To help you start fostering those relationships online, we’ve put together 10 strategies for building a community that your clients and customers want to be a part of.

Let’s dive in!

1. Use Social Listening

The first idea is to pay attention to what your audience is saying online about your industry and what their problems are. This is called social listening, and it’s the perfect way to be proactive about what your audience wants from businesses like yours.

Take advantage of social listening tools to help you track certain keywords, topics and users. Tools like Mention are the perfect solution for watching conversations online.

Keep an eye on the online interactions surrounding each of the items you decide to track in order to learn more about what your clients are interested in and what they might want to learn more of from your business.

Then, solve those problems and address those interests any way you can. This doesn’t just have to be through your services. In fact, you can offer a resolution through your giveaways, content marketing, add-ons and more.

2. Create Community Groups

One great way to create genuine and authentic connections with your clients is to launch online community groups.

There are several online spaces that are perfect for hosting a community for clients and other interested parties to join, like Facebook or LinkedIn groups, Slack communities and more online community building platforms.

Brands like Visme host online communities for their users, providing informational content and product insights, as well as giving them a chance to discuss projects with each other.

Create and promote a community for both clients and potential clients to join. Start discussion threads, share valuable information and build an online group/networking area.

Not only is this a great way to build stronger connections with your clients, it’s also a great way to strengthen your personal branding as well as improve brand awareness.

It also enables your brand to create a word-of-mouth funnel for generating new leads. People will refer people to your community and they will want to work with you after seeing the value you already offer.

3. Promote an Open Feedback Channel

Create a way to get honest, anonymous client feedback. Put together a forum, web page, email account or whatever is best for your workflow exclusively for accepting feedback. You can also consider using chatbots to collect instant feedback on your website.

Moreover, make sure to pay attention to the feedback you receive and implement any necessary changes to better serve your clients.

There are many different ways you can create open feedback channels and welcome client concerns.

First, make sure to be open from the get go with your clientele so they feel comfortable leaving feedback and information in these channels.

Second, consider your target audience and the way they prefer to communicate. You want your feedback area to cater to your audience and be easy for them to use.

If they prefer email, send out anonymous surveys or provide a contact email specifically for this type of communication. If they’re tech savvy, you could create an open forum or embed a form on a web page. You could also create polls to share with your clients.

Be sure that you let all of your clients know about this channel for expressing concerns anonymously as well so that the chances they take you up on it are much higher.

4. Showcase Clients in Social Media Content

Talking about client success stories and your biggest clients is a great B2B marketing strategy. There are a number of different ways to do this.

First, consider creating case studies to showcase clients who have seen major results due to your work. These are effective selling tools and allow you to highlight your clients and get them more exposure as well.

You can also share client social media posts onto your own feed or simply promote their products and services, like we see in this example below.

For B2B and tech industry clients, using Twitter marketing tools. For more visually-oriented clients, sharing photos on Instagram can be a great way to lead your audience directly to your clients’ websites and social profiles.

If you hop on this strategy, you can measure engagement and clicks on those posts as one of your social media KPIs, and even let your clients know how each one has performed. They’ll definitely appreciate the added gesture and exposure.

Consider creating social media ads and PPC campaigns as well for even further exposure.

5. Create a Loyalty Program

Have you had a handful of clients for a longer period of time? Show them you’re grateful for their loyalty and continued business by creating a loyalty program.

This is a great way to reward return clients each time they sign up for services, when they reach major milestones or when they refer new clients your way.

There are many different types of loyalty programs and rewards you could offer, from discounts to cash bonuses, as well as simply asking long-term clients how they would prefer to be rewarded.

Another option could be to create an affiliate marketing program to give clients who refer to work your way a portion of the profits.

6. Check In With Clients

The best way to build a great rapport with your clients is to be incredibly communicative and upfront. There are a few different ways you can go about this.

For instance, create regular update meetings or emails to let clients know about your progress while you work on a project. Another idea is to be fully transparent about any clauses you may have in your contract.

Also, if any obstacles come up, be clear and communicative with clients from the get go. They’ll be much more appreciative to hear about delays beforehand, rather than after the deadline.

And if you’re waiting on a client for something, don’t be afraid to send a follow up email or two in order to help move the process along smoothly.

7. Put Together a Regular Newsletter

A fun strategy for both strengthening your existing client base and opening up an opportunity to gain new ones organically is by starting a newsletter that you send out to your email list.

Sending newsletters with valuable content can help your clients feel even better about working with you because you obviously know your stuff. Come up with a topic or structure for your newsletter that you can easily update with new information each time you send it out.

You also want to make your newsletter easily shareable so your clients can send it to others who might be interested, generating new leads for your list.

Also, be sure to promote your newsletter across your own online channels, like your website or social media profiles, in order to reach an even wider audience, just like this freelancer did on Twitter.

8. Offer Exclusive Discounts/Sales

One way to make return clients feel valued is by offering exclusive discounts or sales every now and then.

While you never want to sell yourself or your business short, occasionally hosting a flash sale or placing a discount code on a random web page can be a fun Easter egg for your clients.

Choose different outlets each time you decide to do this, like a blog post, a web page, a social media post, a newsletter, or even at the end of a webinar. Disappearing posts, like Instagram and Facebook Stories or Twitter Fleets are also the perfect platforms for announcing a limited-time only sale or a discount code.

