social media success

4 Characteristics Of Thriving Social Media Users

December 14, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

How do they do it? I’m talking about the social media users who have large audiences. The social media users that went from zero to hundreds of thousands of followers. It was a question I often asked myself. I wondered if there was some type of secret formula they used.

Yes, there are some saucy methods involved. However, going from not knowing anything about social media to growing a massive audience is epic. A close look at the surface of these individuals quickly reveals how they became successful on social media.

People like to think there’s some secret sauce involved, but these basic characteristics that they share. It turns out we know most of these characteristics already, but they are the key to success on social media. In addition, knowing and doing are two different things.

#1: They Use It The Right Way Every Day

Most of us are good at using social media every day. Successful social media users use it more productively than the common social media user. They look for targeted audiences, engage with those targeted audiences, and provide them with awesome content.

The intent of a successful social media user is to humor the audience or to empower the audience with knowledge. Successful social media users think, “How can I create a better experience?” before they think, “How can I get more followers?”

Use social media in a powerful way, and you are bound to see powerful results.

#2: They Are Patient

You’ve heard this tip for just about everything in your life. Be patient if you want to run faster times. Be patient if you want to be a singer. Be patient, be patient, be patient (I think we all get the point).

But sure enough, patience plays a role yet again. Successful social media users eventually shift to the question “How can I reach out to more people?” Recognize they aren’t asking themselves how to make the “follower” number bigger. They want to reach and empower as many people as possible using social media.

When you first commit to growing a large social media audience, it takes time. Part of the reason is that when you first start, you won’t know everything. Successful social media users now gain hundreds of followers every day. But there was a time when these same social media users struggled to gain five followers in a given day.

Patience got these users from gaining five followers per day to gaining hundreds of followers per day.

#3: They Are Always Hungry For Knowledge

When a new social network is launched, there are two types of pioneers who grow large audiences on the new social network: The Rare Pioneer and the Expected Pioneer. The Rare Pioneer is someone who isn’t successful on any other social network. However, this Rare Pioneer loves the new social network and quickly masters it. Then, people start following this Rare Pioneer on all of the other social networks.

The Expected Pioneer is the successful social media user expanding his/her platform. The Expected Pioneer gets into the action as soon as possible. Since a new social network is getting a lot of sign-ups, it is normal to get a lot of followers just by posting something.

I did two Periscope broadcasts on the day Periscope came out. I assure you that both of them were subpar at best. For one of them, I didn’t even know I was recording a live broadcast. In the first three days after Periscope was launched, I had over 2,000 followers.

Successful social media users often acquire more knowledge by extending themselves onto other social networks. While they wait for a new social network to come out, they are reading blog posts, reading books, and watching videos about social media. They want to be connected with other successful social media users so they can learn more about the platform and build relationships.

Since you are at this point of the blog post, then you hunger for knowledge too. However, you must always hunger for knowledge and want as much of it as possible—even when you too are a successful social media user.

#4: At One Point, They Focused On One Social Network

The social media world is as easy or as complicated as you make of it. Unfortunately, most of us want to make the social media world as complicated for ourselves as possible. We’re tweeting on Twitter, pinning on Pinterest, posting on Facebook, uploading videos to YouTube, and sharing our pictures on Instagram. We’re catching up with the news about Periscope and Blab and still trying to find some time to get the Vine in.

Successful social media users utilize an arsenal of social networks. However, in the beginning of their journeys, the eventual successful social media users would stick with one social network. They tend to master one social network from the inside-out before they try to master another social network.

I view social media mastery in the same way a linguist would view mastering the romance languages. There are two approaches to mastering a series of languages:

Approach #1: I give you flash cards, proper phrases, and Rosetta Stone for French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian. You have to master all of these languages at the same time.

Approach #2: I give you everything I gave you in the first approach. However, you choose one language and commit yourself to mastering that one language. You only start learning another language once you have mastered the first language you are trying to master.

Give me Approach #2 any day of the week. This is the same way in which we must view social media.

