How exactly do you build a following that consists of more than your wife, your son and some suspicious-looking guy from Idaho?  We're often asked by businesses, both large and small, what steps they need to take to get an online following.  So, based on our experience of over four years creating successful social media programs for a number of blue-chip marketers, here are 6 easy tips:

Step 1. Listen To Your Mother
Social Media is a conversation and your Mom told you not to interrupt unless you had something valuable to add.  Use the search functionalities on the social sites and other tools like Google Alerts to help you listen in on the conversation going on around your category.  Find out what information needs people have and what the hot topics are. Then start to provide commentary and links to interesting articles accordingly.

“Set up Google Alerts on your business name, your products, brands, people, and competitors names”

Step 2. Be Passionate
Match their need with your passion.  Social can be very effective in positioning you as a passionate, authoritative voice.  The grocery marketer, WholeFoods, has 1.7 million Twitter followers.  One way they’ve done it is by letting experts in various areas, such as cheese or wine, speak to what excites them.  Posting your passion also ensures you’ll never run out of material!

Step 3. Make It Exclusive

A study from Razorfish found that 44% of people follow a business to get an exclusive deal.  So do you have something, whether it’s an offer or content they can’t get elsewhere, that you can offer fans?  Sparkles Cupcakes has built a following by offering daily deals on different flavours. Its important to be where your clients are though!

 

Step 4. Ask Your Fans
No one is exclusively online or exclusively offline.  We all use both.  So whether it’s on your website or in your printed material, ask people who know you to follow you. Better yet, follow them, and they’ll likely follow you in return. Also feed your email database into the ‘Find Your Friends’ function available on social sites to find where your biggest fans are in the social world.  Ask them to follow your business. 
Step 5. Be Interested In Interesting Them
23% of the reason people follow a brand is to get interesting and entertaining content.  The more people know about the cool, good things you do, the more you fan the flames of your following.
Step 6. Make It A Conversation
Actively try to get the conversation.  "What do you think?" and "What are some of your ideas?" are good questions to engage your audience.   You’ll find it easier to get the dialogue going on Twitter than on the more passive but visually-richer Facebook. but if your profession has an active online forum dedicated it can work well there as well.
Step 7. Be Patient
Social media is a long term proposition, and not something likely to generate tremendous revenues quickly. Its like anything else worthwhile … it takes time and effort. Invest the time and effort though, and social media may become your lowest cost per acquisition (CPA) over the long term.