Why Don’t You Have More Friends?
Is social media making you lonely? Do you not have as many friends as you’d like? Got only a handful of fans on Facebook and just a few followers on Twitter?
You might be thinking to yourself, “What am I doing wrong?”
Today I’d like to address that question and maybe, just maybe, make you a few more friends in the process.
So here’s the deal:
Schools are starting to jump on the social media bandwagon. Their using Facebook. They’re using Twitter. But for many schools, their follower numbers are not nearly as high as they’d like them to be.
“Is this really worth the time and effort?” many are asking.
It Is Worth It
You gotta remember that your school’s social media use (a part of your school’s public relations) is a long term game. Just because you started using Facebook and Twitter a few months ago doesn’t mean that everyone in your area is going to instantly start following you. It just doesn’t work that way!
So first of all, remember that this is a long term game. Take things slow and remember that every Tweet, ever Facebook post, and every message you send to your community is one more step in the right direction.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Appreciate The Few Friends You Do Have
Even if you have just a few people following your school online, this is something to be celebrated. The fact that even a handful of people have chosen to listen to you is absolutely incredible.
It’s easy to hear about celebrities having millions of online followers and to think that you and your school should quickly follow suit. But it’s best if you come to terms with reality now and realize that you will likely never have a million people following you and your school online – unless of course you are a major university or some other global brand.
My advice to you here is this: Start treating the few people who are following you now like royalty. Give them great information. Make them laugh. Make them cry. Treat those few people in much the same way you would treat your very best friends.
If you can make those few people love you, they’ll go out and tell others about you. And those people will go out and tell even more people. Word of mouth will spread and before you know it, your follower counts will be up where you want them to be, and the people following you will truly love the information you’re giving them.
Don’t Be Afraid To Weed Out The Bad Seeds
The last thing I want to say about follower numbers is that they don’t mean a whole lot for local businesses and institutions like your own. Because your school is likely located in a single locale, the information you deliver is going to only be of interest to a few select people in your immediate area. This alone means that your follower numbers will never be gigantic.
But what it does mean is that you have an incredible opportunity to network with the few people who really want the information you have to deliver.
Instead of focusing all your energy on the number of people who choose to follow you and your school, focus your energy on building your school’s brand. Make every Tweet matter. Make every post count! The people who want your information will stick around and the people who don’t care will eventually go away. Don’t be afraid to weed out the people who aren’t interested in what you have to say, because they don’t really “count” anyway. Instead, focus on the people you are truly trying to reach… and forget the rest. It sound counter-intuitive, but it works.
Advanced Techniques For Increasing Your Follower Count
If you’d like to learn more about how to connect online with people in your community and increase your follower counts, The Social Media Schools Master Course will be opening in mid-August (less than 1 month away) and we will be devoting an entire section of the course to this subject matter. In the course I will share with you a number of free and easy things you can do to connect with your community online, build a raving fan base, and increase your social media follower numbers. So stay tuned… The Social Media Schools Master Course is coming soon!
