Every business today contemplates a social media strategy on how to gain thousands, if not millions, of Facebook Fans, subscribers, and Twitter followers.
The real question is whether this is the right path for your business. Every successful company throughout history has climbed the ladder of success with the aid of word of mouth and, more importantly, raving fans and advocates of their products and services.
So, how do you get raving fans and then how do you convert them to vocal advocates of what it is you do?
For starters, they need to feel like they ‘belong’. They should be comfortable in the company of like-minded peers and comfortable approaching you on any of your social outposts. The combination of those two factors promotes the beginnings of crowd-sourcing organic advertising for your business’ products.
When you accumulate thousands of ‘junk’ followers, your influence and storyline becomes severely diluted as well as random and off-topic. Potential advocates will feel isolated, confused and will simply wander off in search of a better level of value.
The Better Calculation
Think of an advocate as direct value as well as an influencer for added future value.
One advocate has direct value + additional value through their own influence to their own followers and friends.
Who Are My Advocates?
Whilst I personally see little real world business value in metrics like Klout and PeerIndex, they do have uses in helping you evaluate potential advocates for your brand.
Klout, for example, allows you to better understand who your brand is having some impact on as well as the sorts of areas that person also influences. From here, you’re able to quickly determine whether these areas align and, if they do, you’ve got a prime beginnings of a brand advocate in the making.
The next step is to start actively engaging with them. Get to know them and what they do as well as discover what they find of value from your Social Marketing broadcasts.
Here’s an example from my own own Klout ‘Influencers’ list, to help give you an understanding of where this is leading:
So if my target audience is going to be around ‘Business Coaching’, these two current followers who I already have some perceived influence over are likely going to be exactly what my business is looking for.
They’re already participating in my niche and have their own circle of followers interested in the same things. If you do the math here, that’s an incredibly large network of potential business value for a little relationship-building work. And, for the most part, it becomes an organic and increasing advertising campaign for your brand building.
The Takeaway
Real brand advancement is done through engaging in business relationship building. Take some time to seek out your raving fans and promote your value with those who readily see it and you'll be growing an influential group of specialised followers in no time.
Have you got any tips for identifying high value followers on your social networks? Please let us know in the comments or drop us a line on our Facebook Page.
Martin is the General Manager at Traffika. Follow him on Twitter @Martin_Cooney or Google+
