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So you followed my advice and understand why your business should be using social media. You created your Facebook account and setup your twitter account to get started with. You even went in and adding all your business info to Facebook and branded your Twitter page. You are now ready to go but you have hit a snag…how are you going to get your customers to follow you? Well, let’s see what we can come up with.

Tell Everyone!

Yes, tell everyone! Once you have created these accounts you need to get the word out every possible way. You will need to tell everyone your Facebook URL and your Twitter username. Here is a list on just some of the ways you can get this info out:

• Put it on your receipts
• Place posters around your store
• Place a flyer your sales counter
• Put a link on your website
• Add the info to your business cards
• Tell each of your customers verbally at checkout
• Send it out to your email list
• Put it on all promotional material you send out
• and so many more…

Give Them That Push To Sign Up

So now that we have told everyone in every method we could, we need to find a way to encourage and push them to sign up for our social media sites. There are several ideas:

• Contest – Offer a contest to those that sign up. This can be an ongoing contest or just a one time contest. Offer up a prize that will encourage others to want to be a apart of your social media site. This could be a free item or as small as a coupon for an item or service that you offer.
• Social Media Specials and Coupons – This is what many businesses do. They offer up specials and coupons that can only be received if you are part their social media site. Be sure that you offer these up in decent intervals or you may start loosing followers and fans.
• Daily, Weekly or Monthly Quiz – This is similar to the contest idea. You ask a question on twitter or Facebook and the first few people that respond win some sorta prize such as a free meal. This not only helps you to retain followers and fans but also gives them a reason to not ignore your posts.
• Make Them Insiders – Make your social following feel as if they are part of an exclusive club. Share news with them before you share it anywhere else. Make them feel like they are getting information first before anyone else. Offer them the right to reserve tickets to an event before you open them to the public. Things like that will really help drive people into your social media site.
• Show and Active and Full Page – Nothing makes me want to join a Facebook page or Twitter page when it looks as if the business has not put their time into it. When you goto a Twitter site and it still has the default look, default logo, default everything, I am not going to follow you. Same goes for your Facebook page. If you do not have any photos, events, status updates posted, I do not see value in following you. Keep these things up to date. Besides, it does not take long to do these quick steps.

Once You Got Them, Keep Them!

You have worked so hard to get people to sign up for your social media site, do not lose them!

Many will stay on board if you keep your content fresh and you keep your social media site active. Here are some ways to do that:

• Post Photos – A photo is worth a thousand words. People love to see photos of themselves from the past event. Rather than uploading these to your website, put them on Facebook.
• Review – If you start losing followers and fans, look to see what you put in place or what you may have said or what you may have not done that you did before. Once you figure out what it was, do your best to fix it.
• Remember How You Got Them – Basically, you want to keep up with the things you did to get them to join on. If you did a contest to get them aboard, then maybe you should continue to hold a contest from time to time. Keep the coupons and specials rolling and remember to continue your quizzes.

Your Turn

Please let me know in the comment section below what you do as a business owner to pull customers in to your social media site and how do you keep them? I would love to hear from you!