9. Create Valuable Content

Content marketing is huge for creating connections – as long as you’re consistently creating valuable content for every step of the customer journey.

Not only that, but content marketing is also a great way to reach an even wider audience, both through social shares of your blog content and the organic traffic that your SEO content can generate.

Valuable content isn’t just limited to your blog, though. Creating video content, podcast episodes, infographics, SlideShares and other types of unique content are great ways to expand your network as well as share your knowledge.

You can further engage your audience through enticing YouTube intros, interactive content and the like.

10. Show Your Brand Personality

Being genuine and authentic in all of your communications, both with clients directly and in your online content, is a great way to build relationships and community foundations.

Social media marketing is all about building connections and being your authentic self, and you want to show your followers who you really are and what you really stand for.

Part of ensuring you show off the brand personality you want to convey is putting together a brand voice. This should embody your company mission, the traits you want your brand to emulate and the reason you do what you do.

Here’s an example from TOPOL.io where they showcase their brand personality through emoji and friendly, relatable messaging.

Look for ways you can convey the same fun, energetic voice in your own copy and online content so you can let your own brand personality shine.

Strengthen Your Own Client Relationships

Building stronger connections is key to long lasting client relationships, so it’s time to start putting a few of these strategies in place. Determine which ones make the most sense for you and your business, whether you’re a freelancer or solopreneur, or you’re representing an entire company.

The post Best Ways to Connect With Your Clients to Build a Strong Community appeared first on OmniKick.

Digital voice (and video) transmission tech dates back to 1995, but since the internet wasn’t as powerful as it is today, VoIP wasn’t a feasible communication channel. The sound quality was dreadful, the connection unstable and the calls cut off all the time.

Eight years later, Skype released the beta version. It was the first globally known, audio-only VoIP service that in the following years expanded to video calling, file sharing and more. 

We could argue that VoIP tech started developing much earlier, with AT&T’s Bell Labs and Picturephone in the sixties, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that VoIP went mainstream.

The internet connection quality rapidly went up, and VoIPs followed. In 2019, the U.S. VoIP industry has reached $14 billion — and with the current global health situation, we expect these stats to skyrocket by the end of 2020. 

Now, why do these stats matter and what does VoIP have to do with marketing strategy anyway?

We plan to reveal that in today’s blog! 

For now, here are some spoilers:

• It saves tons of money
• Traditional phones’ features cannot compare
• VoIP brings local flair to across-the-globe communication
• Office presence is not required
• You’ll have an insight into precious data and the ability to act on it instantly
• Customers are happy and so is the customer support team — feed two birds with one scone (no stones here, birds are cool)

Sounds good? Thought so — let’s dive in, so you can learn how to build the best marketing strategy yet with the business telephone system your enterprise deserves.

While Running Costs Go Down… 

Introducing VoIP into your business enables you to cut the costs in multiple ways, and is one of the main reasons to adopt this model of communication.

Installation costs. First of all, there is no need to install a special office phone line or any new hardware. VoIP uses the existing equipment and infrastructure you own and only requires an initial 15-minute installation. The only thing you need for your VoIP to work is an internet connection. It is much more expensive to set up the traditional telephone system — and it lasts longer.

Call pricing. Remember when you accidentally called an international number as a kid and had a “fun” conversation with your parents when the phone bill came in?

No?

Well, some of us do — and while it wasn’t really a fun conversation, the call surely was expensive.

Anyway, the cost of international calls with traditional phone systems didn’t change much. The costs are based on duration and distance from your base, and there are no freebies. 

VoIP providers offer cost-effective plans at lower prices, and many of them even include this feature for free or provide free minutes.

Service maintenance and overhead costs. Maintenance costs are also higher, while the only running cost of a VoIP comes from the data usage. Additionally, it’s much cheaper and easier to add or remove extra phone numbers than it is with POTS (plain old telephone service). 

Updates. When it comes to scalability, VoIP wins again. The software and bandwidth updates are faster and easier than POTS updates, as VoIP requires no additional hardware installations. 

Features. Finally, the features such as Call Transfer, Call Forwarding or adding remote extensions are included in the basic VoIP packages. With POTS, each additional feature needs to be implemented separately, and it adds up to a hefty bill. Most of them are only available with cloud technology in the first place.

In the end — this saves you plenty of money when it comes to telecommunication costs!

…Conversion Goes Up!

Saving lots of money is already great news, but on top of that — using VoIP increases the conversion rate as well!

By using this type of cloud service, you have an opportunity to expand your marketing strategy through other channels besides online ones. In addition to email, ads, social media and others, VoIP will enable you to reach out to your customers and speak directly to them.

There are multiple scenarios in which issues cannot be solved the other way. Some of these include:

• Explaining something complicated
• Having to answer plenty of questions
• When it’s urgent, important and/ or personal

Although cold calling does have a bad reputation for being intrusive, it’s not what it used to be (and even when it was, back in 2010, it still had a better success rate than email). Reps have many tools at their disposal to “preheat” the call and contact people who are a good fit, and cloud tech that VoIP resides on is one of them.

Now we’re diving into the customer satisfaction area! In the following chapter, we’ll explain how VoIP technology helps you warm up what was once named “cold call” and converts leads to long-term customers.

