By Chelsea Ann Dowdell
Why is it that some people have thousands of followers and others have none? It can’t be the quality of their content. Quite often you’ll find some obscure writer that still makes perfectly valid points and does so eloquently. And yet still they don’t really get noticed.
The trick, quite simply, is marketing. 50% of anything you do online is about marketing correctly. That’s how you get your brand noticed and that’s how you get followers. It doesn’t matter if you are doing it for a company or for yourself, you still have to learn to market your product.
Here we’re going to talk about how you can do exactly that.
Do what I tell you and then do it again: The first thing that needs to be said, before we get to any of the strategies that you can use, is that if you apply these strategies for only a week or two it simply won’t work.
These are long-term strategies that will take time to develop. For that reason, you’ve got to be consistent. Do it, then do it again, then rinse and repeat, until you’ve got the effects that you want.
For that reason, it’s actually a good idea to read through the list that follows and only choose one or two of the strategies that appeal to you most and that you’re sure you can follow through with. In that way, you’re going to get far more from this list than you otherwise would.
And if they work? Well, then it’s time to consider adding a few more strategies into the mix, until you’re world famous and they start inviting you on CNN (but you refuse, because you’re bigger than they are).
Don’t talk at people: Yes, some people can yell from their soap box and do very well indeed. Don’t assume you’re one of them. You’ll do much better if instead, you make sure that you engage your audience in a conversation. Give them a reason to respond to what you’ve got to say by asking them questions, responding to any comments that they do make and in other ways giving them the idea that this is a two way street.
In that way they won’t think of you as aloof, but as their friend. And that will make them far more likely to continue following you (and tell other people about you).
Give your audience what they actually want: There are a lot of strategies that you can use to find out what your audience actually wants. For example, you can use something like Facebook ad manager to check out what other pages people that like your page like (you can do so under insights). Then you can copy ideas that work well on other people’s sites and use them on your own.
Other ways to know what your audience wants is to follow your own statistics, like on Google Analytics. Here you’ll get feedback about what people are looking at, what articles have legs (as in keep getting read long after you stopped pushing them) and which have low bounce rates.
From there, you’ll know what to give your audience more of. Then you can write it yourself or use something like RewardedEssays to give them that.
Follow others: Another highly effective strategy is to find people like yourself and to follow them. The great thing about this is that it will start building a relationship with that person, who will possibly reciprocate. In that way, you’ll not just have another follower, but you’ll have another source of potentially useful and interesting information.
Of course, make sure you follow the right person. If you follow a celebrity, they’ll simply think it’s their due and might well not pay any attention to you. If you find somebody more similar to yourself, somebody who is still trying to build a following and willing to engage with you, then you’re far more likely to be successful.
Sometimes pay to promote: Sometimes when you’ve got an article that is particularly well liked by your follows, why not push it with a few dollars? Often, just pushing it by that little bit will get you a huge amount of exposure. Yes, you’ll be a few dollars poorer, but seeing as that’s probably not even an hour of work (And you’ll often invest hours in marketing in other ways) that can be well worth it.
Note that you shouldn’t invest indiscriminately. There are some sites that deserve to get pushed and others that should go die a quiet death somewhere. Identify the winners and push them. That will give you far better bang for your buck.
Last words: It is possible to get more followers. Yes, it will take time. It doesn’t just happen overnight. At the same time, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen at all. All you’ve got to do is keep at it, work at it and not give up. Eventually you’ll be paid off.
And then it will all be well worth it.
Besides, the skills you’ll have to build a following can be useful everywhere. Once you’ve figured out how to build up your personal brand, you can start building up official brands. And from there you’ve got a real business. Now that sounds pretty rad, right?
Author Bio: Chelsea Ann Dowdell is an educational lecturer, she has her own website, educational blog and she never stops the process of self-growth. Blogging is her hobby. You can contact her on Facebook