Twitter is an effective social network platform which can increase your website’s ranking in search engines. Here’s how you get a decent number of followers on Twitter with these simple steps.
STEP 1: Completely Fill Out Your Profile
The basic step in setting up your Twitter account is to fill out your basic profile details clearly. The basics are:
Your Name
Your Photo
Your Bio
Your URL and location
Posting one to 5 tweets
Let your Bio be descriptive sharing information about your business. Put up your website URL and post some good tweets which ensure a good number of favorites and retweets.
An Example Image of a Twitter Profile
STEP 2: Keep Your Profile Engaging, Interesting And Unique
To get more followers, make your Twitter account shine in its own way and transform it to an interesting medium of sharing resources about your business.
Your tweets can be
Links to related articles on your site
Links to related articles on other sites
Small pieces of interesting facts or news
STEP 3: Share Links To Your Profile And Add Follow Button To Your Website
Building up a good number of followers for your account is very important to gain popularity. And this will become successful if you advertise the launch of your account by sharing your twitter profile links with your Facebook friends and give an announcement in your company’s newsletter or e-mail to your subscriber’s list.
Twitter has four different buttons that make your visitors connect with your account.
Follow
Share a link
Hashtag
Mention
Follow button is the most effective and direct means of getting more followers for your account. You can insert it in a visible place in your website or blog.
Example of Follow button placed in a blog
STEP 4: Find New Followers And Relevant Accounts To Follow
Getting more followers from relevant accounts may be a daunting task for some people. Maintaining a positive follower: following ratio is very important to make your twitter account look credible. It’s good if your followers’ number is greater than your following number.
Some simple tips for getting relevant accounts to follow are as follows.
Sign up for a free tool like Tweepi or Followerwonk which helps in finding out similar people involved in your field.
Optimize this list and follow people from a list that you find interested and keep posting interesting tweets that they find interesting to make them follow you back.
STEP 5: Use Right Hashtags And Join A Twitter Chat
Using relevant hashtags will expose your tweets to people outside your network. Twitter chat is a group where users with a specific Hashtag can meet up at a specific time and chat. This new series called #bufferchat can help you share info and get new followers.
STEP 6: Optimize Your ‘Tweet this’ Button To Include Your Username
You can add a personal touch to your tweet by adding a snippet that includes “via @-username” at the end of your tweet, so that your name too gets displayed when someone shares content from your website.
Screenshot showing how to optimize ‘Tweet this’ button
You can easily get your first 1,000 followers on LinkedIn as it’s basically a business – oriented social networking platform. Let’s see how to get it.
STEP 1: Complete Your Profile Fully
LinkedIn offers great features and options in filling out your profile neatly and completely. The Profile strength icon of LinkedIn serves to be as a sign of indicating how far you’ve been successful in providing full information about your company or business. So, wisely make use of the options and give as much information you could about your business, so that you’ll gain good number of business connections.
You can effectively make use of LinkedIn profile picture, cover photos and other advanced media options available and fill up your profile. Add relevant images describing your field, add portfolio links to your business and don’t forget to upload an apt cover photo. All these will get your business gain good visibility and users tend to know more about your business and stay connected to you.
Different levels of Profile Strength icon on LinkedIn
Sample LinkedIn Profile
STEP 2: Share Your LinkedIn Profile Link With Others via Social Media/Mail
Now that you’ve got a beautiful fully completed professional LinkedIn profile, it’s a must to share with your friends via Facebook and Twitter. Just share your profile link with people so that those interested will look into your profile and get connected to you. The same can be done via email too by sharing the link with your subscriber list.
STEP 3: Create a LinkedIn Follow Button On Your Website
LinkedIn provides three choices of Follow buttons that you can embed in your website. You can select whichever is applicable for your site and get it done.
Three types of LinkedIn Follow buttons
A Sample Blog with LinkedIn Share Button
STEP 4: Invite Your Colleagues To Join LinkedIn And Fill Up Their Profile
This is a good handy idea to help you get a handful of followers for your company profile page on LinkedIn. When you invite your employees, they add you as the current employer on their LinkedIn profile. This automatically takes your company’s profile and logo to appear on their profile, thus giving enough visibility for more people to view it.
