social media tips

3 Ways To Fire Up Your Frozen Social Media Strategy

March 4, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Have you ever tried running outside in the middle of the winter? It’s downright difficult, but if you have run in the middle of the winter, you know that the only way to complete the workout is to keep on keeping on.

Maybe you live in Florida where it’s sunny all year long, or maybe this happens to be an evergreen blog post that you may first come across in the summer. But we all know what it means to be frozen from a business standpoint.

Not getting much results, losing control, no revenue to spend on different business tools.

It’s easy for a social media strategy to get frozen. Some people create elaborate social media strategies but throw up the hands if the strategy begins with a bust.

At other times, the social media strategy works but starts to see a small decline. A social media strategy can see a small decline for a variety of reasons such as a change in your audience’s tastes or outsourcing gone wrong.

No matter the reason why a social media strategy freezes up, everyone in this situation wants one thing in common. They all want to fire up that social media strategy so the frost melts away.

The results you have wanted are within that frozen social media strategy, but you must thaw the ice with the fire of your soul. Here’s how you build up the flame that thaws the ice.

#1: Expand Onto Several Social Media Platforms

If you always rely on one social network to bring you all of your results, then you are making a mistake. It’s great to focus on one social network until you master it, but once you master a social network, you must not be afraid to expand.

After I mastered Twitter, it became my blog’s most valuable asset. However, I realized I had put too much reliance on one source when, because of a weird glitch, my Twitter account would get compromised every 33 hours.

This went on for over a month, and I would have to wake up early in the morning (at 6 am or earlier) just to check my email and unlock my Twitter account if it got locked.

Sometimes, it would be locked up for hours in which none of my scheduled tweets went through.

I learned that while social media is good, you should never rely on one social network to bring you straight to the finish line. Not only because some glitch may affect your account, but also because social media is constantly changing.

Twitter is considering extending the limit from 140 characters to 10,000 characters. I conducted a Twitter poll and discovered that most users wouldn’t be happy with the change.

Are you happy with the 140 character limit or do you want to see #Twitter10K happen?

— Marc Guberti (@MarcGuberti) January 7, 2016

Maybe some people decide Twitter is just like Facebook and just spend time on Facebook instead. Maybe it’s a revolutionary change that transforms the way we use Twitter and allows businesses to thrive on it.

But speaking of Facebook…

Remember when a business page’s posts could reach out to everyone who liked the page? I don’t remember that. I became a player in the social media space too late for that.

Right now, various articles have been published that identify how many people who like a business page can organically see the post.

The number is different depending on which article you read, but typically 1-4% of your Facebook audience will organically see the post.

How do you get everyone else to see the post? Easy. You pay Facebook.

Maybe your social media strategy is frozen because you have been relying on one social network to make everything happen.

Social networks change, and different people use different platforms. The more distributed your audience is across all of the social networks, the more people are likely to come in contact with your social media posts.

#2: Outsource Your Social Media Workload The Right Way

Outsourcing has forever changed the way I do my business work. The simple reason is that I can now give any of my workload to someone else.

I asked myself what I would never outsource even if I could clone myself a hundred times. The list was small. Writing content, engaging with my audience, and creating videos were on the top of the list.

Everything else by definition became a distraction. The social media workload I had put on myself for all of these years was suddenly seen as a distraction.

So I decided to outsource a large percentage of my social media workload—scheduling tweets, growing my Twitter audience, growing my Pinterest audience, and sending out pins were just some of the things that I outsourced.

The result was that I could tap into the entrepreneur’s most valuable resource: TIME.

I suddenly had hours of extra time that allowed me to create more Udemy courses (I can now create a new course every 1-2 weeks) and returning to self-publishing.

Some of that extra time went towards making my social media strategy better.

I had more time to experiment with Facebook ads and quickly grow an audience of over 40,000 people on Facebook. I am continuing to gradually grow that audience while experimenting with Facebook ads for my posts which is where the money is on Facebook.

