How to Build a Social Media Audience from Zero
If you still need to become an online presence that attracts thousands of followers on your social media channels, it's time to build one. There are many steps to take to build up a following over the course of many months, but you'll need patience and persistence to succeed. On the other hand, if you want people to follow and engage with your posts, just get started!
Leave this post when writing an introduction for "How To Build A Social Media Audience from Zero."
Start by using Google+, the most popular social media site for businesses. First, create an account and fill in your profile information. Next, add a profile photo of yourself and a link to your blog or another online presence you have. If you don't have anything to link, find an image or something else interesting to upload and post it to your profile instead.
After you've got something set up on Google+:
Start looking for people who are connected to you already.
Look at your connections, friends, family, and followers to find people you know and who are relevant to your business.
Ask them if they would be interested in following you on Google+.
When engaging with these people, ensure you want them to follow you. Most likely, they won't feel good about following someone who doesn't want them to. Reciprocate their interests, and remember to be kind.
Subscribe to your connect's updates, especially if they post interesting content. It will allow you to keep up with what they do and ensure you've got something to discuss with them whenever you want to engage with them.
With Facebook, you're going to want to follow a similar process of finding people who are interested in what you have available online. So, subscribe to the updates of people you know and then ask them if they'd be interested in following you on Facebook.
Engage with your friends, family, and followers by liking their updates, posting comments, and sharing their content. Send them private messages when they post something you want or would like to share with your audience.
You can also share content within Facebook groups to get your name in front of more people interested in what you're doing online.
Twitter is different from the other two. On Facebook and Google+, you will want to engage before you start following people. Twitter users only want to follow someone with an initial interaction between the two.
Find people with whom you'd like to connect on Twitter and follow them. Reply to their initial tweets within the first few days to get their attention. Then, if they reply, keep interacting with them from now on like you would with other social media sites.
If someone is following you, please reciprocate their interest and give them the updates you think they'd be interested in. Then, when they follow you back, they'll become fans, and you'll have many people following you.
You can also use Twitter to stay updated with what's trending. Look for hashtags relevant to your business, and start creating conversations about your business when tweeting about them.
Once you have enough followers, start posting content on your pages. You can use Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to create posts. For example, on Facebook, you can post a photo from your phone or computer, but on Twitter and Google+, you need to go through the process of creating a video or uploading pictures from your computer.
When posting on Facebook, choose the photo you want to use for your post and then go through the process of creating it. Facebook will be able to pull up your profile photo and use it as a live video frame.
Upload the content you want on your Google+ profile, then choose where to share it. In addition, google+ will create a live video that viewers can watch, comment on and share with their friends.
Twitter requires you to create a photo for your post before uploading and sharing it. Upload a picture or video from your computer and then add text overtop of it before clicking "Tweet."
If you have a website, set it up to post content on your blog. You can use Google+ or Facebook to create and share posts from your website on those social networks.
Getting followers is often more of a numbers game and may be more complex than it seems. It may take months before you start seeing large numbers of people following you. With each new person that follows you, become aware of their interests and post about them so that they will come back for more.
When writing your introductions, personalize your posts. Your goal is not just to get as many people to follow you as possible but also to give them a reason to follow you in the first place. So make sure you're doing all you can to be as helpful as possible with each of your followers.
Those are the basics; now it's time to implement your knowledge.
I use Instagram and Pinterest, which you could also choose, and remember you don't need a website to start, but if you have already decided on the platforms you want to start, just do it!
I hope this post was helpful to you, and I'll see you next week.