STEP 5: Send Genuine Connection Requests, And Accept All Requests
Sending and accepting requests on LinkedIn play a major role in getting more number of followers on your professional network. Always send genuine connection requests by drafting a customized message for the person with whom you’re attempting to get connected. This increases the chances of your request getting accepted. This option of adding personal note in a connection request on LinkedIn is one of the greatest opportunities you can make use of in increasing your followers.
On the other hand, while accepting connection requests, be non – selective. This simply means accepting all requests as your goal should be to have more than 500 connections on your profile. This will make people endorse you for skills and share your profile, thus increasing your chances of being visible on the professional network.
Instagram enables you to capture photos and videos online and share it on various social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Here are some steps which describe how to get your first 1000 followers on Instagram.
STEP 1: Complete Filling Up Your Instagram Profile
Instagram users tend to follow you once after viewing your profile first. So its important to fill up your profile to the fullest including name, profile picture, short description and a link to your business website.
Since your profile header displays seven of your most shared images, it’s essential that you post atleast seven to ten photos before you begin sharing and promoting your profile. Let the images be good and professional revealing what’s in your business.
Sample Instagram Business Profile
STEP 2: Link Your Instagram And Facebook Accounts
Put up a connection between your Instagram account and Facebook account, so that it will help all your friends find you on Instagram.
STEP 3: Frame & Implement an Efficient Commenting Plan For Your Photos
Have a general look on to Instagram accounts and you’ll find that there are more likes than comments for a photo. So, to gain wide visibility, you should figure out ways for implementing an efficient commenting strategy.
Leave comments quickly and easily by typing from a computer.
Comment on recently posted photos.
Comment with relevant hashtags.
Comment on photos with fewer comments so that people can find your comment visible.
STEP 4: Start Liking a Large Number Of Photos
A simple way to gain followers is to start randomly liking thousands and thousands of images on Instagram. You’ll then gain atleast hundreds of followers for your account each day.
STEP 5: Search For The Perfect Hashtags
Research into what most business owners similar to yours are tagging. Get to know the latest trends and hot topics of the industry and discover the perfect hashtags for your business.
STEP 6: Put Up a Hashtagged Feed Of Instagram Posts On Your Website
Your website visitors can come across your Instagram badges and immediately follow you if your business interests them. Therefore, its best to have your Instagram feed inserted on to your website. There are five different sizes of Instagram badges to place on your website.
Screenshot showing how to insert Instagram badge onto your website
Sample Website with Instagram Feed
STEP 7: Tag People
When you tag relevant people in your photos, you’ll automatically get them following you back. Also, they may start mentioning you in their posts too.
STEP 8: Share Your Instagram Profile Links Through Social Media & Mails
Spread your business by sharing your Instagram profile link in Facebook, Twitter etc for your friends to follow. Also, send mails to your mail list sharing your link.
STEP 9: Make Use Of Geotagging Option For Your Pictures And Your Shop
Instagram’s photo map feature is an extra gift for those having your own shop. Take pictures and geo-tag them with the location so that people can know you more. To enable this feature, connect your Instagram via Foursquare.
Google plus is an interest – based social networking platform used by business owners all over the world to increase their ranking in search engines. Following are the steps of how to get your first 1000 followers on Google+.
STEP 1: Fill Out Your Full Profile
Click on the About tab of your Google+ profile to ensure that you’ve filled out the necessary information. The different categories that have to be filled out in the profile are:
The Story showing your tagline, introduction section, and bragging rights
Communities showing the Google+ communities you’ve already joined
Links showing your website, youtube and custom links
Contact information showing your email, phone number and address
STEP 2: Share Your Google+ Profile Link via Other Social Networks & Email
Make your friends become aware of your business Google+ profile link by sharing it with them via other social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This will make them follow your profile and make your business popular. You can also share your Google+ profile to your e-mail subscribers and market your business.