Maximize Customer Satisfaction — Dynamic And Effective Communication

Handling the impatient customers’ requests fast is a must if you want to stay ahead of the competition. Keep them on hold just a bit longer, and you’ll lose the happy customer; with that, you may miss a bunch of referrals from them, as well as a future purchase.

By using VoIP, you’ll have instant access to all the info you can need! Cloud technology stores and updates the data in real-time, making access fast and intuitive. This makes the conversation effective and most importantly — short. 

The following features will help the reps handle the calls at all times:

• Call History — access the list of calls made earlier to keep track 
• Call Recording — listen to the previous conversations with a certain client and stay up to date with their situation
• Call Comments — leave useful notes for future reference, or access them to learn more when taking over the customer from another rep
• Shared Call Inbox — allows multiple sales reps to participate in call and help if necessary

Still, customers and clients can reach out to you in more ways than one. Email, Chat or Phone Support — everything goes, so even the customers that shy away from speaking over the phone have a way to ask for help or info.

Website Call Widget is another thing that makes it easier for customers to reach out. They can use it to make a call without leaving the website. Customer support reps can assist them at the moment of speaking, and guide them through the problem-solving process. Email exchange could take days — this way, everything can be resolved in a matter of minutes.

In addition to the features described above, VoIP has a way of handling the calls even before the reps pick up the phone. Queue management with IVR menus, auto-attendants — all of these direct the customers to the right department instantly, eliminating the need for transferring the call and without wasting their (and reps’) time.

What’s also amazing about VoIP is that you can do all of this outside the office!

VoIP Increases Your Availability — No More Office-Bound Work

If you opt for VoIP instead of a landline, you can work from anywhere, provided that you have a stable internet connection and your device is not showing technical troubles. Just the same, you can use any smartphone or laptop — from the office, home, coffee shop or any other location you pick.  This can be especially powerful for digital nomad solopreneurs who create educational resources like online courses and want to offer consulting on the side.

It’s possible to assign the same business number to multiple devices, so you’re never caught off guard (or with an empty phone battery without a charger in sight).

This option became crucial in 2020. for the obvious reasons. However, being able to answer the call this way would still matter if the current situation didn’t have the dystopian elements. 

For some businesses, being available outside the typical office hours is a prerequisite. 

Then, there are different time zones you want to cover if you strive for a global presence. In the end, for huge customers in the crucial stages of the sales funnel, not answering the call is not an option! This way, you can speak to them whenever they want, and provide them with an exceptional customer experience. 

Also — did we mention that VoIP opens the doors for the markets far away, but makes it look like you’re right there?

Global Reach With Local Appeal — With Geographical Number Targeting

Need to reach the customers located across the continent? 

VoIP allows you to pick a phone number that matches any geographical location you wish. This also means that you can use multiple phone numbers, a different one for each area.

With this feature, your small business can have the appearance of a bigger enterprise, with HQs established in multiple cities, or even countries. Local numbers also help with customer segmentation — their needs may vary depending on the location, so you can easily group them and present them with offers relevant to their location and cultural preferences.

As it strengthens your company image, it also appeals to local customers. They will see a familiar area code, and won’t think that you’re far away, or that the call will cost them a fortune. And it really won’t — VoIP packages include toll-free numbers as well!

Geographical number targeting is also a great way to track the ad campaigns, and then analyze and compare their success. Find out how to do it below!

Measuring Your Campaign’s Success — See What Works Well And Improve Instantly

Continuing with local numbers and ads success — there’s a “trick” that will show you what ad converts the best. 

When you’re putting the special, local ads together, include the local phone numbers so your customers can use them to contact you. VoIP can provide you with a fair amount of those numbers. Then, you can take a look at the stats, and see what number brings the most calls and sales! This way, you can pinpoint which ad worked the best and make a direct connection between the ads and the sales.

You can also apply this strategy when determining which web pages on your website have the best CTAs. Create and place a special number on each page (or place the Website Call Widget there), and you can estimate the success by noting down which number got the most calls.

However, VoIP has more useful functionalities that help you build marketing campaigns with high conversion rates. Integrate it with your existing CRM and sales tools and you’ll get an interactive dashboard, with all the data right where you need it.

Help Your Customer Service Team — Improving Performance With Little Effort

Including VoIP in your sales and customer service teams’ tech stack will make them work efficiently and alleviate the everyday stress that comes from working in a fast-paced environment. 

The features are devised with teamwork in mind. Assign the Call Owner, and you’ll leave no place for confusion, as everybody knows their tasks and who to turn to in case they need extra info or help. Dedicated Account Manager is in charge of key customers with a long track record of high-priced purchases — eliminating the need for multiple reps to juggle several accounts and mix them up.

The Call Recording feature we mentioned also helps with onboarding new team members: go through the notable calls with them, and you won’t need to schedule special onboarding sessions. Practical, real-life examples are the best learning material!

A Shared dashboard brings the whole team together; no matter where in the world your reps are located, they can access the data in real-time and communicate with coworkers.

Summary

For every well-made marketing strategy, it’s important to go where your customers are. Using VoIP, next to live chat or emails, provides yet another channel for you to do so. 

