Now that you have decided that your business and brand are going to benefit from including social media to promote it, how do you get followers?

Even if you have a brilliant business offering products or services, you can advertise all day and not get a single follower.

Following the steps outlined here can help get you more followers and increase your customer base.

Customize Your Profile

Make all your sites match. This means your Twitter, your blog, your website, your Facebook, etc. Making a strong consistent brand is important for  promotion. Consider making a corporate identity standard for your company. Make sure that no matter the media, everything is matching that standard.

Make sure you fill out the name, location, and information areas of your profile. Letting people know who you are and where you are is going to make it easier for people to find you.

Also, upload a picture. Statistically, people are more likely to follow someone with a picture than an account that doesnÕt have one.

Offer Good Information

Don’t just talk about you, you, and you. Even though your business is the reason you have social media to begin with, people will get bored quickly if you only offer your business information.

For example, you could also promote local events. This is a good way for your followers to see that you aren’t just interested in making money.

You Do Not Have to Answer Every Response

Once you get a large number of followers, you are not going to have time to answer every single reply to your social media.

This isn’t being rude, this is being realistic. Instead consider offering information for a group of responses that follow the same theme. For example: “We’d like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for the support of our local canary enthusiasts.”

Intersperse your responses with your information posts.

Be an Authority

Know your stuff and promote it as such. For example if you are an artist, say you are an artist. Prove your authority with informative and relevant information. However, do not try to sell to people before they are even followers.

Keep your page as “non-salesy” as possible and instead opt for professionalism. Offer a link to your website and leave it at that.

Be a Leader in Following

Follow those people and companies that are related to your business and save the funny or inappropriate follows for your personal accounts. This way if you link back, retweet, or make a comment about something someone you are following has said, you still have credibility as an expert in your field.

If there is some uncertainty about what is or is not appropriate, always err on the side of professionalism.

You may get some people you follow to follow you as well. Generally speaking, you should have more people following you than you are following so be discriminating.

Do Not Be a Repeat Offender

Mix it up and do not repeat the same information over and over again, no matter how good you think it is. This goes back to offering good information. Good information is information that your followers are going to find interesting and relevant to them. If you are posting the same thing over and over again, people are going to lose interest quickly.

Offering different posts every time is going to make people pay attention.

Be Generous but Don’t Force it Down Their Throats

Resist the urge to get software that will automatically post for you and then set it on super speed. You shouldn’t be constantly tweeting or updating your status.

You need to be selective about how many times new information is offered. It’s much better to leave people a little hungry for new information than it is to stuff them full of low quality information that they won’t remember.

What tips do you have for getting more followers with social media?

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