Do all social media users go with the second approach? I would say about 99% of them do, and you can tell. One way you can tell is by the content they write on their blogs. If you go through this blog, you’ll discover that the first social network I discussed in great detail was Twitter. That’s because Twitter was the first social network that I strived to master.

You can also figure out the first social network a successful social media user mastered by looking at the audience sizes of their social networks. Most of the successful social media users will have large audiences elsewhere, but the social network they started on will almost always have the largest audience.

Out of all of my social media accounts, my Twitter account by far has the largest audience. That could change in the future depending on how much I invest into Facebook likes, but right now, Twitter by far has the largest percentage of my social media audience.

If you find me on social media, chances are you’ll find me on Twitter first before you find me on any of my other social networks.

In Conclusion

In our search for the secret sauce, we ignore the recipe on the kitchen door. All successful social media users achieved their success in large part because of these four characteristics. These four characteristics were the foundation that led to the acquisition of other skills.

Those skills combined with these characteristics allow social media users to become successful. These characteristics give you the GPS needed to achieve social media success. You can’t see how many miles you are away from your destination, but you’ll know that the path you are heading on is the right path for you.

Which of these characteristics do you think is the most important? Do you think there are any other defining characteristics of successful social media users? Sound off in the comments section below.

The Five Forgotten Factors Of Social Media Success

April 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

Social media constantly grows. More people join the action every day. More people stick around for a few hours every day to see what tweets get posted on Twitter and what gets posted on their Facebook feeds.

With social media’s ever-growing popularity, some of the key components of success on social media have been forgotten. When people think of success on social media, they think of having a big audience, but success on social media is more than that. Success on social media is the combination of factors that most of us have forgotten. These are five of those forgotten factors of social media success:

#1: Be Social

The entire purpose of social media was to provide people with a way to communicate with one another from anywhere in the world. Social media was not originally created to give businesses an additional edge. When most entrepreneurs use social media, they focus on the business side. They focus on promoting their own content and their own products without bothering to interact with their audiences.

Interacting with your audience will allow you to develop stronger relationships with the members of your audience. Interacting will make people feel respected and make them feel as if they belong in your social media community. You want the people in your audience to feel as if they belong in your audience because this sense of feeling belonged results in strong relationships, returning visitors, word of mouth promotion, and sales.

When you interact to make your followers feel as if they belong, you must do so for the right reason. Don’t interact with someone just in hopes of making a sale. Only interact with your followers if that is what you want to do. There should never be an ulterior motive for social media interaction.

#2: It’s About Providing Value, Not Talking About Yourself

Many social media users make it a point to constantly talk about themselves or their own businesses. Some people tell their followers about their breakfast while other people talk about more meaningful things in your life such as relationship statuses and vacations. Mentioning those types of details once in a blue moon will allow your audiences to know about you, but if these details are common on your social networks, people will unfollow you because your social media posts will bore them.

You may wonder why celebrities who post pictures of themselves eating their breakfast, going on vacation, or getting married get more positive attention than the person who constantly tweets about the sandwich he had for breakfast. The reason celebrities get good exposure when they send out these types of posts is because the celebrities already have a large amount of attention, and most of the content on various celebrities’ feeds is about their professions. Singers primarily post content on their social networks related to their songs and audiences.

They don’t post pictures of their breakfast or vacations as much. That is why when those pictures are posted, they are more appreciated than the pictures from someone who exclusively posts those types of pictures.

Do less talking about yourself and focus on providing more value. You can do this by writing valuable blog posts and promoting them. Many bloggers including myself use social media to promote our own blog posts very often. We do this because we trust in the value our content provides and want to empower our followers with that value. Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.

Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1wZnBPB”]#SocialMedia Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.[/tweetthis]

#3: Push Out More Content

Many social media users do their best to publish one new piece of content on at least one social network every day. However, that is not enough to get noticed. Social media is a noisy place with countless posts being sent every second. Billions of social media posts get created and published every day. It is challenging to stand out in the middle of that noise.

