Social media presence - How to grow your followers

Whether you are just setting up your business or you are established and want to grow your social media likes and followers, here are a few things to avoid!

Yes, you read that right....Everyone else will tell you what to do and how to do it and we are actually looking at the pitfalls and what to avoid as some of these things are guaranteed to lose you followers and make your posts invisible to the majority of them! 

When you start out you are obviously keen to get lots of followers and likes to your page which is understandable. After all you want to grow your business, increase your customer base and be seen by lots of people, right? 

You will find groups on social media endorsing a "like for like" or "follow" thread where everyone follows everyone to increase each others presence. 
Sounds good, right? You follow them and they follow you!? 
Easy enough and guaranteed to get you followers! 

Now, just think for a moment who your customers are....

For example, if you are a lash technician in Aberdeen, you would want your posts to be seen locally, ideally by people who will book a treatment with you and become loyal clients. 

So far so good. 

Will it help your business to have likes from 
a) other therapists? 
Probably not, as the chances of any of them booking in with you are very slim. 

b) clients or therapists in Devon or London? 
Probably not either as they would be looking for therapist near them and not hundreds of miles away. 

So both options are obviously not going to help you!
BUT its good to have lots of likes to be seen by lots of people, right? 

NO, in actual fact this can work against you and your business. 
Whilst each social media type works slightly different (facebook/twitter/instagram/pinterest etc) they all have one thing in common: 
They all favour and endorse INTERACTION!

Imagine you have a page with 30 likes and 10 of them are clients who follow and like your posts (this is an interaction rate of over 30%). When you share an update they like, comment or ask a question and if you are lucky they might even share your posts. 

Now imagine you have 300 likes on your page which is great news, but because most of your likes are people who have no interest in your business and only clicked the like button as a favour to get your like you might still only have 10 people who book with you and interact with your page (your interaction rate has dropped to 3%). 

BUT instead of 30% of active followers you now only have 3% which means your page is less likely to be favoured by the social media sites and in turn your posts will be shown to less people. It might even be that not all of your 10 loyal followers get to see your posts anymore so even though you have much more likes on your page, your posts become less visible which means less interaction, less new clients and consequently less bookings. 

In some cases the follow me threads can work but as a rule of thumb they don't and we just want to make you aware so you don't fall into this trap and lose business!

Another new craze is the idea that you need to invite all your friends to your page (which is fine) but you can also invite them to your friends page, your cousins page or a friends friend page. 
Brilliant isn't it? Surely its fantastic if you can share the love that way and help each other to build the business. Right or wrong? 

Well lets look at an example, if I am based in Glasgow but get invited to like someones page for joinery in Essex. How likely am I to interact with that page? How likely will I use that Joiner in my home? How interested will I be to see those posts and notifications in my timeline? 
Exactly! NOT at all!
I might humour it for a while but then you are most likely to mute the page, unfollow or just not bother to look at it. 

Inviting others to like your friends page is a great idea, but you still need to be selective otherwise it can work negatively for your friend and even more so for you!
As an example if you receive an invitation from a "friend" to like someone elses page and you decline but every day (sometimes even several times a day) you get reminders and new invitations to like that page, how would you feel? Would you be annoyed? Would you see it as spam? Would it make you unfollow or even unfriend that person (unless its a close friend)?

Yes, it would and that is the opposite of what you want to achieve! 

So, rather than clicking buttons blindly, be mindful of what you do and how you do it! Don't just tick "all" but be selective who you invite or follow and think about 

a) their location in relation to the business you are inviting them to
b) their circumstances or profession in relation to the business you are inviting them to. 

Lets grow each others business in a positive, effective and constructive way instead of blindly clicking buttons which annoys your followers and can damage your business. 

MOTIVATE - HELP - SUPPORT - GROW AND STRENGTHEN TOGETHER