However, if you outsource your social media strategy incorrectly, the result will be miscommunication and a frozen social media strategy—even if you know everything there is to social media.

There are certain tools that always allow you to retain control but still outsource the work. The tool I came across for outsourcing my Twitter growth was ManageFlitter.

I knew how to get 300 followers per day, and I wasn’t getting those same results as consistently when I outsourced my workload to someone else.

ManageFlitter allowed me to regain control through RAM (Remote Account Management) and one of the best filters I have ever seen.

And for those of you curious about the RAM prices in 2016, here they are (I looked everywhere for the current prices, so now that I can always see them, I wanted to provide them in this blog post).

If you don’t feel 100% comfortable with one of your freelancers, then you need to do one or more of the following:

Communicate with that freelancer to fix the problems.
Look for someone else and fire the current freelancer.
Look for an online tool that can do the job.

Your social media audience is very important. If you decide to outsource your workload, be sure to keep an eye (especially sharp in the beginning) on the people who you give control to. Make sure they are fulfilling your expectations and doing what you tell them to do.

If any of the work you outsource to other people is time sensitive, hire a back-up freelancer to make sure the job gets done (i.e. scheduling social media posts).

#3: Spend Money On Your Social Media Strategy

Before I go into spending money on your social media strategy, I want to address that just because you spend money to grow your social media audience does not guarantee everything will fall into place.

So be cautious about how you spend your money on social media marketing, and when you decide to spend money, never dip in the red.

Now with the warning established, I’ll go more into detail about spending money on your social media strategy.

Right now, I only spend money for two parts of my business: outsourcing and social media. I have gone in detail about the outsourcing already, so I won’t mention it now.

Spending money on social media marketing is where it gets interesting. You need the combination of superior online tools, effective advertising, and a budget.

Let’s start with the superior tools. For Twitter, I use ManageFlitter and HootSuite. Just to have access to those two tools, I pay over $300 every year. The results I get from them are worth the investment, but there is more to these tools than their functionality.

Each time I must spend money to continue using HootSuite and ManageFlitter, I have added motivation to make more money from my efforts. Added motivation to create that extra training course or write that extra book. Added motivation to do more marketing.

The tools provide motivation, but their functionality is the reason I invest in them. I wouldn’t spend money just for the sake of getting motivated to make more money. Make sure that when you spend your money, it is spent in an effective manner—not for the sake of it getting spent.

As for social media advertising, Facebook is your best bet for getting results at an affordable price. Some people make their entire income from Facebook ads. I haven’t heard as much about Twitter ads. In my opinion, Twitter is better for getting an organic audience and playing without paying a penny.

The social media advertising landscape will continuously change, but right now, Facebook is king in that department.

The way people make money through Facebook advertising is by promoting their posts that lead people to (preferably) landing pages or sales pages. Initially, you should spend some money building your social proof on Facebook with inexpensive likes (depending on the countries you target, you can get Facebook likes at the rate of $0.01 or less per like).

As you spend more money on your social media strategy, you will force yourself to get more savvy. Investing in your social media strategy is an investment in yourself. That investment makes you responsible.

At that point, all you have to do is analyze your results, constantly experiment in a search for better results, and make sure you stay within your budget.

In Conclusion

Your social media strategy may look frozen now, but by taking action, you can thaw the ice and tap into your social media strategy’s inner potential.

The reason social media strategies freeze up is because results are not obtained, there is a reluctance to taking action, and there is a fear of what will happen.

Social media is the most valuable platform known to mankind. It is the platform where over 1 billion people communicate to each other using tweets, pictures, pins, and posts.

To win on social media, you must stick with it and always find a way. I know that three years ago when I didn’t understand social media, I would have been frustrated about the previous sentence.

During those times, I thought, “JUST SHOW ME!”

But the way you truly win on social media is by sticking with it and always finding a way. Logging in every day and scheduling the posts. You get closer and closer with every day that you take action.