Instead of posting one new tweet on Twitter every day, I post 100 new tweets every day. Instead of doing one new YouTube video every month, I do one new YouTube video every week. Always look for ways to increase the frequency that you can push out content. By increasing the frequency in which you push out content, you will be seen by a larger percentage of your audience. As you get seen more, some people in your social media audience may decide to subscribe to your blog and buy your products. When you push out more content, never sacrifice value. It is better to publish one high value YouTube video every month than four poorly done YouTube videos every month.

#4: Social Media Success Does Not Mean Success

Many people want to believe that having a certain number of followers guarantees success and money. However, social media success is different from success based on a revenue making standpoint. Social media is a tool you can use to make more revenue, but social media is not the place where you can promote a product and expect it to pick up a life changing amount of sales.

Social media is a place to get more indirect sales. You simply use social media to promote your blog and landing pages. Then, your blog and landing pages will lead to more subscribers and visitors. Getting more subscribers and visitors will lead to more long-term sales for your products. Social media gets used to amplify the power of those indirect methods of making more revenue.

#5: One At A Time

Many people have a strong desire to master multiple social networks. This desire is critical towards mastering multiple social network and achieving social media domination. It is this same desire that can spell doom for your entire social media strategy.

You read those last two sentences right. Something so important for social media success is also a big downfall that many people face. You need to master one social network at a time just like you would master one new language at a time. Each time you master one social network, it will become easier for you to master other social networks (you will have a larger audience and more knowledge).

You need to learn one social network at a time instead of trying to master them at once. Would you only focus on learning Spanish or try to learn Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Greek, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese at the same time? Do you only focus on Twitter (or your preferred choice), or do you try to focus on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Google Plus, Tumblr, and Flickr at the same time?

In Conclusion

Sometimes, the best information we need is the information that was previously forgotten. People wouldn’t work at nine different 9-to-5 jobs at once, but now people are willing to learn and focus on that many social networks at once before mastering them. Social media success has confused the real meaning of financial success. We already know to push out content, but we need to push out more of it. We must provide value instead of posting about anything we can think of because people like to follow people who provide value. Interaction with your friends in real life is important, but so is interaction with your social media audience.

What were your thoughts on these forgotten tips? Do you have any other tip that you believe gets forgotten too often? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Reasons To Give StumbleUpon A Try

February 27, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

StumbleUpon is one of the most underrated social networks on the web for getting blog traffic and growing your presence on the web. You do not need to have thousands of followers on various social networks for your content to be seen by thousands of people.

One of the most common reasons people do not give StumbleUpon a try is because of its reputation for a high bounce rate. Many people who visit your blog through StumbleUpon only visit for a few seconds and then move on to the next webpage. However, some marketers have noticed long-term relationships with visitors that come from StumbleUpon. Other than that reason, here are five reasons why you need to give StumbleUpon a try.

#1: Old Content Can Go Viral Too

You can make the same argument for any social network. The only difference about StumbleUpon is that it is extremely easy for content to go viral there, and old content can go viral too. Some content that was posted on StumbleUpon weeks, months, or even years ago may suddenly become viral. Therefore, if you are posting on StumbleUpon, and the post does not go viral, it is a seed that can grow and become viral later.

On other social networks, the chance of an older post going viral are not as likely. Tweets quickly go out of view on a feed (they get shoved down to the ever-growing bottom of the feed), and within a few weeks, most YouTube videos go from new to old. On StumbleUpon, it does not matter how old the content is. It still has a good chance of going viral.

#2: Posting On StumbleUpon Is Easy

StumbleUpon is by no means a difficult social network to post on. While YouTube requires a good video, all you have to do on StumbleUpon is take the link from any webpage, paste it, put the link under a category, and then write an optional comment. You can send out a few posts on StumbleUpon every day, and as you write more posts, you will have a higher probability of one of your posts going viral.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1wb8HUO”]It’s easy to post something on StumbleUpon, and it’s not difficult for posts to go viral.[/tweetthis]

#3: StumbleUpon Is A Different Type Of Community

StumbleUpon is not the type of community commonly associated with social networks. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, StumbleUpon allows you to surf through other people’s websites while socializing in the process. It is a different social network with a different community for you to engage with.

