Here are 25 easy ways you can get more social media followers:
1. Enable Social Sharing
Add buttons to your blog and even other website pages that allow visitors to share your content on social sites like Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn . Some services like Tweetmeme allow you to add RT @YOURUSERNAME to the end of each tweet shared from your site, so that would help you get more followers.
2. Share Quality Content
If you have high-quality and interesting content on your social media profiles, you’re more likely to get more followers than if you were tweeting purely self-promotional updates.
3. Get Employees to Follow
Tell your employees to follow/like/subscribe to your social media profiles. People are more likely to follow pages that already have some sort of following, so your employees will help build your initial numbers.
4. Invite Partners, Vendors, Clients, and Customers
Send a friendly and personalized email to anyone you have a business relationship with, including partners, vendors, clients, and customers, letting them know about your social media profiles .
5. Email Signature
Add links to your company’s social media profiles in your company email signature. Create a signature template that includes these links and encourage your coworkers to use this signature as well.
6. Blog Comment Signature
When you make a comment on a blog post, link to your most active social media profile (usually Twitter or Facebook ) in a signature-like style.
7. Include Links on Offers and Assets
Link to your social media profiles on your whitepaper cover page, webinar thank you page, one-page guide footer, etc.
8. CTAs on Thank You Pages
After a new lead fills out a form on your site, it’s a good idea to include links or calls-to-action on the subsequent thank you page encouraging these leads to follow you in social media. If they were interested enough to give you their email address, they’ll likely be interested in following!
9. CTAs on Thank You Emails
Just like you’d add calls-to-action to your thank you pages, add them to your thank you emails. Again, new leads are more likely to at least check out your social media profiles.
10. Cross Promote
Add your Twitter link to your Facebook page, and occasionally tweet about your Facebook page. Don’t stop with Twitter and Facebook; you could also cross-promote on LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, etc .
11. Contact or About Us Pages
Including links to your social media profiles on your contact us or about us page will reinforce the idea that your customers and/or prospects can reach out to you in social media just like they could via email or phone. Social media is more visible, so their friends may see their comments to you.
12. Business Cards
Include links to your most active social media profiles on each of your employees’ business cards below their contact information.
13. Newsletters & Lead Nurturing
Include links to your social media profiles in the footer of any company email you send out, including newsletters or lead nurturing emails .
14. Direct Mail Assets
Still using direct mail as part of your marketing strategy? If you can’t let go, include links to your social media profiles on any direct mail pieces you send, including catalogs, coupons, or any other direct mail asset.
15. Facebook: Like Box on Website
Install a Facebook Like Box (formerly known as Facebook Fan Box) on your website. Your blog page, homepage, and other high-trafficked page sidebars are good places to install a Like Box.
16. Facebook: Hide Content From Non-Likers
Create a default tab on your Facebook business page that contains content hidden from anyone who has not yet liked your page. Once someone likes your page, they can see the offer/content you had hidden. This is a great incentive for someone to like your page.
17. Facebook: Suggest to Friends
Encourage your employees to use the Suggest to Friends feature to share your Facebook business page with any of their friends who would be interested in reading your updates.
18. Facebook: Invite Friends Tab
Add an “invite friends” tab and periodically encourage your fans to head over to invite their friends who might be interested in reading your updates.
19. Twitter: Twitter Directories
Add your company’s Twitter profile to Twitter directories under categories that are relevant to your company. This will make it easier for prospects to find you based on their interests. WeFollow , Twellow , and Listorious are just a few of the Twitter directories available.
20. Twitter: Add a Twitter Badge or Module
Promote your Twitter profile on your website by finding a Twitter badge that fits your site’s design, or add an official Twitter widget to your site. Your blog page, homepage, and other high-trafficked page sidebars are good places to install a Twitter widget.
21. Twitter: Talk to People Who Mention You
Track your brand in social media using HubSpot's social media monitoring tool or Google Alerts so that you get notifications whenever someone mentions your brand. When they do, follow them and/or reply to their tweet.
22. LinkedIn: Add Links on LinkedIn Profile
Add a link to your most active social media profile in your links. You can optimize these links by clicking “Other” and write “Follow (Company Name) on Twitter” when adding your link to Twitter, for example.
23. LinkedIn: Add links to LinkedIn Business Page
Add links to your most active social media profiles on your LinkedIn business page. You can add these links in the about section.
24. LinkedIn: LinkedIn Answers Signature
When you make a comment on LinkedIn Answers , link to your most active social media profile (usually Twitter or Facebook) in a signature-like style or as one of the web resources.
