What’s the biggest difference between people who are successful in social media and those who are not? Simple – the successful people have built themselves an audience.
An audience doesn’t necessarily mean having 10,000 followers here or 5,000 friends there. At its most basic level it might be that. But what’s a bunch of friends and followers if they aren’t helping you to grow your business?
Consider this: what if your “audience” isn’t anyone who would be interested in what it is you offer? What if they were people just looking to boost their numbers without any interest in engaging with you in any sort of dialogue? What if they were primarily focused on promoting their own stuff the majority of the time? These types of scenarios are clearly not ideal.
So what should you really be looking to achieve? Building the right kind of audience with social media means your participation there is leading you to be seen as a credible, trust-worthy source who may be able to help others solve whatever problem they may be having. It means you are reaching a market of people you have deliberately sought out through search strategies who might need what you have.
When you’ve grabbed the attention of your followers and friends and built interest and credibility, you now have a way to gain traffic to your website, capture more leads and continue building and strengthening the relationship.
It’s all in the three C’s:
Content
Content is the lifeblood of successful social media marketers. What reasons are you giving people to listen to you? This goes two ways: sharing your own helpful posts, links, tips and resources-and promoting and sharing the content of others. This does three main things: establishes your expertise, drives traffic to your site, and provides your audience with helpful information. Remember, the content you are sharing should not always be your own.
Conversation
Simply by being seen as someone who provides great content in the social media space you will naturally find yourself engaged in conversation. Having these one on one conversations is what is going to make you stand out among the noise and deepen the relationship. In addition, when you make it a habit to promote others, this brings more “social appreciation” your way. These interactions cause others to seek out more information about you beyond where you’ve made the initial connection.
Conversion
Once you have converted someone to a newsletter subscriber, blog subscriber or paying client or customer, you’ve taken the steps toward acquiring another raving fan. These loyal folks will not only bring you more sales, but will be much more likely to sing your praises to others out in the social media universe. This is how you grow your “tribe.”
Do you see how simple and effective it is to build an audience of captivated friends and followers? Do you see the difference this could make in your bottom line?
Let me know your thoughts on this. Anything else you would like to add? Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my free social media simplified e-course.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for saying it’s not about the numbers. I have run a number of niche job websites in the past. It’s truly about quality for that sort of thing. You don’t really want waste circulation, so to speak.
Christine:
Love your 3 C’s!
For a such a short blogpost you really laid out some good stuff. I would even go as far to say a person who is really paying attention could take the lessons in this post and build their social media empire as big as they can handle.
Love the point about building an audience that actually cares about what you are posting and then engaging them in conversation. Without REAL efforts at building relationships many people are missing the social media boat without even realizing it.
Will be sure to RT this for you!
Look forward to more from you in the future, Christine!
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Hey, Great Blog Post! I agree completely. I tweeted this blog post as well.
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Christine,
Great post!! Speaking of giving good content. You did just that. I think some people are just getting carried away with numbers, but you remind them that it is much more than the numbers, it’s the quality of your communication that counts.
As always great stuff Christine. I love your words on conversation and engagement. It touches on the importance of listening to what your audience has to say vs. just blowing out your own side of the story. I find that many social media marketers are so busy telling me about their next great thing they aren’t listening to anything I have to say!:)
@Richard–Yes, people seem to always express relief when they realize the numbers of friends or followers you have is not the be-all, end-all. Sure, there are a lot of people who look at it like it’s a popularity contest–but really, isn’t it just as effective to have fewer connections but more targeted ones?
@Brian–Thank you Brian, glad you stopped by! Exactly, just broadcasting without engagement is really missing the point (and the fun!)
@Chris–Thanks, appreciate that!
@Kim–I know, and there are countless people out there adding friends and followers like it’s going out of style with zero communication involved. Total turn off!
@Leanne–You got it, it is a matter of listening. That’s a huge part of what builds and strengthens relationships in the social media/online world.