What you need to know about gaining more followers on social media.

First off, let me start by saying STOP thinking about increasing your followers!

Listen, you’re going about this the wrong way, your game on social should be focused on how do I bring my customers/audience more value? Jab, jab, jab, right hook – GaryVee anyone?

Your audience is being sold to daily, every minute of the day telling them what they need or want. Yes, you can join that crowd, OR you differentiate yourself and get ahead of the competition by building loyalty and trust.

Let me ask you this. Would you rather have 10,000 followers who don’t care about what you’re saying and only ever like your post or would you prefer to have 500 engaged followers who are ready to buy whatever you’re selling?

Let’s shift our mindset from “gaining more followers” to how can I provide enough value to build trust through my social channels and to create loyalty from my audience to then buy whatever it is I end up selling.

So how do we ultimately do that? Here are three simple steps to get you started. Feel free to test these out, as they’ve all been tried and true for our own social channels. At Chirp, we're out to empower you to become self-sufficient in your marketing endeavours, so you’ll no longer need us or any other agency. 

3 Tried Tested and True Tips to Social Media Lead Generation

Step #1 – Bring value and solve for the customer

Seriously, we’re all tired of being sold to. But, that’s not to say you can’t sell in a tasteful way without putting off your audience. The new way to tastefully sell is by providing value. How can your product or service actually benefit them.

So instead of saying The Top 5 benefits of my product are X, Y, and Z; you could shift your tone to, did you know that we can help with X?

Think about how you can be helpful to your audience, being helpful is selling in the long game.

Step #2 – Start a conversation and be engaging

We often mistaken social media as a platform to tell other people how awesome our company is, or how amazing our product is and how they’ll be losing out if they’re not ready to buy now.

Have you considered that perhaps social media is simply a platform for you to create a conversation and actually build a relationship with your audience? Not every conversation needs to be a sales conversation, sometimes you simply want to be helpful to someone else and guess what, provide enough value and you’re building free brand advocates.

Bet you didn’t think that one through the last time you loudly promoted your product through social media for someone else to buy, huh? Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with “flexing” your product and telling people how great it is. 

But, there is a difference through addressing their primary concerns through your social channel and building trust through the conversation.

Step #3 – Throw a Right Hook, it’s okay to sell too

Just because we’re saying don’t bombard your audience with products doesn’t mean it’s not okay to sell. The general rule of thumb is that there is no rule of thumb. Each business is different and each type of audience likes to be sold to differently.

What you truly want to focus on is what your audience/following wants. Once you’ve thrown about 80% of your jabs (value posts), you’re now able to throw in a right hook (sales post). Let’s be clear though, don’t go overboard!

Try different types of social selling, is it a soft sell to get your audience to join your email list, or a sign up to learn more, join a webinar today, and of course, buy this amazing product that we’ve been talking about for the last month through jabs (value posts).

The difference is, now when you’re creating a “sales post” you’ve actually provided enough value to be able to do so, versus selling with every post (wouldn’t you get annoyed if someone you’re following is selling to you all day)?

Your audience is not dumb, they get the game too and are expecting you to sell at some point. So don’t forget to drop a right hook every now and then, BUT remember, focus on bringing value first.

Ultimately, if you’ve read between the lines of our posts, what we’ve done is essentially created a funnel through your social game. By first bringing value, you’re actually in the prospecting phase, and through creating the conversation you’re vetting your audience for qualified leads. And wrapping it all up in one nice bow, you throw in a right hook that lands you sales which is generating income.

Selling doesn’t always look like selling but it does need to be intentional. Now you’ve got the tools to leverage your social media to help you in sales. Let's power up your social game today with our Social Media Crash Course. We’ve got a few more tips & tricks to offer you.