25. YouTube: Embed Your Videos
If you have any videos that you’d like to share on your website, add them to your YouTube profile and then embed those YouTube videos on your site. That way people can discover your YouTube page, and you have potential to benefit from YouTube’s viral nature.
Add to the list! What are some of your unique strategies to get more followers on your social media profiles?
Diana Urban is a User Experience Manager at HubSpot. You can follow her on Twitter @dianaurban .
Kochoa 8:46 AM on December 20, 2010
Excellent list. You guys always nail it... Are there any other studies coming out soon for 2010?
John Howlett 9:00 AM on December 20, 2010
The 25 tips are great. I am going to urge my friends, co-workers and
NJ adclub members to review these tips.
Cherry 9:06 AM on December 20, 2010
Quite comprehensive but very basic. It will help beginners to kick off. Thanks for sharing.
Dave Coulter 9:21 AM on December 20, 2010
Good information. Direct, to the point. Thx!
David Belden 9:41 AM on December 20, 2010
Don't forget promotions like contests, sweepstakes, coupons and group deals on your Facebook page. Just be sure they comply with Facebooks promotions guidelines. Using a 3rd party app like Wildfire is a great way to do it. Happy to help any of you with a promotion!
David@wildfireapp.com
Ben Smith 9:46 AM on December 20, 2010
Good basic list. But would like to have seen mention of offline promotion at customer touchpoints, especially for retail or restaurants. Many opportunities to drive new followers through good old fashioned offline promotion. Would also like to highlight the need to have consistent branding across social networks. Being consistent and being easy to find across all networks is another important factor to growing your accounts.
Lynda Margaret 10:16 AM on December 20, 2010
There is so much in here that I have not implemented. I love the clear and concise way that you have laid your article out.
Chris_Epic 10:28 AM on December 20, 2010
Big fan of the Top 25 list format for this post. As always great tips. I've mainly used Twitter to grow the Facebook following for client accounts. Depending on the Twitter demographic I've had success in simply asking Twitter followers for "Likes" on Facebook, usually gets me 10 or 12 new likes each time I ask (given I don't ask much).
Jay Wilder 10:36 AM on December 20, 2010
Bookmarked and tweeted - thanks!
Todd@PhitZone 11:11 AM on December 20, 2010
Excellent ideas that I am implementing right now. Thanks!
Todd
PhitZone.com|Like us on Facebook|Follow us on Twitter
Mark Kilens 1:43 PM on December 20, 2010
Be sure to always exaplin why they should follow you on twitter or facebook.
Give them a compelling reason with value, like a call to action, and you'll see an increase in the number of people following you.
Thos003 3:07 PM on December 20, 2010
Some very good gems in that post... I really liked #16. Thanks for sharing.
Hutch 6:47 PM on December 20, 2010
I thought I had this topic covered but I've seen so much more in this article. Good stuff
Leonardo 5:54 AM on December 21, 2010
Wow Such Big Big List for social media followers..
Coloring Dude 8:46 AM on December 21, 2010
Cool article I found addthis quite handy and an easy way of getting 'social visibility' its also worth looking at your sites audience and altering the social media to suit.
Ana Lucia Novak 11:36 AM on December 21, 2010
Excellent and comprehensive! I'd like to include:
Add your profile to Twellow, and select followers around categories, keywords, and/or location.
Claim local directories listings on Getlisted.org and add your Twitter url, FaceBook and YouTube videos
Brandon Cox 2:16 PM on December 21, 2010
This is a very good basic list. I think as social media grows in acceptance, we can also easily use more simple offline promotions too, such as just putting "@username" on a business card.
Eric Burnett 3:24 PM on December 21, 2010
Great Post, This information is worth a million dollars.
Lani Kee 4:04 PM on December 21, 2010
Aloha..great tips and I enjoyed your post and all the valuable social media strategies. I use most of them, but I will use some that I overlooked. Thanks for sharing! Lani :)
Jean Ban 4:30 PM on December 21, 2010
great post and v. good advice
Italian Vacations 1:08 PM on December 22, 2010
Thanks for all the great points. just started using social media for my business.
Ulrich 2:04 PM on December 27, 2010
I find searching for questions related to my expertise and then answering them without any spammy links works wonders.
Particularly if you can start engaging in a conversation that makes the person want to know more. This way they visit your profile, probably follow you and visit your website.
Ariano Media 4:14 PM on December 27, 2010
This is a great list to get started. We are seeing s trend towards web content curation, and I recommend looking at http://www.curated.by/ to create ans share "bundles:"of web content you find and want to share with clients.
Dino 2:22 PM on January 05, 2011
Wow what a great comprehensive list! Thanks Hubspot for sharing!