#4: StumbleUpon Is Growing

The same case can be made with other social networks, but StumbleUpon is growing fast. StumbleUpon quickly went from another site on the web to a social network that gets more than one billion stumbles every month. As StumbleUpon continues to grow, going viral will present a greater impact in your traffic. When you go viral on StumbleUpon, you will get a big spike in traffic. Some content on StumbleUpon stays viral, and that spike in traffic may suddenly become the new norm.

If the traffic you get from StumbleUpon slows down, you may gain more traffic from other places because of the exposure you got from StumbleUpon (i.e. search engines, someone who saw your blog post on StumbleUpon mentioned it in a tweet or one of their blog posts). The more StumbleUpon grows, the greater the impact is of going viral, and the impact of going viral is already remarkable.

#5: Your Content Can Go Viral On StumbleUpon Even If Someone Else Share It

It is true that we can’t do everything all by ourselves. We need help from other people. Having a StumbleUpon button at the bottom of all of your blog posts gives your readers a chance to help spread the word on StumbleUpon and possibly make your blog post go viral.

In Conclusion

StumbleUpon may be different from the other social networks, but it is a social network that bloggers and entrepreneurs alike can no longer afford to overlook. StumbleUpon is a great social network for getting more blog traffic, and this social network makes it easier for your older blog posts to go viral. Even a blog post that was written years ago can still go viral on StumbleUpon and get a lot of attention.

Do you use StumbleUpon? Are you going to create a StumbleUpon account? If so, be sure to follow me on StumbleUpon so we can interact with each other.

5 Ways To Tap Into The Power Of Social Media

February 20, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media presents a powerful way to do the following:

Grow an audience like never before
Spread your message like never before
Procrastinate like never before
Insult people like never before

I think that out of all of the opportunities we have been presented with to take charge, never has there been an opportunity with such beneficial and disastrous consequences wrapped into one. The key way to tap into the power of social media and get the first two results is by knowing what to do, and then implementing that knowledge. There is really no other way to around it. These are the five ways you can tap into the power of social media:

#1: Identify The Best Social Network For You

Not all social networks are created equal. Each social network has a different set of functions and rules for success. On YouTube, you need to create high-value YouTube videos while on Twitter, you need to provide valuable content and follow targeted users who are likely to follow back. For those two social networks, that’s success in a nutshell.

Many people create multiple social media accounts and split their time amongst those accounts. This is one of the most common but also one of the biggest mistakes people make. If you split up your time amongst different social media accounts and try to master them all at the same time, you would have to read countless articles and turn yourself into a workhorse (never mind the fact that at the end of the day, your social media accounts need to promote people to revenue generating websites such as an optimized blog and landing page). The solution is to choose one (yes, just one) social network and master it. Once you master one social network, you can move on to mastering another social network. If you have multiple social media accounts (I’m sure you do), then there is no reason to delete any of them. Just be inactive on them for a while and focus most of your time on one of them.

#2: Do Research

No matter how much you know about one social network, you can still learn more about that social network. To this day, I continue to learn more about Twitter, and my quest for learning more about Twitter won’t stop for a very long time (if it ever stops at all). In order to learn more about a social network, you need to do research on that social network. You need to learn what it takes to be successful on that social network (which alone has dozens of smaller components), how you can use social media to boost your productivity, and more. When I do research, I type in a phrase into Google such as, “How To Get More StumbleUpon Followers” (I am intrigued by StumbleUpon and want to learn more about it), and then I read a bunch of the articles that come up. I took this approach to obtain my knowledge about Twitter, and I continue with that approach to this day.

#3: Implement

The only research that adds up to any value is the research that you implement. Chances are ideas that rival Facebook and Google have already been thought of, but those ideas don’t get implemented, so the research and time put into those ideas do not matter. You may know what you do, but knowing and doing are two different things. Once you have the knowledge, you need to apply it. Find time in your day to experiment with new ideas, tinker with old ones, and track the results. Knowing which methods have the biggest impact on your social media audience will present you with the knowledge you need to move forward.

#4: Interact

One of the few rules that applies to every social network is that interacting with your audience is a great way to build connections and get more blog traffic in the process (assuming that you promote your blog on social media). The word social is in “social media” for a reason.