STEP 3: Leave a Google+ Follow Button On Your Website
Setting up a Google+ Follow button on your website is necessary for your website visitors to follow your profile. There are five different shapes and sizes in Google+ Follow button. Another option is to go with a Google+ Follow badge which will appear along with your profile picture, cover photo and tagline.
Google+ Follow button
Google+ Follow Badge
STEP 4: Search And Get Involved In Relevant Google+ Circles
Google+ is the best platform to build up communities between users. When you follow someone, automatically they get added to your circles by which you can start sharing information. Start by searching for circles which would be suitable for your business and then get involved with them.
Just type ‘Circle’ and relevant keyword in the Google+ search box and you’ll find out circles that might interest you and be suitable for your business. Another way is to directly visit pages that interest you and follow them and look at their circles and get involved with them too. This way you can grow the number of your followers by following them and making them follow you back.
STEP 5: Participate And Contribute To a Google+ Community
Google+ communities prove to be a great option for increasing your followers by interacting with a group of users at the same time about an apt topic regarding your business. You can even start your own community with some ideas or topics in mind and start engaging potential customers to participate in it. This creates good visibility and presence and thus promotes your brand over the web.
Being a part of a Google+ community can spread your name and attract more followers too. Through communities, you can get connected to more like-minded Google+ users and start sharing your business discussions and content. This holds to be a direct communication medium with your target audience, which brings in more followers and thus indirectly goes into good revenue yields.
Facebook is an efficient social media platform for new business owners to market their business worldwide. Here are the steps for getting your first 1000 fans on Facebook.
STEP 1: Complete Your Profile Page
For fans to reach you quickly, fill out the important areas of your profile.
About section
Profile picture and cover photo
Website URL
Start info
Address
Description and Mission
Contact information
Make sure that you create and post several updates so that there is good content on your page that readers can look into and know more about your products and services.
Example of a professional Facebook business page
STEP 2: Send Invitations To Your Friends To Let Them Know About Your Page
Make use of the ‘Invite your friends’ option in your facebook page to send invitations to your friends who may be quite interested in your business. It’s better off to select the people who may be interested in your product rather than just clicking the Send Invite button to all of your friends.
You can get reached to 25 to 50 friends by this method and then further proceed after getting a vanity URL for your facebook page. A vanity URL will look like facebook.com/yourbrandname which will give a more professional branded image for your business and eventually, more fans too.
STEP 3: Share Your Facebook Link via Other Social Networks and Mail
Popularize your business by sharing your Facebook URL through other social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Tweeting your facebook link to your followers or sharing your Facebook page would do wonders in maximizing the number of likes for your facebook page. You can implement the same idea to your e-mail subscribers list too.
STEP 4: Insert Facebook Buttons Into Your Website
One of the best things you can do to get more fans for your facebook page is to make use of the different Facebook buttons and widgets that they provide. Have a look at the social plugins of Facebook.
Like button
Share button
Follow button
Send button
Comments
Embedded posts
Activity feed
Like box
Recommendations feed
Like button and like box are the two ideal options you can go for to increase the number of likes and fans for your facebook page.
Website with Facebook Like Button
Website with Facebook Like Box
STEP 5: Pay Out a Few Bucks On Facebook Advertising
In addition to setting up your Facebook profile and sharing it with your friends, it’s also necessary to spend a few dollars to get your page advertised and marketed to your target audience. Since Facebook lacks many of the advanced options of taking your business to the next level, you’d require spending a little and promoting your page and boost your ads to potential customers in the social media platform.
STEP 6: Add a Facebook Call – To – Action On Your Website
You can try working out calls – to – action through your Facebook page for increased fan numbers on Facebook. It should be alluring enough to draw people towards your business.
Have your own short – term and long – term goals in terms of sales and revenue?
Gained enough resources for developing your small business?
Framed a small budget for marketing and promotional purposes?
If your answer is a big ‘YES’ for all these questions, come on and jump into marketing your product worldwide to start making money out of it. There are lots of marketing ideas that you can do manually in your own area to make people come to know about you. But, your goal is to reach all over the globe man!!! But how? Here’s the answer to that too – “Online Marketing”.