What tips do you have for firing up a frozen social media strategy? Do you currently face the problem now? What advice do you have for people who want to avoid a frozen social media strategy? Sound off in the comments section now!

100 Social Media Tips In One Sentence Each

November 25, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Social media is a complicated tool. Once you know how to use it, social media presents one of the best opportunities for growing an audience and your business.

This blog post is a way for me to make the learning curve much easier for you. The best part is that all of these tips are one-sentence tips so they will be quick reads. Building a solid foundation for yourself is essential for you to take your social media strategy forward. Here’s the foundation:

#1: Do a little bit each day to move your social media strategy forward

#2: Be present on the top social networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others)

#3: Choose which social network is the best one for you and spend 80% of your social media time on that one social network

#4: Master one social network before trying to master another social network (think of mastering social networks as learning different languages)

#5: Outsource some or all of the work

#6: Post on your social networks consistently by scheduling posts with HootSuite

#7: Have a social media post calendar that identifies when social media posts for specific social networks need to get scheduled

#8: Engage with your audience

#9: Get into other conversations

#10: When a chat related to your niche is trending, join that chat and tweet with the hashtag

#11: Most of your social media posts should point back to your content (one of your blog posts, guest posts, videos, etc)

#12: Use pictures in your social media posts to boost engagement

#13: Experiment with advertising on social media (Facebook ads work the best)

#14: Utilize hashtags in your social media posts (1-2 hashtags per tweet but Instagram posts should be stuffed with seven hashtags)

#15: Promote your landing page on your social networks, and if you don’t have a landing page, create one now.

#16: Don’t over promote your products on social media

#17: Make sure your bio highlights as much about you as possible

#18: Make your bio a sentence fragment with commas and no “and” or period to list as many credentials as possible

#19: Don’t let the shiny object (i.e. a new social network) distract you from mastering your main social network

#20: Get on new social networks immediately, but don’t let those new social networks ruin what you already have going on

#21: It is ridiculously easy to gain hundreds of daily followers on the day a new social network launches, but only if you use it (I was an early Periscope adopter and gained 1,000 followers on the first day because I did two broadcasts)

#22: Occasionally share other people’s content related to your niche to provide a variety of content for your audience

#23: Recognize the fact that social media is just one part of your business so you don’t spend too much time on social media

#24: Build relationships on social media

#25: Look through your interactions to see if one of your followers wants to interview you or have you as a guest blogger

#27: Contact people who have podcasts and guest blogs and offer your help (in the form of being a guest or contributor but do so with a nice tone since some people get a lot of these types of emails/social media posts)

#28: Look for methods to save as much time as possible on social media

#29: Pay extra money for social media tools if it means you save extra time

#30: Use HootSuite to do all of your social media activity instead of going on the actual social media sites (more productive since you don’t see the trending topics and other stuff)

#31: Write down important things that you learn about social media

#32: Create a blog about social media so you force yourself to learn something new about social media every day

#33: The avatar for all of your social media accounts must either be a picture of you or your company’s logo

#34: If you make the avatar for all of your social networks the same, your followers will have an easier time identifying all of your social media accounts.

#35: Keep up with the latest social media news so you can determine if you need to make a change in your social media strategy

#36: Focus on the social networks that yield the best results

#37: Ask yourself what small changes to your social media strategy can yield better results (you’d be surprised)

#38: Remind yourself what are you aiming for in your social media strategy

#39: Get all of the social media mobile apps and engage with your audience on the go

#40: Hire one virtual assistant for your social media strategy and see how the experience goes

#41: Don’t get consumed by social media

#42: Focus on growing a targeted audience instead of merely growing an audience of people who may not even be interested in your content

#43: NEVER, EVER, EVER buy fake followers because it will taint your reputation and possibly result in your account getting suspended

#44: Cross-promote your content so all of your social networks are promoting each other

#45: If something is working very well for you right now, ride with it until it stops working

