It’s that time of year again. The school year is just around the corner and everywhere you look you see ‘Back To School’ specials and sales, so that kids everywhere can start the year with a fresh, new look! So we thought, why not jump on the bandwagon. We wanted to take this time to go back to the basics of social media marketing so that you can start the season out fresh as well! If you have not taken the time to build out your company’s social media networks, now is the time! A strong foundation to your social platforms can make all the difference.
Now we’re not saying erase everything you are already doing or have done, but we want to make sure that all the fundamentals are in place to build a high quality network.
Today, I will be going over how to begin building QUALITY audiences on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with your current contact lists and search methods. (…because starting from scratch, from zero followers or fans, can be hard!)
Facebook Fan Page
USE THE ‘INVITE FRIENDS’ FEATURE
If you already have your personal profile setup, Facebook allows you to easily invite any of your friends to be a fan of your business Page.
USE THE ‘IMPORT CONTACTS’ FEATURE
Do you have an email list for your current clients? Do you have a prospecting email list? You can easily upload your lists and Facebook will send them a request to become a fan of your page.
UTILIZE GRAPH SEARCH
Facebook’s Graph Search is a great tool for learning more about your brand’s audience. But since you don’t have an audience yet, you can use it to learn more about the users who like Pages based around products or services that are similar to your own. First you need to find one or two Facebook pages of either competitors or companies with a similar service as you. Then you can run a search for Pages that their Fans like. Here’s an example:
“Pages liked by people who like Compass Financial and Lincoln Wealth Management”
Then search again to determine the favorite interests of this same group of people. Here’s an example:
“Favorite interests of people who like Compass Financial and Lincoln Wealth Management”
This is a great way to learn more about your ideal target audience and to give you ideas about the type of people that engage on Facebook within these groups.
People often first find out that your firm is now on Twitter because you follow them and they receive a notification. Once you follow someone, they can choose to follow you back. This is obviously what you want!
Here’s what users say they look for before returning a follow:
1. Relevance. Is the Twitter stream of interest to them? Relevance might not just be topic, but perhaps shared location, network, profession, etc.
2. Engagement. Does the person retweet and interact, or just spew links? Have they updated the account in the last day or so?
3. Humanity. (Not a robot) Do you get the sense this is really a person, and one you’d like being acquainted with?
So follow Twitter users that you are interested in and also twitter users who are likely to follow you back based on the above criteria. Below are a few ways to find these targeted profiles.
FOLLOW SUGGESTED ACCOUNTS
When you first create an account, Twitter will make several recommendations using their algorithms based on your identified interests, industry, etc. Look through these and follow the accounts that sound interesting to you. Follow whomever you want – you can always adjust the people you follow later with no consequence. (Following someone on Twitter does not require their approval like it does when you request someone’s friendship on your personal Facebook profile, and if you decide to unfollow them later, they’ll likely not be alerted to it.) You can also see suggested users to follow at any time by going to your Discover tab and then to Who To Follow.
USE THE ‘UPLOAD CONTACTS’ FEATURE
Similar to Facebook, Twitter lets you upload your email lists and then invite them to follow you on Twitter. This is a great way to either let people know you are on Twitter for the first time or to just remind them that you’re available through this channel.
It even gives you a preview of what your invite will look like!
USE TWITTER’S SEARCH TOOLS
Twitter’s Advanced Search is an awesome tool that is very underused! Are you looking for clients within a certain geographical location? Do a lot of your clients or ideal prospects work for the same company or partner with similar companies? What hashtags would your ideal Twitter follower use? All of these things can be used to help you find relevant people to follow (hoping they will want to follow you back).
Finding the right people to connect with on LinkedIn can be easy! Below we have listed 2 great ways to get started.
USE THE ‘ADD CONNECTIONS’ FEATURE
LinkedIn allows you to upload your email contacts and they will automatically search LinkedIn to see if that contact’s email address is connected to a LinkedIn account. So if any of your current contacts have a LinkedIn profile, you can easily send them an invitation to connect.
JOIN RELEVANT GROUPS
We recommend that you try to join as many relevant groups as possible to grow your network (generally 15-30). Search for groups within your physical location, industry groups or groups that your current clients (which you will be connected to after you import your contacts, as illustrated above) participate in. Once you are accepted into these groups, you can look at the members within each group and find people that you would like to connect with. *Remember, when you do send them an invite to connect, personalize the invitation and tell them why you should be connected. (For more info on LinkedIn groups, click here.)
Lastly, once you’ve done all of the above, don’t forget to cross promote! For example, send out a Tweet saying, “Follow us on Facebook.”
We hope these simple tips help you build up your networks! Remember to focus on quality, not just the quantity of people in your audience.
Stay tuned for more ‘Back To Basics’ blogs for the rest of the month of August. Do you have any social media basic topics you would like covered? Let us know!
Amy McIlwain
@amymcilwain
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I didn’t realize just how advanced and tailored we can adjust the Twitter search tool!
Thanks for all the audience-building reminders.
Hi, really valuable and fresh information, it is working for me. It is also important to increase social visibility and popularity. I must say in any social media site audience engagement is a very important thing. Thanks….. Keep updating us… with such nice information..