It’s a cloud service that seamlessly integrates into your existing tools, and ties them together into a powerful kit that makes your teamwork fast and effective. Not only will your team appreciate it, but the customer satisfaction levels will notably grow. Installation and maintenance are cheap and easy, and it pays off on so many levels!

The post How To Build An Effective Marketing Strategy Using VoIP appeared first on OmniKick.

Then Jared seeks wisdom:

I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff…

Dr. Laeeq Khan, the director of Social Media Analytics Lab, Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, wrote on The Hill:

Trump was the most Googled candidate, and also most mentioned on Twitter and Facebook.

Trump had 4 million more Twitter followers than Clinton.

Clinton’s social media engagement increased somewhat by the third debate, but by then many voters had made up their minds.

Donald Trump, the most unfavorable presidential candidate in U.S. history, used social media to win the presidency.

There’s no limit to what you can achieve with social media.

You need to build an engaged audience to be successful on social media. Without an audience, there’s no way to be successful.

Imagine a Twitter user with 40 followers sharing an update. Who’ll see it?

Nobody will see the update when you take into account the fact that social media posts disappear pretty quickly.

But when a Twitter user with 40,000 active followers share an update, you can be sure that it’ll receive some engagement in the form of retweets, likes, and replies.

So how can you build a massive audience on social media?

Know your audience

Dale Partridge has built a massive following of over 370,000 fans on Facebook.

His fans share one thing in common: Entrepreneurship.

When Partridge shares a post on his Facebook page, it always receives a decent number of likes, shares, and comments from his fans because it resonates with them.

To be successful in social media, you need to know your audience.

Who are they? What do they like to read?

Imagine yourself being invited to give a speech at an event where you know nothing about the attendees. You may deliver a terrible speech. You could also make a great speech. There’s no way to know.

Now, imagine you’re given some information about the audience. You know who they are, what interests them, why they are at the event, etc.

Armed with this information, you can make a speech that will interest your audience.

Take a piece of paper and pen and write out details that help define your audience.

Write:

• Age
• Demographic
• Income level
• Education level
• Interests/hobbies
• Gender
• Relationship/Marital status
• Behavior
• Lifestyle

Determine your audience size

After you’ve recognized your target audience, it’s time to estimate their size. You don’t want to choose an audience that’s too small.

Having a small audience size is not a good thing. It means few people are interested in your social media activities.

I’m a big fan of the Facebook Ads Manager.

After inputting some details about my audience in the Ads Manager, Facebook estimated my potential reach to be 45 million people, which seems good.

Let’s assume that you’ve defined your audience and know its size, what’s next?

Be aware of the best practices of your chosen social channels

I’m sure you have some social media platforms in mind, where you want to build your audience.

These are the four biggest social networking sites right now:

1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. LinkedIn
4. Twitter

Each one of these platforms has its unique differences. People have different mindsets and expectations when they are on each site.

Facebook is the most popular social site with over 1.8 billion monthly active users.

Facebook users expect to connect with you on a personal level than on any other social network. The primary reason people sign into their Facebook accounts is to stay connected to their friends and families and know what’s happening in their lives.

All your friends are likely to be on Facebook than any other social site.

Instagram is all about images.

Where are you? What are you doing? What are you looking at? Who are you with?

Just like Facebook, Instagram is personal. It’s for sharing those real-life moments.

LinkedIn is different from the rest of the social outlets because it’s specifically designed for businesses and professionals. People only go to LinkedIn to showcase their job experience and professional thoughts.

Twitter is the best place to get trending topics. And if you want to stay in the loop in any industry, just follow the right people on Twitter.

The hashtag (#) was popularized on Twitter.

When you see a trending hashtag on Twitter and decides to use it in your tweet, people from around the world will see it. People who aren’t your followers may retweet, like, and comment on your tweets.

Let’s talk about these four social sites because they are the biggest.

Facebook marketing best practices

Facebook is the perfect place to be if you want to build a massive audience online.

Before you start building your audience on Facebook, you should know its best practices.

Facebook best practices are accepted and the most effective marketing techniques for Facebook.

What are they?

Create a Facebook Page

A Facebook page is a free marketing tool for both individuals and businesses. It costs nothing and less than a few minutes to create a Facebook page.

With a Facebook page, you can contact your fans every day and remind them of your presence.

An active Facebook page helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field. It’s your home on Facebook.

For example, below is Tim Ferriss’ page on Facebook.

Host contests on Facebook

Contests work well on Facebook. It’s one of the effective ways to get your audience pumped up on Facebook.

Think of products your audience loves, and offer them as prizes to contest winners.

The great thing about contests is that they help you build your audience on the world’s biggest social platform.

Here are some things you can ask fans to do to qualify to win:

• Like a post
• Like your page
• Comment on a post
• Post to your Facebook page

Below is a screenshot of a mall running a contest on Facebook.

Read Facebook Guidelines before running a contest.

Create a Facebook Group

A Facebook group is like a community where your fans can interact with each other.

What’s the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group?

A Facebook Page allows you to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. Facebook pages are visible by default.

A user only has to follow you to receive the latest updates on their News Feed, so they don’t have to visit your page again to see the most recent posts. They see it automatically because they’re following your page.

A Facebook Group is a community of people who share common interests and express their opinions.

When you create a group, you can either make it public or private.