#46: Don’t get distracted by anything when you are using social media

#47: The way you use social media determines how successful you become on it

#48: Look at your post engagement so see what type of content your audience likes the most

#49: Then give them more of that content

#50: Thank the people who share your content by mentioning them or commenting on the post

#51: Understand that social media is the best platform for indirect and an okay platform for direct sales

#52: Getting indirect sales on social media means building trust and providing valuable content that eventually asks for an email address

#53: Get help if you need it

#54: Implement what you learn because most people stop at the learning part

#55: Ask your favorite experts some quick questions that don’t require lengthy answers because some of them may then respond and offer advice

#56: Follow back to build relationships

#57: Follow people in your niche who are likely to follow you back

#58: Post at the optimal times throughout the day (these differ for each social network, but for Twitter, if you are tweeting once every 15 minutes, then it doesn’t matter for Twitter)

#59: Tweet once every 15 minutes

#60: Publish two YouTube videos every week

#61: Post three Instagram pictures per day

#62: Post four Facebook posts on your FB Page per day

#63: Send pins consistently throughout the day (at least one pin per hour)

#64: Don’t do everything from Tips 59-63 if it means you are going to overwhelm yourself with work

#65: Outsource some or all of the work related to Tips 59-63

#66: Promote your social networks on your blog

#67: Promote your new blog posts at least five times on your social networks on the day your blog posts get published

#68: Create multiple social media accounts on the same social network to promote your content

#69: Create a team of ambassadors that will share your content on social media no matter what

#70: Create evergreen blog posts (they will still be valuable years later) and promote them on your social networks often

#71: It is okay to share the same thing on social media more than once

#72: It is okay to have a posting cycle that results in you sharing the same thing dozens of times throughout the year

#73: Use Twitter polls to create a new type of social media engagement

#74: Ask your followers what they want and use their suggestions as blog post or product ideas

#75: Publish your blog posts on LinkedIn so they have a greater reach

#76: Use AdWords to advertise your YouTube videos at the rate of $0.01 per view

#77: Use Facebook advertising to get your Page likes for less than $0.01 per like

#78: Constantly monitor your social media ads so you see which ones are consistent and which ones need to get tweaked

#79: Share content from authority sites like Forbes, The Huffington Post, and others

#80: Get you know your followers by name and avatar

#81: Answer a need on social media that you believe most people are missing

#82: Tweet about your niche 95% of the time because if you go off-topic too much then people won’t stick around

#83: Valuable content is content that your audience believes is valuable, not what you believe is valuable (I have read many blog posts about running but never tweet them out since my targeted audience cares more about digital marketing blog posts)

#84: Be patient with your social media success (to achieve any type of success, you must be very patient)

#85: Don’t get discouraged when you get bad results because you can always make a change

#86: Use social media in a meaningful way

#87: See what other experts in your niche do on social media and mimic then while adding in your own style

#88: For any social network, focus on getting past that 1,000 follower milestone through almost any means necessary (no buying fake followers or doing things you’ll regret later)

#89: Don’t use too many social media tools but instead ask yourself which social media tools you can live without

#90: Statistics for your social media strategy let you see your results, where you are, and how you can improve

#91: While these statistics are good, if you spend too much time viewing them without taking action, then you are walking into analysis paralysis

#92: Take a one-day break from your social networks if the workload gets too stressful

#93: Pin a tweet to the top of your profile that promotes your landing page so your audience always sees it

#94: Use social media to promote product discounts

#95: If you become a part of an affiliate program, use social media to promote other people’s landing pages that have your affiliate ID.

#96: The focus of social media should be to build trust between you and your audience

#97: Write blog posts at a consistent and frequent rate so you have more to share with your followers

#98: Search your blog’s URL on social media to see who’s sharing it (not everyone will mention you when they share your content)

#99: Use the Twitter Advanced Search to find very specific users who you can then engage with

#100: Always have fun on social media

In Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed these 100 one-sentence social media tips. It took me a while to compile the list.

