“I want more Tweeter followers!“, “How can I get thousands of views on my YouTube video?”, “I only have 20 fans on Facebook“, etc.

Customers always ask me for ways to increase their fan base by the hundreds (or the thousands) on Facebook or Tweeter. From the get go, they often seem to get the concept wrong by thinking that if you build your social media presence fans will join in droves. My answer in most cases is: You don’t need Twitter or Facebook, what you need is a great idea that you can execute, and a good story to match it, so you can sell more products or services, improve your customer service, win more contracts, etc. Then Facebook and Twitter become the icing on the cake.

Many business owners create their social media accounts and begin tweeting, posting on their Facebook wall, sending newsletters, etc., with the hopes of growing their fan base, pretty quickly. But then, after a few months, they realize their efforts get them nowhere. Their creative well dries up and they give up. Why does this happen? Simply put, because they are putting the cart before the horse.

Social networks can be very effective tools for growing your business sharing your passion for your product, service, or mission, or for listening to your customers’ concerns and quickly addressing them to improve your service. But if you are mostly self-promoting, telling them how great you are, or simply sharing irrelevant, uninteresting content that your audience does not relate to, your social media efforts will fall flat.

Here are a few suggestions before you get started with social media:

• Understand the type of audiences you are trying to reach. Who are they? What do they look like? What keeps them up at night? Why should they buy your product or service?
• Get your idea right, narrow it down, and define its value proposition.
• Think about a way to make your story compelling. Remember, STORY is EVERYTHING.
• If your business is new, you can “test” your concept with a limited audience, before you commit your money and resources into it. Tweak the idea as you gauge the responses.
• Find out which social networks are better suited for your type of audiences. For example LinkedIn is great for customers in the consulting industry (software, legal, management, etc.), Yelp is great for restauranteurs, Facebook for retail products or movies, Twitter and YouTube are very effective pretty much across the board, etc.
• Spend some time using these social networks. Get familiar with them, BUY a few products or services through them, so you can understand how their sales cycle work and where the opportunities are for you. PAY ATTENTION to the way other successful businesses (including your competitors) market their products and services in social networks and what their CALL to ACTION strategies are to convert fans into real customers.
• Build up your fan base and don’t obsess over the size of it. HOWEVER, keep in mind that the more fans and followers you have, the more potential customers you can reach out to. Consider buying ads, Especially “social ads” on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, but have a clear call to action.
• Develop a good strategy to Curate, Engage, and Follow up with your fan base throughout the year
• All social networks provide administrators with great tools to analyze fan engagement, traffic, etc. Use them to understand your audience and fine tune your messages and calls to action
• Are you making money? are you meeting the business goals you set out to accomplish? Those are the best indicators if your social media results are working or not

Putting these principles into practice

P.T.S.D. the movie. is a feature film project in the early stages of production. With Identika’s help the movie already has thousands of committed fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Although not one single frame of film has been shot for the movie, there is already a high level of engagement from the fans (many of which identify with the themes of the movie). As the movie goes through the different stages of production, and later into distribution, the fan base will become instrumental in making the movie financially successful. To date, P.T.S.D. the movie has spent zero dollars in advertising and the growth has been the result of word of mouth and other viral strategies.

If you apply these principles you should expect better business results with the help of social media. Drop us a line to let us know how you are doing.