free gift that you can promote on your site.
Invest Money
If your existing audience is either small or non-existent then you may need to take a slightly different tack to rapidly reach a respectable number of followers. And investing some money into advertising can lead to a near-instant social following.
I’m not suggesting you necessarily need to keep on investing for the long term – just a few weeks of advertising can drive hundreds of social followers to your profiles, instantly giving you the social credibility you need to start growing organically.
For considerably less than $100 for example I’ve been able to take a brand new Facebook fan page from zero to hundreds of fans in a matter of days. This is all down to using Facebook’s own advertising platform which is simple to learn, cost-effective to advertise on and puts your page infront of an audience that you can carefully target.
Thanks to the viral nature of Facebook, it’s common to find that assuming you’re posting engaging content then once your page reaches 1000 fans or so then it will start to grow on it’s own as your existing fans like, comment and share your posts.
Twitter provides all manner of opportunities to advertise your profile if you’re willing to spend a little money. For example networks like Featured Users and Twitter’s own promoted profiles feature will promote your Twitter account to thousands of other people who use their high-traffic Twitter services.
It’s also possible to buy promoted tweets whereby other Twitter accounts with a large following will tweet out a message of your choice – including your Twitter handle – that can not only lead to increased social media traffic to your website but can instantly build you a list of quality followers.
Invest Time
The final option is probably the slowest of these three techniques for getting your social media following started. Quite simply keep your social profiles “quarantined” from your main website and instead spend time gently posting, contributing and sharing until you feel your accounts have reached the necessary threshold and you now have enough followers and interaction to start promoting them on your main website.
This article was written by Mike, a passionate tech blogger, who writes about ecommerce topics over at TechToucan.com
About Kiesha Easley
Twitter: vagish
says:
Buying promoted tweets can be a problem because sometimes you find a lot of the followers have either long left twitter and are inactive.
Vagish recently posted..Arcade Machine with a Touch – Apex Touch
Your given idea is too good your content contain very good information this is very useful to the users that why I am sharing this post as well as I bookmarked this site thanks for sharing with me……..
Twitter: treysmithblog
says:
These are great techniques to increase your social media presence. It is true the more active you are in social media the larger the probability that you get more follows or you get noticed.
Lei Broch recently posted..Price Wars: What app prices really work?
I made sure every page on my website had a like/follow/etc button, as well as emails and any virtual means of communication we had. I think a big part of it is just working hard at spreading the word.
Luis recently posted..Responsive Design Español
This is the best tips for me to increase my social media promotionto get a huge sucess of my blog,thanks a lot ,its helped me out as i new in blogging.
This is the best tips for me to increase my social media promotion,thanks a lot for the wounderful post
These sound like a surefire way to kick start the social voyage for better internet presence. Great post. Hope these will work for my new blog !!!
Thanks for the share!
very nice say kiesha,
” rich get richer while the poor just keep on getting poorer” this the whole concept of social networking websites. the only thing which can boost your social media following is time.
giving time to a particular social media will take you to the huge following. and other factors like investing money and cross promotion comes after it.:)
nice article :)
These are certainly great tips for me to improve my social media followers. Honestly, my blog only has a very minimal social media following and I definitely want to improve it. Hope your tips can help me with this matter.
Thanks!
Jasmin recently posted..Loving Those Sea Creatures
invest money is where I have seen many companies think twice. this is such a blunder as this is never an expenditure but an investment. if used carefully, this will be bring long term revenue to the company and probably kick start their online campaigning.
Twitter: Rohitkabdwal
says:
very nice say kiesha,
” rich get richer while the poor just keep on getting poorer” this the whole concept of social networking websites. the only thing which can boost your social media following is time.
giving time to a particular social media will take you to the huge following. and other factors like investing money and cross promotion comes after it.:)
nice article :)
Rohit recently posted..Black Hole: Untold Story of the Cosmos
Yes, great tips. There is also a website out there called donkeymails that will help you get a following in no time for little cost. The only problem is, they are not interested in your business.
Twitter: TheeDesign
says:
Putting time and energy into your Facebook page is important. Schedule regular Facebook dates so you can consistently optimize the content, post status updates and interact with your followers.
Raleigh Web Design recently posted..Google AdWords in 2013 (Infographic)
Cross Promotion is the best technique for giving a kick-start to your social media following. I like that point of yours because I have seen tremendous improvement in my business because of it. Social media has worked well for established brands but small businesses have been left behind. If small businesses follow the points which you have mentioned here they are definitely going to have a piece of the cake. Nice post!