The main purpose of providing you with all of these tips is to give you a foundation. I understand that you won’t implement all of these tips in one day. However, the hope is that a few of these tips grabbed your attention more than others. The tips that especially grabbed your attention are the ones that you need to get started on.

If I had to implement these tips, I would look into growing my audience and outsourcing the work. Outsourcing the work allows you to explore the implementation of more of these tips (and eventually outsource that too).

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for social media success? Which social network do you spend most of your time on? Sound off in the comments section below.

What To Do On The Day You Create A Social Media Account

November 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Just a few years ago, this blog post would have been unnecessary. I am talking about the time when MySpace fell to Facebook. Social media wasn’t a buzzword yet. In those days, it was just Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Those were the three top social networks.

Less than a decade ago, comparing those top three social networks with any other social network was like comparing a boulder to a pebble.

Now we’ve got Pinterest, Instagram, Blab, and Periscope, just to name a few. Each of these social networks is #1 at something. In one blog post, you can discover how much better Pinterest is than Facebook. In another blog post, you can discover how much better Facebook is than Pinterest. They have different qualities and millions of users.

For us, this means three things:

Brace yourselves. More social networks are on the way!
New opportunities
You have to create accounts for those social networks

The third thing is what this blog post is about. How many times have you heard that you need to start using Instagram? How many times have you heard that you need to start using Pinterest? If you haven’t heard it yet, how many times do you think you will get told to start using Periscope?

Whether you use these social networks or not is up to you. What isn’t up to you is that if you want to use a social network, you must create an account for that social network. After you verify your email address and have your account set up, here’s what you need to do:

Make Your Account Look Nice Right From The Start

There are few Twitter avatars worse than the egg. There are few Pinterest avatars worse than the white pin in the red background. There are few Facebook avatars worse than the faceless person in the blue-gray background. These are all default pictures that make your account look bad.

The avatar is the first thing you must change when you create a social media account. But what you choose for your avatar is just as important as changing the default.

The best avatar to use is the avatar that you have been using for your other social networks. All of my social media profiles have the same avatar picture, and that is by design. People remember a face easier than they remember a name.

Since I use the same avatar on all of my social networks, it is easier for my Twitter followers to make the connection when they see my YouTube channel. If my Twitter avatar pictures was of a rainforest and my YouTube avatar was of a volcano, it would be difficult for people to identify the two accounts with the same person.

That’s why I use the same avatar for my social networks. However, I don’t just use any avatar. I use an avatar that shows me. I don’t get a cool picture of nature from Google and make that my picture. I want people to see a face behind the content. When people see a face and associate that face with your content, those people will have an easier time remembering you and your content.

Some social networks also allow you to provide a background picture. Your background picture should let people know more about you from a personal or professional standpoint. In my background pictures, I lean towards the professional side.

While it is possible for you to use Google and get a picture, virtually none of those pictures will be the one that perfectly defines you. There are two ways to get a picture that perfectly defines you (okay fine. Close to perfect):

Create the picture yourself using Canva (a free tool on the internet that I’d recommend to anyone)
Hire a freelancer to create the picture for you (you can get a freelancer to do the job for $5 on Fiverr)

Before you create the picture or hire a freelancer, make sure you know the dimensions of a background picture. The social networks are not uniform. The dimensions for a background picture on Facebook are completely different from the dimensions for a background picture on Twitter.

Not all social networks utilize a background picture. However, if the social network you create an account for includes a background picture on your profile, make sure the background picture is nice. Since you just created the social media account, you would be fine if it took you 1-7 days to come up with an awesome background picture. Even beyond the seven days, it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t have an awesome background picture.

But the avatar is paramount. Changing the avatar must be one of the first steps you take after you create a new social media account.

Writing The Bio

An effective social media bio lists all of your accomplishments and workload that you fit into that bio. The best social media bios are typically sentence fragments—a bunch of words separated by commas. No conjugations (and, or, but) and definitely no period at the end of your bio.