A private group requires administrator approval for new members to join. Current members can also invite their friends to join.

Creating a Facebook group is a great way to extend your reach and build deeper relationships with your audience.

There will be some individuals in your audience who are experts too. A Facebook group gives them the opportunity to share their tips and help others in the group.

For example, Stuart Walker uses his Niche Hacks Facebook group to communicate with his fans.

Your group can help you develop relationships that’ll generate more sales for your business.

You can also use your Facebook group as a customer service hub for your products and services.

Promote your post with Facebook ads

Facebook marketing expert, Claire Pelletreau recommends you set aside anywhere from $40-$400 per month to dedicate to one thing:

Promoting a handful of the posts you publish on your Facebook page.

Facebook users won’t organically discover your posts, especially if your Facebook page is still new. You need to put your posts in front of them. Facebook advertising is the way to do that.

You should be willing to test your ads with different formats and posts and go with the ones that receive the most likes, comments, and shares on the platform.

Utilizing facebook ads library may also offer insightful analysis of the marketing tactics performed by other companies, giving you the knowledge you need to improve the reach and engagement of your own ad campaigns.

Instagram marketing best practices

Six hundred million people use Instagram monthly. If you want to build an audience who loves images and young, Instagram is an ideal social platform for you.

What are the best practices for marketing on Instagram?

Publish eye candies

If you can post visually-stunning content, you can build an audience on Instagram.

Millions of photos are being uploaded to Instagram each day. If you can make your image stand out, you can succeed.

Your images should be attractive. Show Instagram users something they haven’t seen before.

Geekdom Media uses Instagram to tell their podcast audience the next episode the team is working on.

Post from unique locations

Instagram users can quickly get bored with your posts if you keep publishing photos from the same location. They want to see something new each time you post.

You should be ready to explore the world if you really want to build an audience on Instagram.

Some people go as far as visiting different exciting cities and attractions. That can be very expensive of course. But it’s the price you have to pay to become an influencer on Instagram.

Tell good stories

There should be a story behind every image you share. Write your story in the caption section.

What you write in the caption will help followers understand the real message behind the image. It makes it easy for users to write comments that relate to the image.

Top Yacht Charters uses Instagram to tell interesting stories about available yachts.

Use Hashtags

As I mentioned above, hashtags originated on Twitter. Today, they’ve become part of every social media channel.

Hashtagging is an important activity on Instagram. It increases the reach of your images beyond your followers.

There are a lot of Instagram users who follow hashtags.

For example, some people follow the #coffee hashtag because they like coffee so much.

Posting an attractive and creative image with the #coffee will expose your brand to coffee lovers. Isn’t that a smart thing to do?

LinkedIn marketing best practices

LinkedIn is a site for professionals. It’s a place where you should act and be a professional.

If you want to build an audience who are professionals and entrepreneurs, LinkedIn is the best place to do that.

A lot of professionals have used LinkedIn to build multimillion-dollar businesses.

For example, James Filbird used LinkedIn to build JMF International Trade Group Ltd, to $5 million in revenue largely through his effort on LinkedIn.

Matt Guiver, the founder of Jumpstone International, a firm that helps business owners tackle complex challenges and take strategic actions that move their businesses forward should be an active LinkedIn user.

Create a professional profile

Marketing on LinkedIn starts with your profile.

Do you have a customized profile URL?

Do you have a customized background photo for your LinkedIn profile?

Do you add your work experience on your profile?

Do you show your work samples on LinkedIn?

Are you getting endorsements for your skills on LinkedIn?

Publish on LinkedIn Pulse

Publishing on LinkedIn offers visibility for your name and company.

Unlike Facebook where your post can organically reach 2.6% of your followers, LinkedIn lets you reach 20% of your network.

Twitter marketing best practices

Twitter’s 140-character bite-size updates transformed the world’s access to real-time information and social media.

It wasn’t possible to read the news in 140 characters before Twitter came.

Twitter is more of a place where people share and discover the latest events in the world than where they connect. Succeeding on Twitter is easy when you understand the unique difference of the platform.

As I write this, a huge Google Docs phishing scam is going on. Twitter made me aware of it, so I’m unlikely to fall prey to it if I’m targeted.

Keep your updates short on Twitter

Unlike most social platforms, where you have all the space and freedom to write long updates, Twitter doesn’t allow you to do that. You have a limit of 140 characters.

To succeed on Twitter, first, you must learn how to write short, educative, interesting, and entertaining updates in 140-characters or even less.

Use visuals in your Tweets

Tweets with images receive 18% more click-throughs, 89% more likes, and 150% more retweets.

Twitter users love images. By sharing more images you’ll become more successful on Twitter.

Use hashtags

Once in awhile, there’s a trending topic or event that you have something valuable to contribute to. For me, that is the best time to use hashtags on Twitter.

Don’t use hashtags in every update you share on Twitter. Or even worse, don’t use unrelated hashtags. In fact, don’t force hashtags into every Tweet you share.

If you believe your Tweet would add value to people who are not your followers, or individuals who are following a particular hashtag, then use it.

Respond to other people’s Tweets

If you want people to share and reply to your Tweets, you should be willing to do the same thing. Give what you want.

Recently, I responded to Rand Fishkin’s Tweet. He did the same to mine.

