Last week we talked about what type of social media account you should set up. Regardless of which you choose, you’ll want to start building an audience straight away.
Remember, the value in social media is the depth of the personal connections you make, not the number of people who you’re connected to. You don’t want to get followers quickly—you want to build an audience. They are two different approaches with two different results.
How to start building an audience on a new social media account
1. Add social media icons to every page of your website
Just as your mailing list signup form appears on every page on your website, so should links to your social media accounts. People who are using social media will look for the icon that represents their preferred networking platform.
There are plenty of free icon sets for you to use if you search for them. Group the icons together in an obvious place and include links to each of your accounts.
2. Add social sharing buttons
Add social sharing buttons to your blog posts (e.g. the Facebook Like button or Twitter tweet button). These allow readers to share individual posts with their networks, helping to grow awareness of your blog and your social media presence.
3. Leverage your existing audience
We’re big fans of leverage here at ProBlogger. When you’re starting to build an audience on a new account, the easiest way to do it is to leverage your existing audience.
Write a blog post inviting people to connect elsewhere and add links to your social media accounts in your newsletters. If you’ve already built an audience on one platform, invite them to connect on other platforms too.
4. Add links to your social media account to your email autoresponder
Whether you add a dedicated email to your email autoresponder sequence or simply include links in your automatic welcome email, make sure to invite your subscribers to connect on their social networking platforms of choice.
5. Link to your accounts from your guest post bio
When I was deciding which links to include in my bio, I thought about which would give me the greatest long-term value. Connecting on social media allows your guest post readers to get to know you and create a long-term relationship. Choose to link to the account you are most active on.
6. Include a call to action at the end of your blog posts
Add a link to your most frequented social networking account at the end of each blog post with an invitation to connect if the reader liked what they saw.
7. Add a call to action on your About page
The about page is typically one of the most popular pages on a blog. As the reader learns more about you, be sure to invite them to connect on other social platforms.
8. Add a link to your email signature
Most of us send a lot of email daily. Make the most of that effort and add links to your accounts to your email signature.
9. Highlight your social media accounts regularly
Attracting people to your social media accounts should be considered a meaningful transaction. As with all meaningful transactions, you need to promote this one regularly. Once you start to build an audience, keep leveraging new connections by regularly linking to your other accounts and inviting them to connect there too.
My most important tip?
Go and do these things now. Reading articles alone isn’t going to help build an audience on your accounts. Jump in and use what you’ve got now to build a better blog business in the future.
Next week, I’ll look at the most common mistakes other people make when they start participating in social media for business—so that you don’t have to.
