What impact does social media audience building create and is it really worth it to increase the number of Twitter followers you have?
Over the weekend, a Brainzooming blog reader tweeted congratulating me on how many Twitter followers we enjoy for the @Brainzooming Twitter profile and hoping “they generate lots of work/business.”
There is certainly a common expectation of spending time on social media being able to DIRECTLY generate business. The view is fueled by SO many tweets, blog posts, webinars, etc. promising to tell you how to make this phenomenon happen. It is not, however, the reason I started investing time building a social media audience.
In fact, I created a Twitter profile well before The Brainzooming Group started. Social media paved the way to to build a social media audience and get the business going even though revenue generation wasn't an initial element of our social media strategy. Instead, the number of Twitter followers and other people in our social media audience provided a platform and additional external credibility to launch The Brainzooming Group.
All of this is to support why we talk about whole-brain social media metrics, recognizing there will be both quantitative and qualitative benefits from a social media investment, and each type of social media metric can be important from both a business and/or a personal perspective.
11 Benefits from a Growing Social Media Audience
With that backdrop, here are eleven of the wonderful things the very kind Twitter followers who are part of the @Brainzooming family contribute to our business.
Twitter followers:
1. Help build the @Brainzooming target audience – Through recommendations to friends, sharing Brainzooming content, and #FollowFriday tweets (among other ways), @twilli2861, @marketingveep, @justcoachit, and others have increased @Brainzooming Twitter followers to reach part of our target audience we might never have reached as quickly.
2. Create credibility – Holding and growing a base of Twitter followers over multiple years is an indicator of the value of the social media content and interaction we have with each other. This credibility from our social media audience has helped open doors for social media strategy work and was integral to being named to the Innovation Excellence list of the Top 50 Innovation Tweeters.
3. Provide opportunities for additional exposure within the target audience – Twitter followers have provided a variety of new opportunities to increase exposure for Brainzooming among their target audience members. @ToddSchnick has provided multiple ones just by himself, including radio interviews and appearing in his new Kicking Fear’s Ass eBook.
4. Allow Brainzooming to be “seen” with them – Through tweeting with @Just_Stacy recently, a friend of hers was introduced to the Brainzooming Twitter profile and contacted us about developing and delivering innovation training for her company.
5. Introduce the brand to new people – It was an online introduction and follow-up that led to meeting @BobFine and the opportunity to write for his award-winning magazine The Social Media Monthly at its launch.
6. Help define and position the Brainzooming brand for our target audience – One of the metrics I find most rewarding is the number of Twitter lists on which our account is listed in relation to the number of followers. Additionally, through the names of these lists, we get an understanding of how people group and view the brand. (If you have not reviewed the list names of which you are a member, you need to look. It is tremendously instructive.)
7. Share motivation and encouragement – There are a few friends (including @amyrnbsn) who will reach out if my tweets seem “down” to cheer me up. You cannot put a price on that!
8. Point me to intriguing content – I look toward the people on Twitter to point me to great content online. They send me places I would never find for myself.
9. Offer counsel – These conversations usually happen via direct messages and have helped me think through both personal and business issues more effectively. @EAlvarezGibson has been the dispenser of much of this beneficial counsel.
10. Offer creative inspiration – So many people to point to here, but a great example is @DoseofCre8ivity and her 30 Days of Creativity project in the summer of 2012 that was a daily inspiration to for so many people.
11. Help us understand what social media content resonates with people – Retweets and responses to Brainzooming content are tremendously helpful in shaping our social media strategy. Retweets while I was sleeping were an early indicator of active engagement from the Brainzooming Twitter profile global audience, prompting a move to a 24-hour sharing schedule.
What impact do followers have for you or your business?
As I finish this list, I realize I forgot to include all the Twiter friends who have written guest posts, of which @WBendle has clearly been the most prolific, and meeting new people in my hometown, i.e. @JordanEM.
So in response to this weekend’s tweet, this is a PARTIAL list of benefits I get from the great Twitter followers @Brainzooming has for its Twitter profile! - Mike Brown
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