Building A Follower Base

     Hello again- Checking in for my second post. Thank you kindly for the views, it is a great feeling to know that I have friends to embark on this social media journey with me. That's what it's all about, right? Followers? If only it were as easy to attract followers as it is to click the button to follow someone else. In fact, this has been my biggest struggle so far, being that I am still in the beginner stages of Twitter for business. How the hell are you supposed to attract your ideal audience, especially when there are millions of accounts to sort through, and people from all over the world to meet?

     I believe that you can read all of the articles, books, and blogs in the world to gain insight and tips on how to establish a hefty following, but implementing that information successfully is another story. YOU have to know that audience. YOU have to know what they want. YOU have to pick the right content, catch their attention and reach out to them. The key word in all of this, as I have so blatantly hinted at, is you. Social media always comes back to personal skill. Either you have it, or you don't. And when you don't have it, you pay an automated site forty dollars and buy the followers that you lack. I'd like to think that eventually I can buy them with my words, instead. 

     Although my skills for obtaining followers are not quite developed, not even entirely successful yet, I am learning some things along the way that have proven to be helpful. I am also trying out a few strategies of my own. The first thing you do when you create any social media account is seek out followers. okay, so how do we do this successfully?

    The simplest way to start is always to start with what you know - or rather who you know. After vamping up my Linkedin and professional Twitter, I targeted familiar faces before anyone else - co-workers, sorority sisters with similar career interests, and  well known faces in the industry. I knew I wanted to target any and everybody involved in social media, but I had to start small. From there I fell into a rabbit hole of suggested accounts to follow, and the whole process seemed a little lighter on my shoulders. Currently I am averaging 15-30 followers per day, and they usually find me before I find them. 

     The  account I created for my company's product, Wealth Window,  was a completely different story. With a much more defined audience, it has been harder to weed out all of the irrelevant accounts that come flooding into the twitter news feed. Therefore, with the Wealth Window page I broke it down like this: followers need to include competitors, co-workers, clients, potential clients, and anyone who works for a company that appeals to our ideal audience. We do have multiple markets - philanthropy, financial services, luxury travel, luxury goods, etc. - and this made it easy to define my target. Along with having such a well defined audience comes the challenge of finding them within the pool of  millions of accounts that are completely irrelevant to our social media goals.    
     To sort through them, you must understand what you are trying to accomplish through your followers. I want to generate leads. I want to increase brand awareness and engagement. I want to expand our content reach passed international borders and across the world. So I only want to find those followers who can help me to achieve these goals.

      Once I grew a small following, I began tweeting, and relentlessly at that. I made sure to respond to every one who followed me. If they favorite a tweet, I thank them. If they DM me, I make sure to respond as quickly as I can. I post content that seems "re-tweetable." The further my content reaches, the more people will see it, and the more likely they will be to follow. With both the product page and my personal page, I don't ever put pressure on social media users. If I don't get the following or response I want, I move on. As I mentioned before, there's MILLIONS of people tweeting. That's not to say that everyone isn't important, but some people are going to be more important than others when it comes to promoting your business.

     Don't get me wrong, the internet is a bountiful resource with an infinite number of tools and websites that make chores such as this much easier to handle. Two of the tools I am currently trying include the Socedo app for audience segmenting and reporting, and SproutSocial for analytics. So far, I am impressed with how easy it is to track my progress on both. Part of me, however, is always going to be nervous that I have not selected the right tools. Like I said.. bountiful resource.. infinite number of tools. (Sometimes the internet confuses things more than it facilitates them.) With all of these tools, how do you decide which one is the best tool for your situation? Any Sales or Help representative that you speak to is going to tell you that their website is the go-to tool for managing social media. Although Socedo has helped me gain followers and allows me to automatically tweet them, I plan on trying several other sites before I commit. I feel responsible for finding the best of the best to manage my company's accounts with.


     If you have any suggestions on tools to help manage twitter and grow followers, please leave a comment below. If you have any tips on gaining followers or targeting an audience, those comments are appreciated as well. Also, I was silly to forget this in my first post, but if you aren't already following me, tweet me @EPasquito. If you speak B2b social content strategy, then you're speaking my language.