Top 5 Reasons Your Social Media Profile Isn’t Growing

You know that you need to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote yourself and/ or your business. You’ve set up your profiles and are active on the sites. However, your following on the sites isn’t growing. Why? Here are five of the leading reasons that you may not be gaining a following on your social media sites:

1.     You constantly post promotional messages. Many people get frustrated by the fact that you are supposed to use social media to spread the word about your work but you aren’t actually supposed to excessively promote yourself. This may seem ridiculous. Let’s put it in a context that may make a little bit more sense. Imagine that you are going on a first date with someone. If they spend the entire time telling you that they are smart and funny and great then you are probably going to get really sick of hearing it and want the date to be over. If they instead show you that they are smart and funny and great then you’ll like them and want to see them again. It’s the same sort of thing with promoting yourself on social media sites. Show people what you’re all about without constantly bombarding them with links and announcements about it. Be confident but humble at the same time.

2.     You are inconsistent when it comes to updating your social media sites. You want to remain fairly consistent when it comes to your posts on these sites. This means that you are consistent in the frequency with which you post. (Of course, you’ll post more some days than other days but you don’t post ten things in one day and then ignore the site for three weeks.) You are also consistent in the message that you send which should in turn be consistent with the message of your business. Consistency helps people get to know what you’re all about and that draws people to you so your “brand” (which is essentially what the profile is) can grow.

3.     You don’t understand who your followers should be. If you don’t know who should be following you then how are those people supposed to know that they should be following you. Clearly identify in your mind who you want to follow you on these sites. Who is your target customer and what are you offering to them? For example, you may be targeting stay at home moms looking for deals and you offer them deals. Alternatively, you may be targeting college students seeking information about academics and you provide links to that information. By identifying who your followers should be and making sure that you post with them in mind you’ll naturally attract more of them.

4.     You are active on the sites but not interactive. These sites have tons and tons of activity. Spend an hour straight on Twitter if you want to see just how much activity we’re talking about here. People easily get overwhelmed by profiles that are just talking at them even if they’re providing useful links and information. Instead, you want to work on chatting with people on these sites. You want to interact with the people that you’re following and the people that are friends with you. You should comment on what they post with intelligent statements and questions (not just Twitter RTs or “likes” on Facebook). It’s more effective to be interactive with a handful of people who will then spread the word to grow your following than to be active but not interactive with a lot of people.

5.     You aren’t promoting your social media profiles. In other words, your following might not be growing because people don’t know where to find you. Is the link to each profile obvious on your contact page and home page of your website? Is it listed on your business card? Do you have it on your email signature? The more you publicize the availability of your social media profiles, the more people are going to follow you.