Not only does interacting with your followers make it possible for you to build more connections, but you can share valuable insights with each other. Some of the insights your followers share may inspire your future blog posts. Other followers may ask questions that you use in your information products. Social media allows you to interact with these followers so you can build connections, provide insights, and answer their questions. It’s a win-win for both of you (you get more ideas and your followers get their questions answered).

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/17Eb6mk”]Interacting with your social media followers is a win-win![/tweetthis]

#5: Keep At It

The best way to grow your social media audience is to keep at it and learn new techniques along the way (don’t forget to implement). It takes a long time for you to grow a large social media audience. It is important to note that when I reached 100,000 Twitter followers in 993 days, I was not consistently gaining 101 followers every day.

On the day I got my 100,000th Twitter, I mathematically gained an average of 101 followers every day, but on most of those days, I was getting anywhere from 0-5 Twitter followers. Then, I went on to gain 10-20 followers every day until I made my way to gaining over 500 Twitter followers every day. You get to reach the colossal milestones by sticking with the social network you choose (but only stick with a social network if you have a passion for it. Don’t choose to grow on a social network that you despise).

In Conclusion

It would be impossible to cover all of the knowledge you need to know in one blog post. These five methods provide the basic surface needed to take your social media achievement to the next level. Always strive to learn more about what you are trying to master as well as what you have already mastered. Knowledge is power.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have another method for tapping into the power of social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

20 Ways To Amplify Your Social Media Reach

February 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Social media is one of the most powerful tools I have come across to grow a large audience and spread your message. In less than three years, I went from no audience to hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter alone.

Social media is an opportunity that people can no longer afford to take for granted. Social media is not a fad. It has redefined how we share information, interact, and grow our audiences. Amplifying our reach on social media has become more important than ever. In order to amplify your reach on social media, follow these 20 tips:

#1: Grow A Targeted Audience

A targeted audience consists of a group of people who are interested in the niche that you tweet about the most. My targeted audience consists of people who are interested in digital marketing advice. You can grow a targeted audience by finding influential people in your niche and following those people’s followers. When you do this, be sure to follow the people whose ratios indicate they are likely to follow you back.

#2: Follow People

It does not hurt to follow people, temporarily sacrifice your 1-to-1 ratio, or eventually follow hundreds of thousands of people. When you follow someone, you are sending an invitation for that person to connect with you. I know that sounds a lot like LinkedIn, but both Twitter and LinkedIn are social networks which means they have similarities. Following someone else, and then that person following you builds a connection between you and that other person. Imagine having hundreds of thousands of these types of connections. I would rather have 100,000 followers and follow 100,000 people than only have 1,000 followers and only follow one person. You can take this approach on nearly any social network, and I saw great success when applying this process to my Pinterest account.

#3: Post More Often

The entire concept of posting too often being bad is a myth mixed up with what some would call fury posting. Fury posting is when someone sends dozens of posts in about five minutes. Although this type of posting is annoying and ineffective, scheduling numerous posts throughout the day is not as annoying, and it can be very effective. I schedule one tweet every 15 minutes, and although I know that annoys a small handful of people (you can’t please them all), many of my followers like the added value of my tweeting once every 15 minutes.

#4: Post More Pictures

Including a picture in your posts is one of the easiest ways to boost engagement. Posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than posts without pictures…on every social network on the web. You can find a picture on Google or create one with Canva to match what you want to talk about. As long as you provide a picture that complements the post’s typed content, that post will be sure to get more engagement.

#5: Post Better, Stunning Pictures

We don’t want blurry pictures. We only want the cream of the crop. Since millions of pictures are posted every day across all of the major social networks, social media has a fair share of good and bad pictures. Therefore, a decent picture will no longer make the cut anymore. You must focus on including stunning pictures in your post. Take the time to look for the best picture available, and if you decide to create your own picture, make sure you take the time to see if any improvements can be made. Don’t just go for the first picture you see in Google’s search engine or the first picture idea you think of when you are on Canva.

