13 Ways to Ignite a Social Media Following

For many an entrepreneur, their biggest digital marketing challenge is gathering an audience and then putting “social” in social media and ultimately having success in social media marketing. Facebook, Pinterest and sites like Twitter and LinkedIn typically fall to the bottom of the marketing funnel when business owners do not see how these tools are able to create bottom line profit.

So, how does an entrepreneur launch and grow an interested and engaged audience that can lead to profit?

Marketing via social communications tools requires a strategy, one that uses a soft-salesapproach, rather than the direct pitch of direct marketing. It does not happen overnight, but three tactics coupled with a cohesive marketing strategy can
create buzz that leads to new clients and existing clients that buy more often.Social Media Fire

1. Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

Marketers have a limited time frame to reach and grab the attention of an audience. Photos can speak volumes on a social scale. Visual marketing creates a resonance that can often cut through the noise. Yet, it takes a business or brand persona to get through the social clutter.

Images that resonate and compel the reader to take action help promote a sharing effect. Images can tell a story, share news and even link to a creative promotion or sweepstakes that invite participation. The trick is to target these images to an audience that cares.

2.  Question and You Shall Receive

People love to talk. The challenge for the business owner on a social scale is getting them to open up. Yet, when we think of social media as a communications tool, rather than a complicated piece of software, it is easier to see how the face-to-face engagement process can be transferred to the social realm.

Questions can be crafted in the typical “yes” or “no”, they can be simple comparisons, or ask for feedback. These types of questions work well for an audience that needs a low barrier to entry. Once you get them talking, provocative questions and ones that create involvement in your company can help set the stage for sharing of content.

3. Get Real with Video

Short and compelling video can help build an audience. Video combines the audio visual aspects of realism that can encourage an audience to take action. Tips, tricks, fun and even carefully crafted promos can drive audiences into the sales funnel.

Yet, one of the best things about video is the ability to highlight the true nature of a brand. Online video tells an audience that the social brand isn’t just someone sitting behind a desk writing and tweeting, but rather a trusting persona that audiences can relate to.

Many of these social features require minimal technical expertise to implement. But, to ignite your audience you’ll need to blend the logic of bottom line thinking with the character of your brand consistently. It takes time, but even the most boring or bland of companies and dullest products can improve their sales through proper use of social media.

arrowtemplate 24. Show your social media icons visibly near the top of your site

You should show case the social media icons such that it should be easily available to all readers. Don’t make your readers to hunt for Facebook Thumb. Make it simple to take them to the right Social Media Services page with one simple click on a button. If the social media reflects the theme of your site, then you get bonus points.

5. Create a dedicated Facebook page for your blog

There are lots of merits in giving your blog a dedicated space on Facebook. Readers who don’t know your name can easily search with your blog name and can reach it on Facebook.

Plus, with the benefits of social media it will be easy to share all the links of the posts that you are newly publishing and don’t fear about annoying your friends (as friends are friends always). Convert your readers to fans by using Facebook social media Plugin on your blog.

6. Drive traffic from StumbleUpon

This is one of the viral methods that many bloggers use to generate terrific traffic to their blog. StumbleUpon recommends some pages and your SU friends click through pages to generate traffic to your blog. Like the other Social Media Platforms, you need to share with your friends and accept their share. Also you should have strong followers to get the benefits of using social media.

7. Link your blog to your LinkedIn profile

If your blog reflects your professional goals, then you should showcase it in LinkedIn. You need to enter your blog as one of your three sites in your LinkedIn profile. By using the blog link application, your most recent blog post will be displayed at your profile.

8. New Social Media Hottie, Pinterest

This is a cool site where you can share or pin your favorite/best photos in a themed boards and link it to point your article or site. Sites with strong visual contents like fashion, travel, designing, etc. are a natural fit. Do include the Pinterest ‘Pin It’ button to allow your readers to pin your content on their Pinterest boards.

9. Use URL shorteners

Use the URL shorteners to shorten your URL even if you don’t have to.  Twitter will shorten the URL for you and there is no URL length constrains in Facebook or in Google+. But still by shortening your URL by using services like bit.ly, you will get an insight about the number of people clicked the link, time of each click, etc. and other metrics.

10. Use your blog name as your username

Use your blog name as user name wherever possible and this will help others to find you in different platform and also easy to remember you across platforms. This is one of the key to build your online community and to promote your brand consistently and to get all benefits of social media.

11. Join or start a blogger group in Facebook

There are some very active blogger groups in Facebook and you can find and join the one that suits your niche. If there is no such group, then you can start one to engage other interested people in your area. There are many active groups like “Advanced WordPress” to support any wordpress related problems, “Travel Bloggers” for travellers, etc.

12. Be liberal with other bloggers

It is not easy to blast with your own content only. Since blogging is all about building a community, you need to promote/share others content. In the same way you will hopefully get the benefit from that blogger. So do share or retweet other bloggers content whenever possible and don’t forget to share content of the bloggers who share yours.

13. Don’t give up even if it doesn’t work

This is the final thing to do. Although you are doing everything right by posting right content in the right platform and waiting for the traffic that you still don’t get, then it will be really frustrating.

So just relieve yourself by thinking about the links that came across you and you never clicked from the day one and just do stay calm and wait for your turn in social media services. Till then keep yourself updated and find inspiration for your next blog post.