Did you know that 61% of global internet users research products online?
Did you know that almost 40% of the world’s population (3 billion people) are using the internet?
Did you know that 71% of internet users are more likely to purchase a brand that they are following in a social networking site such as Twitter or Facebook?
All these facts prove the importance of online marketing for your product to get visible worldwide, thereby getting your potential customers.
Hey, but you don’t need to worry about how to start marketing your business online at the start. With the little number of bucks you have and the least amount of resources or even by yourself, you can make your business online marketing like a cake-walk.
Here are ten perfect ideas to start marketing your business online. Have a keen read on these tips and start using it for your marketing giving a brand image for your business worldwide.
1.Build Your Own Blog
It’s important to have your own blog in your web page and you gotta add posts on a daily basis to reach your target audience effectively. Saying it more clearly, let your blog posts directly or indirectly speak about yourselves and your product to get sold. People always look for useful info that might influence their purchases. So write up posts that would induce your potential customers to buy your products and keep them coming back to your page.
Go through these simple tips about what kind of content you can have in your blog posts.
Collect statistical lists related to your business that might be interesting and make it into a post and share it.
Curate content from other sources and add your own taste of unique content to it, giving due credits to the sources..
Teach your readers by providing ‘how to’ and ‘top10’ kind of lists posts.
Check out your Analytics account every now and then and see which posts have gained more visibility and popularity among visitors, and rewrite or write posts related to such topics.
Be keen on writing catchy titles because only if your headline is attractive, one will have the urge to look into it.
Make good use of templates, infographics, graphs, and charts in your blog posts as people always go for visually appealing content rather than plain-text ones.
So, the key points to keep in mind for promoting your business through the blog are churning out quality content, inviting bloggers/influencers who might be interested in your business and share it over the web platform to reach worldwide.
2.Brand Your Business
What’s branding in marketing?
Assigning a name or a symbol or a design unique to your business can be called as a brand.
A logo is the principal branding identity that provides a distinct image for your business. You want to make your product reach over the globe and the first thing you have to do is to design a special logo.
Just think about some branded companies like Apple, Nike, Reebok,…….All that pops up in your mind is that logo right?
Logos are the face of your business. So, be careful while designing it. The way your logo is designed greatly impacts your customers coming forward to buy it.
Some reminders before designing a logo for your business:
Your logo should be tempting to your target audience.
Let your logo be a unique and special one.
Your logo should be classic lasting with time.
Setup your logo with a trend and not copying from others.
Your logo should be simple conveying its own special message.
Your logo design should support your brand.
Use colors, fonts, white spaces and shapes correctly such that it reinforces your product.
Your logo should be flexible for big screens/mobile screens and its print in black/white color.
Examples of some best Logos
3. Get On Some Stylish Business Cards
The best marketing tool that is handy for your business is a business card. Having an attractive set of business cards in your pocket and handing it over to ever people with each handshake, doesn’t it sound good?
Design your business card with a benefit-driven headline always. It should be like:
“Benefit + How”
For example, “We provide the best home-based food for you by adding organic ingredients” can be the headline for a home-based food style restaurant.
Another point to be kept in mind is, always provide your business card to the other with a specific call to action.
For example, render some firsthand offer for them to download from your website by collecting their email address.
Give a handshake…Slip on your business card into their hands…Let them take a glance into your card and that’s more than enough buddy!
4. Get Your Business Listed On Business Directories
Do you know that nowadays people search on the internet for businesses? It’s necessary that you list your business in some of the main business directory websites so that people can come to know about your business.
Some of the common popular online business directories where you can list out your business are Craiglist, Yelp, Yellowpages, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Angie’s list, Manta, Foursquare, MerchantCircle, LinkedIn, The Business Journal and so on.
There are also so many business directories specific for your business and you can also list yourself in those niche-specific websites.
Guess you don’t have to think over this as it’s completely free!
5.Promote And Advertise Your Product
There are various ways by which you can promote and advertise your product online, thereby gaining potential customers for your business.
