Following on Social Media – is your follower activity planned and strategic?

Being ‘social’ – whichever, way you consider it – means, connecting with others – and socialising as part of a group.

Therefore, when you jump onto the social channels, to build a social group, you initially set out by following others (in the hope that they may follow you back).

Who you follow and who follows you determines what you see and who sees your social musings, therefore, it’s really important that you think about who you want to socialise with before you dive in and start following others.

On Twitter, you can search for people, brands – and simply hit the ‘follow’ button – and et voila, that’s it, you will start to see their tweets in your Twitter feed. Unless you already have a social presence (i.e.: movie star, soap star, pop idol, politician, comedian – or some other public figure), then it is likely that growing your following will be based on the formula, the more people you follow, the more likelihood of getting others to consider following you.

And so, this is where strategic thinking needs to come into play.  Ask yourself, who do you really want to socialise with?  Who is important to you and your business?  Who would it be great to connect with?  Who are the people / businesses out on Twitter, who are connected to the right type of audiences?  Who are the people / businesses  that influence your business.   Having a follower strategy can really make the difference between your social activity being a cacophony of noise versus being a really useful networking channel.

Follow wisely – be targeted and work hard at making the right connections.  Target influencers, trade press and the media and companies or people that over time you would like to follow you.

Take a look a your Twitter account and review who you are following – are you receiving useful, purposeful information – or just a whole load of irrelevant noise?  The good news is, you can unfollow anyone at any point – so if your network isn’t currently working – consider getting strategic.  And if you haven’t started out on Twitter yet, then start as you mean to go on.  Think strategically and target those that can help you achieve your objectives.

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This blog post was brought to you by Michelle Carvill, founder of Carvill Creative, the online visibility experts and author of The Business of Being Social – A Practical Guide to Harnessing the Power of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn for all Businesses.