This blog post explores more methods to crafting an effective social media bio.

Send Out A Massive Amount Of Posts

When you have no audience, you won’t annoy anyone if you post five times per minute. For some social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, you can easily send valuable posts. All you do is post a relevant, valuable article, and then you’re done. Publishing 20 of those types of posts in one day would give your new followers content to look at when they go to your profile.

Think about it this way. Would a Twitter account be more attractive if it had 0 tweets or if it had 1,000 tweets?

Create A Strategy

Once you get more comfortable with the social network you are on, the next step is to create a strategy. How will you achieve growth? What type of growth are you looking for? What type of experience will you provide for your audience? How will you build relationships on that social network?

Those four questions form a strategy. Getting better answers to those questions requires that you learn more about the social network you are using. Social media experts like to write blog posts about the newer social networks since they’re hot.

I wrote a few about Periscope right when it came out. I wasn’t alone. I have read numerous blog posts about Periscope (FYI: if you want to learn about Periscope, then Kim Garst is your gal).

To learn more about the social network you are using, you must read numerous blog posts about it. The more knowledge you absorb, the stronger your strategy will be.

In Conclusion

Creating an account on a social network can be an exciting experience. The powers of socializing and opportunities increase with every social network that gets created. Periscope defied the rules by giving anyone the power to live stream. I like to think of a Periscope account as your own TV channel.

It’s exciting to think about the opportunities, but to fully utilize those opportunities, you must learn from the experts and experiment on your own. The experts become experts by experimenting and then discovering what works.

Remember when it was just Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? The party’s gotten a lot bigger since then.

What do you advise we do when we create new social media accounts? Did one of these tips resonate with you the most? Which social network did you most recently create an account on? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Interact With Your Social Media Audience

July 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Social media includes the word “social,” and this well-known fact eludes many brands when they go about their social media strategies. Many brands and individuals use social media as a way to broadcast their message without responding and getting to know their audience—the very people brands are meant to serve. Many of the brands and individuals who don’t interact with other people don’t interact because interaction rarely leads to short-term results.

Although interaction does not lead to short-term results, it does lead to long-term results. Some of the people I engaged with on Twitter continue engaging with me and my content to this day. Thousands of people have tweeted about my blog posts, and I interacted with many of those people. In fact, I still interact with some of them, and I have interacted with some of these people in the past 24 hours. Several of these people became my customers. The long-term result of meaningful interaction is a strengthened relationship in which a person likes you and trusts in what you do. Interacting with the people in your audience will allow you to amplify your message because more people will share it on their social networks. Most successful people don’t become successful on their own. They get help from other people. Interacting with your audience will allow you to find people who will help you become successful, meet new people who you can build relationships with, and give you and your audience a better experience on social media.

Now that you know the importance of interaction in a successful social media strategy, here are some of the methods you can use to interact with your social media audience.

#1: Thank Them

Each time one of my followers shares one of my blog posts, I thank that follower for sharing the article. Few people get thanked for sharing content on social media, and based on their response, my followers appreciate when I thank them.

Thanking someone is an act of courtesy, but in this case, also an act of humility. I acknowledge that all of the individuals who visit this blog allow it to become successful. I can create the blog and write the content, but if no one visits my blog, then my message won’t spread. My audience makes it possible for my message to spread, and for that, I am deeply grateful. Realizing how important your audience is for your brand’s growth and current progress will allow you to develop a deeper appreciation for the people in your audience. Acquiring this deep appreciation for your audience will give you a good reason to thank someone in your audience each time that person does something as simple as sharing one of your articles.

#2: Be Kind

Regardless of whether you interact with your audience with your personal account or your brand’s account, your responses form a part of your reputation. If you always respond kindly on social media, then that will positively impact the reputation of you and your brand. However, the moment your responses become disrespectful and insulting, the reputation of you and your brand gets damaged. Building a reputation takes a long period of time, but that same reputation can be destroyed and taken down in a matter of minutes. Consistently showing kindness 100% of the time will allow your reputation of kindness to stay strong, and if your audience sees you as a kind individual, they will pay more attention to your brand.

