You’re not responding to every comment.
I get that some comments are spam comments and that some comments are people building their own brand awareness by copy/paste commenting. That is, they’re manually spamming.
Here’s the thing: Respond to those comments. Respond to every single comment and delete the trash that is…trash. Take it out. Nobody likes a storefront with a bunch of garbage outside.
Crucial: When you have a human being who is talking to your brand on your Facebook page, Instagram post, or your latest tweet, you respond to them.
Again, if you have time to read those comments, you have time to respond to the comments. If you’re serious about building your brand, you will be serious about interacting with people who show you love with attention, comments, and questions.
Do it until it gets out of hand and it makes sense to hire another person to do it for you.
If you’re tiny, like me, then it’s your duty.
As a human being what do you appreciate more: The small business where the owner knows you by name, treats you like a friend, and gives you attention, or the big corporation that spits out vanilla messages created by a math nerd who sat in a dark room thinking about the mathematics of your psychology?
Personally, I’m going to the restaurant where everybody knows my name and passing on the Pepsi.
I’m more than a math equation, and I appreciate someone with EQ who takes some time to communicate like a human.
Man Bun Love
To build ManBunNation, I went to twitter and typed “manbun” in the search text box.
I then responded to every single tweet that mentioned man buns with a witty, funny and encouraging one liner, in a philosophical, wise voice. As a matter of fact, it was my voice. It was a character. It was real. It was one on one.
People loved it. In 30 days, without spending a dime, the account grew to 1800 followers.
1000 of those followers were fanatics.
Now, people may not like your product as much as people loved man buns for the 2 years they were on fire, but they will love you more when you talk to them.
About the follow count:
The truth is, to kids with 100 followers, the 1000 follower account is huge. But, the small business that thinks it is too fancy to respond because it has a few thousand followers, will lose.
Get your head out of your follow count and get your heart into the communication.
Sounding like a safe robot, and straying away from interacting with and celebrating your fans, customers and passerby is for smug hollywood actors. Not you.
Focusing on paying to build brand awareness through increasing a follow count is like pouring gasoline on a wet log; a flash of flame without enough deep heat to light the base.
Build your base. Be remarkable. Light people up with your truth and watch the fire spread.
Over to you
Whether you have a business, or you’re a social media fanatic, what are some other misses that you see in the social sphere?