Give people a strong reason to follow you

There are already enough influencers on the web today.

The articles, videos, images, and podcasts that are being published on the web on a daily basis are so much that web users can’t see 1% of them.

For example, I follow influencers I like on Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even iTunes.

Reading all their content is impossible.

If you want people to add you to their already massive list of influencers whom they respect, you should give them a strong reason to do that.

There are four questions you should answer before you can create a great reason for people who may be interested in you on social media.

1. Can people trust you?
2. Do you really care about your audience?
3. Can you offer your audience a sense of stability?
4. Can you offer them hope?

Let’s start with trust.

People trust you because of the achievements you’ve had. If you’re a complete beginner who hasn’t achieved much in your field, you’ll find it difficult to gain people’s trust when you’re just starting out.

The trust in you will increase over time as you continue to achieve results in your field.

For example, a lot of people follow Gary Vaynerchuk because he’s had a lot of success over the years.

You have to deliver on a consistent basis, in a reliable manner and walk the talk before people can begin to trust you.

Next is caring. Do you really care about your audience?

Showing you care is going the extra mile for your audience. For example, responding to messages, social media comments, and shout outs.

Another way of showing you care is delivering the content of high-quality they won’t find elsewhere on the web.

The third question is about stability. Can you offer a sense of stability to your audience?

A lot of your followers want to quit what they are doing right now. Many of them aren’t looking for any magic secrets because they know it doesn’t exist. What they need is a constant reassurance that they are on the right path.

They sometimes lose confidence in themselves. They just need someone to cheer them up. Yes, your fans are like your babies. That’s why they are your followers on social media, and you’re their leader.

Your audience also needs hope. Perhaps they are going through some tough times now. For them to follow you, they need to be sure that the future will be bright.

They want to feel optimistic each time they see your updates on social media.

You can’t give people all these things the first time they see you on social media. But by continually delivering over a long period of time, you’ll grow your following on social media.

Develop a growth strategy for social media

Everyone who is looking to build an audience on social media searches for strategies that work.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning of this article until this point, you’ve seen the tactics that work for each social platform I listed above.

There are a lot of social media marketing tactics out there.

Every social media tactic won’t work for you. Because it produces results for some people doesn’t mean you’ll have the same success with it.

Peg Fitzpatrick is a social media expert who manages over 11 million followers across various social channels. Below is what she has to say about developing a growth strategy for social media.

Your social strategy is the plan that’s going to make your social media work.

It’s a combination of content creation, content curation, creativity, and organization.

Random acts of social media won’t do a darn thing to help people find you or to be known for a topic area. To build your authority in your niche, you need to create a solid social strategy that will help people find out who you are, what you do, and most importantly how you can help them.

You need a solid growth strategy to win on social media.

Pick one or two strategies that have worked for people in the past. Test them and see if they are working for you. Drop any strategy that isn’t working for you and find another.

You can’t be doing random things and expect success on social media.

Jason Stone built an Instagram following of over 2 million by sharing image quotes about entrepreneurship, motivation, money, and education.

You don’t have to start from scratch. You can learn to use other people’s growth strategies. Perhaps, in a unique way.

How will social media grow your business?

It’s good to know your “why” for building an audience.

The process of building an audience on social media is tough and boring.

Your “why” will keep you determined and laser-focused.

It’s not enough to know what you do or how you do it. You should know why you’re doing it. That’s what makes you continue doing it.

Almost everyone knows how to build an audience on social media. There aren’t any magic secrets to making it work.

Why a lot of people are not building an audience on social media is because they don’t have a reason to. That’s why they aren’t doing it.

People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

Do you want to use social media to promote your business?

Or, do you want to use social media to become an industry expert and increase your chances of landing a top executive job?

What is your “why” for building an audience on social media?

Tell me using the comment box you’ll find below.

The post How to Build a Massive Audience on Social Media appeared first on OmniKick.

Coca-Cola has been using Santa to market its brand since the 1920s. And you know what? He always boosts their sales.

Various brands have been using influencer marketing for a very long time. And it still works today. Although it has changed a lot, it’s still pretty much the same thing. When a well-known or liked figure recommends a brand, people who know that influencer would want to buy from the brand.

Influencer marketing has gone digital. There’re influencers on every platform online. There’re influencers on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

While there’re lots of influencers online, it doesn’t mean that they’re created equal. Some influencers have more star power to drive sales to your business than others.

So, don’t go out there and hire any influencer.

An influencer doesn’t have to be a celebrity to make lots of sales. He or she only needs to have a decent number of followers and receive regular engagements from them.

Don’t consider big names with millions of fans or hundreds of thousands of followers. An influencer who has 50,000 fans can send more buyers to you.

A study found that the “sweet spot” is 100,000 followers when looking for an influencer who would be effective for your brand.

There are diminishing performance returns for influencers that exceed that “sweet spot” of 100,000 followers.

Influencers who have 100,000 followers or less are your best bet if you’re operating on a low budget.

This is the influencer marketing guide you need to learn everything you need to know to plan and execute a successful influencer marketing campaign.

What is Influencer Marketing?

To create an effective influencer marketing campaign, you need to know what it means.

