20,000 Twitter Followers? Aren’t You Popular?! Nope… Apparently Not!

by Natalie @BubbleJobs

So, you have finally bitten the bullet and decided that you need to have an online presence for your business. You have developed your website, and now you want to find ways to generate that all important traffic. How you ask yourself? “I know… I’m going to get someone to develop a Social Media strategy for our business and we’ll be ready to go” .Yes this fantastic free marketing tool is exactly the thing that’s going to get everyone talking about your business…..Or is it?

Many businesses make the common mistake of thinking that simply broadcasting their products or services to everyone on Twitter or Facebook will significantly boost the traffic to their website, almost automatically. Well if you’ve read my other blogs, you’ll know this simply isn’t the case.

Let’s look at Twitter for example. Firstly, for Twitter to be of any benefit to you, you need to have followers. You can’t get Twitter followers overnight. Gaining followers is a lengthy process and often requires reciprocated follows and a lot of interaction and engagement. This obviously takes a lot of time and can often cost you money, particularly if you decide to hire a Social Media Manager, (I don’t come cheap you know!) to oversee this. Obviously, this means that the marketing tool that is Social Media is no longer entirely free.

Some will disagree with me and would argue that it doesn’t have to take time to gain followers on Twitter. Why?… Because you can just buy them. Yes that’s right, there’s companies out there who claim to offer you bundles of 2,000+ followers at a time in exchange for some of your hard earned pounds. Some business owners may look on this as a great opportunity to gain a large number of followers, in a short space of time, whilst keeping the costs down, (after all a one-off payment of a few hundred pounds seems preferable to having a Social Media Manager on your payroll for the next year or so). BUT…what do you gain by using this method of gathering a Twitter following? In short, nothing, and here’s why…

1. The main benefit of using Social Media to market your products and services is that you are able to target audiences that would not otherwise be reached through traditional marketing methods. This is because Twitter is often used as a search tool to identify certain keywords that relate to the products or services that you provide. You then follow these people identified through search and build a relationship with the account holder. The problem with buying your Twitter followers is that the followers bought are not targeted and in many cases, have been gained by deception.

2. This lack of target audience means that it’ll be quite unlikely that you’ll see any Return on Investment (ROI) because you are marketing your products and services to those with little or no interest in what you are offering. Essentially, it is like trying to market pork sausages to vegetarians… absolutely pointless!

3. The lack of targeted information also results in a large number of people deciding that they no longer want to follow you, because the information that you are providing is of no use to them.

4. Merely broadcasting your products and services to followers in a manner which does not engage with your audience is a sure fire way to ensure they decide they have no further interest in what you are offering.

One of the key things about social media marketing using Twitter is that once you have gained those followers, you need to keep them engaged in order to maintain them….And that requires a more ‘social’ approach to your social media strategy!

So, what I’m trying to say here is that there are no shortcuts or ‘quick wins’ when it comes to using Social Media for marketing purposes. If you are going to take Social Media marketing seriously, you’re honestly better off investing your money in a dedicated Social Media Manager or Social Media Marketer to give yourself the best chance of developing an effective and valued online presence.

Tags: Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy, Twitter