Go through these simple ideas that are put forward for promotion and advertisement of your business.
You can implement to cross-sell your product by establishing a joint venture with other business owners who sell products that would complement yours. By this marketing practice, you can easily make your customers buy your product.
Begin a customer referral program by offering your existing customer a free month of service, a free product, or some other profitable reward for referring new customers.
Providing giveaways/free stuff/ sweepstakes for your target audience can again promote your business. This technique is easy and also you can ask for a free email subscription with the submission form.
Make up a Press Release (PR) that’s newsworthy and interesting about your business based upon your data and share it widely.
You can also offer free work or pay a little amount for your website visitors.
6. Send Cold Mails And Make Cold Calls
The next way to trigger up your sales is to send cold emails and make cold calls to potential customers all over the globe.
The main hints for sending a successful cold mail that would generate a good number of leads for your business are subject lines, and then the body of the mail. Subject lines should be always targeted towards the customer focusing on what benefit they would reap out of your product.
Making cold calls is always executed by business owners all over the world to make common people know about their product. This technique has also been successful in generating sales for businesses as people talk over phones and convince customers to buy their product.
7.Adopt Social Media Marketing
Social media has been the recent trend in online marketing and the one which gets you good business online. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Pinterest and the like have taken millions of small business owners to great heights.
Continue reading below to know how to create a brand image for your business via social media marketing.
Make use of your blogger profile for commenting on other peoples’ blog posts so that you’ll be visible on their platform. You could provide useful information to their blog visitors, and automatically people would check your public profile and website.
Setup a Facebook page for your business and start posting updates.
Setup a Google+ page for your business and be active in it.
Setup the LinkedIn Company page and let people know about your business.
Setup Company page on Pinterest and start sharing images and infographics.
Setup Twitter profile for your business and tweet on an everyday basis.
Sign up a Youtube account and start posting videos about your product, teach the viewers and address their common questions too.
8.Gear Up On Email Marketing
Email marketing is taking its grand place in promoting your business online to potential customers. It helps to retain current/previous customers and also gain new customers. Let’s see how it works.
First of all, make sure that you’ve implemented Opt-in for your marketing emails which mean that you obtain prior permission from the customer or recipient of the mail for allowing you to send more emails. This would surely increase your credibility with the customer.
Start an e-mail newsletter and make your new website visitors subscribe to it by offering any bonus content price for subscribing. Then you can slowly grow your subscriber’s list and transform them into paying customers by sending quality emails about your offers and promotions.
Build a candid e-mail signature and add a link to your giveaway content and auto subscribe the person who downloads that.
You can start and continue your email marketing campaigns using free services like MailChimp.
A Sample Simple Newsletter Subscription Form
9. Be A Part Of Networking
Networking plays a vital role in connecting with people doing businesses similar to yours and to other potential customers all around the world. If you have started your business, and just sitting with a cup of drink on your desk, you’re not going to succeed in it. The success of your business lies in how much you get connected with prospective buyers through various networking groups and events.
You can make yourself as a part of local events in your area by either sponsoring food or any giveaways (like custom balloons printed with your business name). The trade show or event that you’re participating should be related to your business so that you can visit and talk about your product to the visitors.
Join Mastermind Groups related to your business so that you can meet partners over there.
You can also get good contacts by joining Membership groups on LinkedIn and Facebook and other forums.
Host your own free webinar.
Finally, don’t forget to send out gifts and handwritten Thank you cards to your customers via post.
10.Publish Great Content
Content Marketing is becoming the backbone of so many businesses and it yields good returns in turn for the owners.
Just grasp these key points on how to publish good content which will, in turn, yield good revenue for you.
Focus on your audience
Add visual elements (infographics, videos and slides)
Interview experts in your industry and publish it in your blog
Let your titles focus on Top 10 lists which attracts people to read
Write e-books, whitepapers, guides and publish it in your website
Don’t just stop with framing up with good content. Get on with publishing and sharing it on top social networks and your email subscribers and then you get to see its results soon.