I like this definition from Sujan Patel on BigCommerce:

Influencer marketing is leveraging the reach of an existing influencer who has built a large following and strong brand reputation in a particular niche to support your brand, endorse your product, or co-create content, with the intent to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

The perfect influencer should like your product or service before promoting it to their followers. When an influencer shares a product or service with their fans, what they are doing is vouching for it.

If followers become disappointed, the influencer’s reputation will take a hit. The fans may not trust that influencer again.

So, a great influencer ensures that the product or service they recommend is excellent and high-quality. They’re confident that it’ll help their followers before sharing it with them.

Influencer marketing is very different from traditional marketing. In traditional marketing, you target the market directly. You could target them with content or ads.

In influencer marketing, what you’re doing is building relationships with influencers. You entice them to try your product or service for free. If they believe that it’ll deliver immense value to their followers, they recommend it.

Why Try Influencer Marketing?

With influencer marketing, you can build a well-known brand within a short time.

You’re aren’t building an audience from scratch to sell your product or service. You’re leveraging the relationship influencers have with their followers.

When you leverage that relationship the right way, you can build a profitable, successful company within a year.

Below are some reasons you should try influencer marketing over the traditional marketing approach.

People Trust People

People don’t trust companies. They trust people. That’s why Circle Surrogacy uses stories of surrogates and intended parents on their blog.

That’s why you see brands like Nike and Coca-Cola use influencers to promote their products. They know that if people trust those influencers, they’ll buy their products.

That’s why you’re more likely to read product reviews before buying a product. Amazon knows this quite well. That’s why they encourage buyers to leave reviews on Amazon.

Consumers want to read authentic reviews like the one in the below screenshot on Amazon.

I’ve bought products on Amazon many times, and there isn’t a time I didn’t read reviews before buying.

Social media is another place people go for recommendations before buying a product or service. Social media users want to know what their friends and family are saying about a particular product or service before they purchase it.

Influencers are people too. The difference between them and ordinary social media users is that they had put in the time to build an audience. Their followers trust and respect them.

Some influencers have spent 2 – 5 years building relationships with their followers. So, their followers have known them for some time.

They wouldn’t want to recommend a fake, low-quality product or service to their followers. They value the relationships they’ve spent months or years building.

And their followers know this, which is why they’re would be willing to buy any product or service these influencers recommend.

Influencers Know What Their Followers Want

If an influencer doesn’t like your product or service because of a reason, it certainly means that their followers won’t like it for that reason too.

Influencers know what their followers want. They know their followers’ needs. They know the content they engage with.

So, developing a relationship with an influencer is a quick way to know if the consumers would accept your product or service.

By communicating with influencers, you’ll get a ton of insights about your target market. You can use an influencer platform to learn, observe, measure, and analyze prospects’ behaviors.

So, the quickest way to learn about your ideal customers is through influencers. They have some information that will tell you some things you need to know about the market.

You’ll Gain More Leads

Influencer marketing is a form of word-of-mouth marketing.

There are billions of social media users in the world. The people who may be interested in your product follow some influencers.

So, when an influencer shares your product or service with their audience, people who haven’t seen your company before would become aware of it.

They may check it out by visiting your website. And when a prospect visits your site and gives you their email address, they become a lead.

The more visitors you have on your site, the more leads you’ll gain. A single Tweet about your brand on Twitter could send tens of thousands of visitors to your website, helping you gain more leads.

For example, let’s assume that you have a startup that sells to SEO practitioners. If an SEO influencer like Rand Fishkin Tweet about your startup, that could send thousands of visitors to your website.

What Influencers Do

What you want an influencer to do depends on you. But note that whatever you ask an influencer to do should feel natural. Maybe, something they could’ve done themselves.

Here’re some things influencers can do to grow your business:

1. Link to your website

You may ask an influencer to link to your website in a piece that promotes your product or service. Sponsored content is an example of this.

Depending on the agreement, you or the influencer may create the content. The content could be a blog post that educates and entertains the influencer’s audience.

Somewhere in the post, a link can point to your site along with a call-to-action.

For example, SEMrush, a company that sells digital marketing solutions, published a sponsored post on the Search Engine Journal. The post strategically promotes solutions from SEMrush.

You can do something similar to this on your influencer’s website.

2. An influencer can write about you

In this scenario, you ask an influencer to review your product or service.

The influencer could also compare your product or service with your competitors. If your product or service is better than them, the influencer should write how and why. Prospects would like to know.

Matthew Woodward, an SEO consultant, and influencer wrote a review of Ahrefs.

Getting reviews like this from influencers will increase your sales.

3. Ask an influencer to publish on your site, social media, or speak at your event

Some influencers are willing to guest post on your website. When they do that, they’ll share it with their followers on social media.

Their followers would have to visit your blog to read what they wrote. This works great if the influencer writes a lot on their blog, and they have huge readership and followers on social media platforms.

If the influencer is active on social media, you may ask them to do a social media takeover. The influencer takes over your account and shares things with your followers. They announce this in advance to their followers.

When they do, their followers will come over to your social media account to see what the influencer is sharing on it.

You can also invite an influencer to speak at your event. This works great for businesses that host events for their customers regularly.

The influencer will tell their followers about the event. Some of them may attend it to see the influencer speak.

4. Promote your company at an event

Some influencers get invitations to speak at events regularly. When they talk at these events, they sometimes mention companies, products, and services they use.

