The Social Media Marketer

Social Media Community - C'mon, Everybody, Follow Me!

Isn't it cute when little kids are playing follow the leader? When they all get in a line and they're trotting along, following the person in the front?  The leader hops, they hop. The leader skips, they skip. It's a lot of fun for everyone!

Well, following in the social media community can be just as much fun.  But just like in the child's game, you can be the leader, too. You just have to give people something good to follow or everyone will wander away.

Of course, we're all busy building our legions of followers on Twitter. I have new people following me every day. Because I'm a writer, most of them are writers as well.  However, I'm picky about who I play follow the leader with, and others should be careful too.

For instance, I don't play follow the leader unless it's someone interesting, compelling or someone whose posts I can use for some reason or another. And of course, I never follow the obviously obscene or immoral, and I'd never dream of letting them follow me, either!

I'm following all the major news services, shopping sites that can save me some money, and my own personal friends. Other bloggers also usually get followed, until they try to sell me something.

Do you want people to follow you? Then give them something they can use.

* Teach them how to do something they don't know how to do already.
* Make them laugh or cry - touch their emotions.
* Save them some money.
* Help them find a job.
* Entertain them.
* Keep them up with current affairs.

So where do we find all these followers? One way is to make sure your posts are SEO ready, so people can find you. If you are writing about coupons, make sure you mention the word frequently in your blogs, social media profiles or Facebook postings.

Post often enough and your name will come up in the search engines, where potential followers will find you.  You can also put yourself out there in the social media community. When you write a blog entry, announce it on your Facebook profile. List yourself under Digg or Stumble Upon. And, of course, tweet about it! 

The social media community can be a fickle place, and there are many people and websites they can follow. But once you work on declaring yourself as someone worth following, and you'll eventually attract your own conga line of followers.

Let the games begin!