Twitter: brokerhollywood
says:
Great advice on Twitter and Facebook. I am currently working on promoting both more. I never heard of Promoted Tweets. This is a new one to me. Thank you. Also, the Facebook advice about spending a $100.00 to get things started makes sense. Then hopefully your Facebook page can grow from there on it’s own :)
Sam Martinez recently posted..Short Sale Process is expedited by Bank of America
Twitter: xtrmlyrsky
says:
Understanding social media is an art. We need to be very careful of what we post and what we speak.
Anyways, i loved your tips. thanks for sharing them with us.
Sushain recently posted..Top 10 Engineering Colleges in Mumbai 2013
Twitter: mbBlogging
says:
Thats really a very informative posts for those who are reading and writing on this niche.
ambarish kumar recently posted..Facebook marketing for your blog
Hlw Kiesha ,
You find some really good way to create traffic in websites.Actually social medias offering us the opportunity to make the full use of marketing of our business. We can’t do it because of some silly mistakes. I think cross media & investing time is enough for that. Thanks for your effective writing :).
Mizan recently posted..Communication Tips That Every IT Pros Should Follow
Twitter: techfreekz
says:
Hi Kiesha,
Really the social media can help a lot to drive traffic and increase your website visibility in Google. Being active and Being online on these sites are two different things. So make sure to utilize the time promoting yourself on these websites.
Thanks for publishing this post.
Regards
Kshitij Jain
Kshitij Jain recently posted..SEO Optimization Tips For New Bloggers
Twitter: moderngents
says:
Well, I must admit that i did not learn anything new from this post. I started my site just few weeks ago and I can tell that it is really hard to get followers on social media.
My only success is pinterest where I have bit less than 1000 followers. But that is only because I started to pin in early December 2012.
Other than that I see that it will be a struggle to get the same amount of followers on other networks. But I am patient. For now. If time does not bring more followers I will have to invest some bucks.
Nikola Mileta recently posted..Guide to Buying Watches
Twitter: Ajayudayagiri
says:
In Social media, We can draw the attention of others by sharing content regularly. Sharing only our content may annoy the subscribers. So, it is considered to share others updates on our profile to gain their attention.
Ajay recently posted..Top 5 Best Android Tablets Below 10000 Or $200
These techniques are extremely helpful for me you did a good job dude keep posting thumbs up.
Twitter: SamuraiTradingA
says:
I am only just starting the social media aspect of our new project and there’s no doubt it will be a grind to get things going without a bit of promotion and probably some money spent. It’s a tough thing when you know there are a lot of interested people out there if you could just connect with them somehow, even if just briefly.
One things get rolling you can get that snowballing effect but the initial stages are always slower than you expect/hope. Might have to spend a bit just to move things along. After all, nobody really likes to be the first to sign up.
Cody recently posted..Emini Day Trading Series: 8 Advantages of Trading Emini S&P 500 Futures
You are right! I have noticed that the pages with huge likes keep on growing but pages with less like not even get single like without any effort. Investing money and time works good together.
Twitter: howzzzdat
says:
I do spend a lot of money on my blog to for its promotion on internet. All these things are necessary to stand out from the crowd. With so many blogs in the market, you need to invest good amount of money and time to promote it.
Rinkesh recently posted..Pollution, Causes and Effects
I agree with the article;
you have to build up a good number of follower, and a large site that displays only 10 or 20 Facebook likes is not a good idea for visitors! In my experience the Facebook advertising platform is the best solution to achieve good numbers, and obviously improve all the social aspects, takes a lot of time!
Twitter: freedommmc
says:
Excellent tips I’ll have to share this for #SoMeSa.
I need all the help I can get on Facebook I haven’t really been promoting my page at all.
Right now I have like 5 likes.
I plan to get my act together soon, this post will help thanks.
PS
Do you think the facebook ads are worth the investment in terms of ROI?
In other words using ads to get followers is good but have you found that this generates revenue in the end to offset the ad purchase?
Darnell Jackson recently posted..Link Building: You’re Doing it Wrong pt. 3
Nice post your content give the right direction to who see your post social media is really the good option to proof your self, your present in the market or not thanks for sharing with me.
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Twitter: techinitio
says:
These sound like a surefire way to kick start the social voyage for better internet presence. Great post. Hope these will work for my new blog !!!
Thanks for the share!
Rashmi Sinha recently posted..What is Google Shopping Express
wow you have a blue print for success. Content is surely the king. The content you have in your articles are top notch. Thanks.
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