They may mention you at one of these events if it isn’t disallowed or unacceptable. That’ll help increase awareness of your product and services.

5. Share posts or updates about your company on social media

Most influencers talk about various companies, products, or services their followers may be interested in. You can reach out to an influencer to share your company too. Of course, you may have to pay a fee for that.

The post could be a text, video, image, or infographic.

Note that there are some guidelines influencers must follow when sharing branded content on social media platforms. Each platform has its posting guidelines. You may want to read it before paying an influencer.

Read the guidelines for Facebook here and Instagram here.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Building Rock Solid Relationships with Influencers

Now that you fully understand what influencer marketing means, it’s time to start building relationships with the right influencers to promote your brand.

So, what’s the first step?

Step 1: Know your goals for doing influencer marketing

This step is critical to the success of your influencer marketing campaign. Before you contact any influencer, you should know what you want to achieve with influencer marketing.

Below are some goals:

• Reach an audience that needs your product or service
• Drive targeted traffic to your website
• Build your email list with qualified leads
• Create interesting branded content people read
• Drive engagement around your brand or product
• Generate authentic product reviews
• Drive more sales

Your goal may be different from the above. And you may have one or more goals.

Once you’ve chosen your goal for doing influencer marketing, it’s time to move to the next step.

Step 2: Describe your ideal influencer

Have a clear description of the kind of influencer you want to promote your product or service. Every influencer that’s out there isn’t for your brand.

Ensure that your prospects follow and trust this influencer before contacting them.

Each influencer you contact must:

• Share high-quality content with their followers regularly
• Engage with their followers
• Has a large and an engaged following with lots of likes and comments on every content they post
• Be truthful in their speech and behavior
• Shares content related to your brand

Keep in mind that the number of followers an influencer has doesn’t matter as long as it’s above 10,000. I recommend the influencer has a following between 10,000 – 100,000.

Pay attention to the number of engagements their posts receive. If their posts don’t get any likes or shares and comments, then you shouldn’t contact them.

For example, Sophie may have about 12,000 followers on Instagram, she receives a good number of engagements from them.

Step 3: Get an influencer that fits your brand

There are lots of influencers out there. But few of them fit your brand.

Find the right influencer your prospects follow.

The influencer can be an animal. For example, the Thoughts of Dog has about 2.9 million followers on Twitter.

People follow influencers for the tips, reviews, and trends they share. So, it’s common for an influencer to stick to certain topics like health, fitness, entertainment, technology, etc.

And keep in mind that some influencers may spend more time on a particular social media platform than others.

For example, an Instagram influencer may not have much following on Twitter or Facebook. So, you should only collaborate with such influencers on Instagram.

An influencer may also spend far more time blogging than doing social media.

For example, an influencer may receive 100,000 visits on their blog and have 2,000 followers on Instagram. For this influencer, you may want to create a sponsored post on their blog instead of asking them to share your content on Instagram.

Ensure that the influencer’s followers are your prospects. For example, if the followers are dads, and your customers are teenagers, then you shouldn’t work with that influencer.

Finding the right influencer is the hardest part. You may have to use different keywords on Google and various social media platforms your prospects use. This part will take some time, but it’s the most rewarding part.

I do manual research a lot because I get to see how social media users engage with influencers.

Kate McCulley is a travel blogger. By visiting her Instagram profile, I was able to see how her followers respond to her posts.

Fortunately, there’re some tools you can use to find influencers quickly.

BuzzStream

BuzzStream is my favorite tool for finding influencers. It’s so easy to use. The tool has a browser extension that lets you research websites you find on the web.

For example, when you land on a blog in your niche, you can add it to a list to see more information about that blog and person behind it.

You can also use keywords to find influencers that are related to your niche.

NinjaOutreach

NinjaOutreach is another influencer research tool I like a lot. The tool has over 25 million websites in its database. You can use it to research influencers on Twitter and Instagram.

And like BuzzStream, NinjaOutreach also has a browser extension.

PeerReach

PeerReach is another excellent alternative to the above two. The tool easily lets you see the people that matter in a niche.

It connects you with the right influencers who can help you promote your brand.

Step 4: Contact and offer fair compensation

After you’ve found some influencers that fit your brand using one of the above tools and some manual research on Google and others, it’s time to start reaching out.

Don’t be afraid to contact an influencer. These influencers probably receive 10 – 100 pitches per day. The problem is that most of these pitches are from people who didn’t do their research.

Since you’ve taken your time to learn about the influencer and know what their followers like to read and share, they’ll be more receptive to your offer.

Ensure that you offer fair compensation. Don’t price the influencer too low. It might appear as a disrespect.

Some influencers would want more, of course. Be willing to negotiate.

Step 5: Track and analyze your KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics you’ll be tracking to see how well your campaign is doing.

For example, if your goal is engagement, then you want to ensure that you’re hitting the number of likes and comments you set for the campaign.

And if your goal is to make more sales, you also want to ensure that the influencer will help you gain a great number of customers.

Always track and analyze your KPIs. It’s how you know if influencer marketing is working for your business, or not.

And that’s it! You can use influencer marketing to increase awareness of your brand and boost sales. This article is the complete influencer marketing guide you need to succeed.

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