Not only is kindness important from a reputation standpoint, but kindness also encourages more conversations to take place. We like to interact with the people who are kind to us because they appreciate what we do. Moreover, it is easier to interact with a kind person and have a meaningful conversation than it is to interact with a rude individual and expect a meaningful conversation to build. Kindness allows you to strengthen your reputation, and if you have a strong enough reputation, the people in your audience will gravitate towards you and your message.

#3: Ask Questions

Once you start interacting with someone on social media, you want that interact with that person for as long as possible. One of the most basic ways to continue an interaction on social media is by asking a relevant question that you know the person in your audience could easily answer. You don’t want to quiz your followers too often (i.e. asking when Twitter was created), but you should ask them opinion based questions (i.e. asking whether a follower uses Twitter more often than Facebook or vice-versa). Asking opinion based questions allows you to hear the opinions from the people within your audience, and some of these opinions can become inspiration for your next product or blog post.

Once you get a response for your question, there are several ways to take the conversation further. You can ask another question, but in most conversations, excessively asking questions leads to an annoying encounter. You want the conversation to be a blend of your questions and insights. When in doubt of how to respond to someone’s social media post, think of an actual conversation in real-life. The person interacting with you on social media is someone behind a computer screen who knows the difference between an enjoyable conversation and a socially awkward encounter. How would you respond to that person in real-life to keep the conversation going? What is the best way to respond (on social media, you actually have time to think before you respond)? After asking yourself those two questions, type your response and send it. Then, wait for the other person to respond.

#4: Seek Relevant, Meaningful Conversations

When you first start out on social media, the conversations don’t readily come into your notifications tab. As you get more followers, your notifications tab will be filled with people interacting with you and trying to start a conversation. Regardless of whether you are a beginner or massively successful on social media, seeking relevant, meaningful conversations is a great way to interact with more people and grow your audience in the process.

With over two billion tweets getting sent every week along with billions of other posts from different social networks, relevant, meaningful conversations occur all of the time. The only problem is trying to discover these conversations so you can interact with the people having the conversation. Using a social network’s search engine and looking for keywords within your niche is an easy way to find conversations that take place. If you use Twitter, then you can use the Twitter Advanced Search to find conversations taking place in your niche. In my opinion, the Twitter Advanced Search is the best social media search engine on the web.

Once you find a relevant, meaningful conversation that you want to be a part of, become a part of that conversation. Leave your response. When you leave your first response, you don’t introduce yourself. You simply jump right into the conversation. Once you jump into the conversation, wait for the other people in the conversation to respond, and formulate your next responses based on the other people’s responses. Don’t stick around if you see a conversation going out of control.

#5: Provide Insights In The Conversation

You won’t always get the opportunity to provide your insights in a conversation, but when you get the opportunity, include your insights. When you add value to the conversation, the people you interact with will be grateful for that additional value. Some people will be so grateful for the initial value that they will look for more value that you provide. These people will go to your blog and take a look at your product sales pages and possibly buy your products. One central belief many people share is that a product must be better than free value (i.e. blog posts and YouTube videos). If you over deliver in free value, then your product offers will be more attractive because the people in your audience will believe that the value in your products must be legendary. At that point, all you must do is live up to that promise.

In Conclusion

Interacting with your audience allows you to know the people within your audience. Too many people exclusively use social media to share content without interacting. These people want more traffic for their blog posts and social media posts that spread farther. Taking 5-10 minutes every day to interact with your audience allows you to build the long-term relationships that are necessary for consistently rising blog traffic and social media posts that spread farther. If you want to grow your social media audience, then it only makes sense to engage with the audience that you have already built.

Do you interact with your followers? Do you believe interacting with your audience is worth the time? What tips do you have for getting more interactions and continuing conversations? Please share your thoughts and advice below.