#6: Post Valuable Content

Many visitors who visit a social media account for the first time never visit it again. In order to prevent that from being you, it is essential for you to constantly post valuable content on your social networks. The value of your content determines how many people revisit your social media accounts, and how far your content spreads.

When you share content on your social networks, be sure to only share valuable content. If you read an article that you thought was fascinating or valuable, feel free to share it with your followers. Those are the types of articles that encourage followers to stick around, revisit your social media accounts, and share your posts.

#7: Use Multiple Social Networks

Billions of people use social media, but not everyone uses the same social networks. Some people only use Facebook while other people use Twitter and Pinterest, but not Facebook. The combinations vary based on the individual, and few people spend an equal amount of time on all of their social networks.

Being active on multiple social networks will allow you to reach to a larger active audience. Many people who are active on one social network are inactive on other social networks. Being on all of the major social networks will allow you always interact with an active audience.

#8: Focus Most Of Your Time On One Social Network

Although it is important to use multiple social networks, most of your time needs to be focused on one social network. For me, that would be Twitter. It is so important to focus on one social network because of the learning curve. It is difficult to learn how to master 10 social networks at the same time. However, it is easier to learn how to master one social network at a time.

I like to compare social media mastery to mastering the romance languages. The romance languages have the same general structure, just like social networks. If you know how to be successful on Twitter, then you almost have all of the knowledge needed to be successful on Pinterest or a social network similar to Twitter.

As you become more successful on more social networks, it will be easier to become successful on other social networks. Let the sentence sink in, and read it again. It is better to take social media success one step at a time than trying to take 10 steps at once.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/14tgjvd”]It is better to take #SocialMedia success one step at a time than trying to take 10 steps at once.[/tweetthis]

#9: Share Other People’s Content

Did you know that it is statistically proven that people unfollow the ego maniacs? If you are constantly talking about yourself, promoting your own articles, and promoting your own products, then you need to take the time to share what other people have done. Your timeline does not have to be taken over by articles from other people’s blogs, but if you share someone else’s blog post here and there, your followers would greatly appreciate it, especially if the blog posts you share are valuable.

#10: Interact With Your Audience

Interacting with your audience is important towards growing that audience and building quality relationships. Regardless of your audience’s size, there will be people in that audience who will be grateful that you took the time to respond to one of their posts. One conversation has the potential to start a strong relationship.

Getting a conversation started is as easy as thanking someone for sharing one of your posts, saying hi, or jumping into a conversation (without coming out as brash).

#11: Add The Personal Touch

The personal touch is one of the most underrated ways to increase your reach on social media. As more people get impacted by your message and enjoy the value you provide, some of them will want to know what you do when you are not on social media. You don’t have to give every second of every detail of your life, but you can let people know things about you that are important.

If you watch baseball games every night, your followers may occasionally want to know that. If baseball is not your niche, you wouldn’t send daily posts about you watching baseball. For these types of activities, you should only talk about them 1-2 times per month. You can talk more freely about events in your life that you believe are important enough to get the spotlight on your social networks (in other words, don’t tell us what you ate for breakfast. Tired of seeing that breakfast example on so many blogs?).

The personal touch will allow people to know more about who you are. It is okay to branch out of your business to add the personal touch because your followers will feel more connected to you than ever.

#12: Do Research

Most of the knowledge I obtained about digital marketing came from hundreds of hours of research. I would look up popular, valuable, niche-related blogs and read through all of the articles on those blogs. To this day, I continue to read a variety of articles from fellow bloggers in my niche to learn more about expanding my social media reach. I also recommend subscribing to their blogs so you get notified every time they come out with new blog posts. That way, you will be able to stay up to date with the latest trends in your niche.

#13: Read Social Media Books

I wish I could say I read many social media books, but that is not the case quite yet. I have been making progress though. I started reading What The Plus!: Google+ For The Rest Of Us by Guy Kawasaki. I have read various books in the time management field even when I knew (thought I knew) how to effectively manage my time. I was productive, but reading a few bestsellers about productivity dramatically increased my ability to get more done faster. You can never know too much about social media, and as you gain more knowledge about social media and different social networks, you will have a better idea of what you need to do to grow your reach.

#14: Automate Your Content

When I send out one tweet every 15 minutes, you better believe I’m not up at 4 am eastern time sending out those tweets. However, while I am sleeping, other people are having their morning coffee, attending school, enjoying the afternoon, or having an evening dinner. All of those things happen in different places in the world while you sleep.

Therefore, people are reading my tweet at 4 am eastern because it’s a different time of day in Germany, England, Russia, China, Japan, and any other timezone out of the east coast. You don’t need to master geography to be successful on social media, but if you strive to grow an international audience, you need to be aware of the fact that our world is filled with many timezones.

#15: Tweet At The Moment

Automating your content allows you to consistently provide content to your followers over a long period of time without you being on a computer, mobile device, or tablet. In some cases, tweeting at the moment will prove to be an effective tactic towards growing your social reach, especially if you take advantage of current events.

Few businesses were prepared for the blackout in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome during Super Bowl 47. Oreo was prepared, and it was on this day that Oreo sent its famous tweet about still dunking in the dark. This tweet made marketers all over the world pay more attention to tweeting at the moment, and it is a tweet that has been discussed and analyzed in thousands of presentations all over the world. I have analyzed this one tweet in multiple blog posts and videos. It’s amazing what 140 characters can do.

#16: Turn Social Media Conversations Into Email Conversations

Social media conversations only last for a long period of time, and some conversations are forgotten about due to the countless distractions that social media throws at us. If you can turn some of your social media conversations into email conversations, then you will remove all of the distractions and character lengths that prevent a conversation from growing in size. Sure, there are distractions in the inbox, just like any social network. However, we have been hardwired to make sure we look at every email (for some of us, even the spammy emails) in our inbox. If we don’t look at every email in our inbox, then we’ll definitely click the “Mark All As Read” button.

Email conversations are the best conversations to have with your followers because email conversations tend to be the most sincere, and they typically last for a longer period of time than social media conversations.

#17: Promote Your Landing Pages On Social Media

Having a big email list allows you to connect all of the promotion of your social networks in one place. On this email list, you can promote your latest Pinterest boards, YouTube videos, Instagram photos, your Twitter account, and more. Landing pages are critical components towards growing your email list, and what better place to promote your landing page to the audiences you have already built on your social networks?

#18: Have A Good Avatar

The picture you choose for your avatar has a big impact on how many people follow you after taking a look at your account. If you are using a personal account, have a picture of you. That means no egg, cartoon character, or anything else. The best picture to have for your personal account’s avatar is a picture of you. If you manage or own a business account, the ideal avatar for getting more followers would be a picture of the business’ logo.

#19: Improve Your Bio On Your Social Networks

It is always worth checking your bio every once in a while because it could be outdated, or it may not highlight one of your most recent accomplishments. You should improve your bio to highlight your credentials and the hobbies that you do outside of your business.

When you don’t have many characters to play with, use commas to list credentials and hobbies one by one. Sentence fragments and not including a period at the end of the sentence are okay. If you have more characters available, use periods at the end of sentences (if you want to write in complete sentences, the social network you are using must allow you to use at least 300 characters). Make sure all of your bios on your social networks are similar or identical. When people transition from one social network to the next, they’ll recognize you by your avatar and bio description.

#20: Have A Stunning Background/Header Picture

Some social networks call it a background picture while others call it a header picture. Regardless of what it is called on the social network you use, the picture behind your avatar needs to reflect what you do and promote one of your products.

On my Twitter header, I promote my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter and make my message stand out (Age Is Not A Limit To Success). Your background/header picture can’t just be a random picture from Google. It needs to be a picture that lets people know more about you or your business.

In Conclusion

Amplifying your social media reach is not as challenging as it seems, especially if you have the right knowledge in place. One of the most important tips I could ever give it to be patient on social media. There were times when I wanted to give up on Twitter because I was practically frozen at 1,667 followers for 1-3 months. I’m happy I stuck with it. If you stick with social media and learn new techniques (by reading books and conducting your own research) you will grow your social media reach and spread your message farther on the web.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for amplifying social media reach? Please share your thoughts and advice below.