You probably chose the Spartan army (on the right) because they have more soldiers.
Having a bigger army usually results in victory. The same is true of social networks.
A large following on social networks makes it easier for you to find success when trying to get the message out about your campaign.
This article will explore ways you can expand your following on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Google Plus.
General Tips:
Before we dive into the specifics of each social network there are some universal tips that apply to nearly every social network.
Appearance
Genghis Khan's army of nomadic warriors used to tie tree branches to the backs of their horses as they approached a city that they planned to conquer. The dragging foliage generated significant clouds of dust that made it appear that a large army was approaching.
They would also let their prisoners and civilians ride horses in their army to fake numerical superiority.
These tactics generally lead to entire cities surrendering out of fear.
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| Genghis Khan political tactics. |
Khan understood that appearance is a critical aspect to success.
Part of building a large force on any social network involves creating the proper appearance.
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| Fake Twitter account. |
If you don't take time to make your social media profiles look professional then people will likely think you're spam, lazy, not to be taken seriously, and/or not tech savvy.
Take time to upload a decent looking profile picture, and fill in the various description areas that the social network requires.
Having a formidable appearance on social networks can do wonders for gaining social media followers.
Produce Targeted Content
The goal of social networks isn't to create a blasting channel. Social networks are all about relationship building. If you approach social networks like a television ad then no one will follow you.
Part of relationship building is producing content that people will actually read. To do this you need to understand who you're targeting on specific social networks, then you need to produce content that they're actually interested in.
Don't forget that every social network has different cultural needs.
How content is shared, what it looks like, and the proper way to interact with users on social networks isn't universal. You want to ensure that your content is designed to best fit with the social network you're sharing it on.
Take time to look at posts produced by influencers on each social network your interested in creating a presence on in order to figure out how to structure your content, and the types of posts people are interested in sharing.
Follow People
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| Social media tips by Mahatma Gandhi. |
When you follow someone on social networks there is a good chance they'll follow you back. This tends to be a universal rule.
Put Links In Online Content
A great way to get followers is to link your social networks in all online content that you produce.
Here are a few ideas of places you can put links to your social networks:
- On your website
- In the description of each of your social networks
- In your email signature
- In your press releases
- In your newsletters
Doing this will result in you getting more followers.
Put Links In Offline Content
Another place you should be placing links is in your offline content.
Here are a few ideas of places you can put links to your social networks:
- In your mailers
- On your campaign cards
- On volunteer signs
- On billboards
- In television ads
- In newspaper ads
- At your booth at political conventions
Use Great Headlines
If you're not using effective headlines then it probably won't matter what you're posting because no one will click on your content.
People clicking and reading your content will increase the chance that they'll share it. Shares will lead to more followers.
Here is a great free e-book on headlines from Copyblogger. Read it, and enjoy the increase in clicks.
Email Subscribers
Send a message to your email subscribers informing them of your various social networks. Encourage them to follow you.
Run Contests
Run contests on your social network accounts where you encourage people to share, like, or comment on something in order to win an award.
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| Rep. Chris Stewart. (Credit: Wikipedia via United States) |
Running contests will get you a lot of new followers, and it doesn't have to be expensive.
Mention People
Mentioning people online (using the @ symbol) is a powerful way to get more followers. When you mention someone it sends them a notification of your post.
I often mention the authors of articles I share. This usually results in them following me, and being more inclined to share my posts as well.
I also mention influencers frequently. This method sometimes doesn't work, but on occasion an influencer will share your content. When this happens you will see a tremendous increase in followers.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a powerful way to get more followers. Don't forget to use them. Nearly every social network uses hashtags now.
I frequently get new followers by simply adding hashtags to my posts.
Here are 3 reasons why your campaign should be using Twitter:
1) Free Press
59% of journalists use Twitter. This makes it a great place to get earned media.
2) News
Half of the U.S. adults who use Twitter get their news from it. That's about 8% of the U.S. adult population.
3) Open Network
Unlike Facebook...you can actually message and connect with anyone on Twitter. This makes it an incredibly easy social network to build a following on even when you lack campaign funds.
How To Get Followers On Twitter
Below is a list of ways to get more followers on Twitter:
1) Do It Right
One of the best ways to get Twitter followers is to read, and do exactly what this article prescribes everyday, "How To Be Effective On Twitter With Fewer Than 20 Minutes A Day".
2) Improve Your Tweets
Track the clicks each of your tweets get. I use Bit.ly for this.
Here is a slide presentation that explains how to use Bit.ly.
When you have wildly successful tweets consider sharing them again at a later time. It is likely that not all of your followers saw it the first time you tweeted it.
If you share content that doesn't get very many clicks then stop sharing that type of content. You need to pay close attention to your clicks so that you can produce content that your audience is actually interested in.
3) Target Influencers
Twitter's open culture allows you to literally follow any user.
Find the biggest political influencers in your area and follow them on Twitter. If they don't follow you back then mention them when you produce content that relates to them.
Don't over mention though or you may be perceived as spam.
Use the steps in this article to build relationships with the influencers you decide to target.
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| PoliticIt Campaign. |
If an influencer mentions or shares your content then you could potentially be exposed to all of their followers. This can greatly help your campaign.
I personally find influencers by using PoliticIt Campaign.
4) Use Visual Content
Twitter recently made it so pictures automatically appear in your tweets. I used pictures to increase the amount of clicks I get by 144%.
You can read about how to do this in the following article, "New Trick For Getting More Clicks On Twitter".
Despite the points mentioned in the above article...here are 3 reasons why it's still worth it to be on Facebook:
1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Facebook Fan Pages are indexed by Google. Having a Fan Page on Facebook should help make you more visible on search engines.
2) Advertising
Facebook is the largest social network, and it gathers insane amounts of information about people.
Facebook advertising allows you to target specific niches. This can come in handy for campaigns that are struggling reaching out to specific voter demographics.
3) It Score
Research at PoliticIt indicates that having an active Fan Page boosts your It Score. The It Score was used to predict the outcomes of every major national race in the 2012 election with 92% accuracy.
How To Get Fans On Facebook
Below is a list of ways to get more fans on Facebook.
1) "Invite Friends" Function
For new Facebook Fan Pages I highly recommend that you use this feature.
What it will do is send an invite to your friends to join Facebook. It is really critical for new pages to get fans. If you don't have a pretty good base of fans then it will be really hard for your content to be visible by anyone on Facebook.
Here are some screen shots explaining how to use this feature:
Open Facebook and click on your Fan Page. In this example we'll use PoliticIt's Fan Page.
Then simply select the "Build Audience" drop down and select "Invite Friends".
Select the friends you want to invite, and then send out the invitation. Your Facebook friends will receive a notification that looks like this:
Don't forget to encourage your volunteers to share your page with their friends too.
2) Share Your Fan Page
One tactic for getting Facebook fans is to post a link to your Fan Page in various Facebook groups or on other people's fan pages.
It is likely that your local party, other candidates, and political activists all have Facebook fan pages or groups.
Posting one link to a Facebook group is probably ok. Don't post more than one though or you'll come off as spam.
Reach out to other candidates in your party, and ask them to share your page with their fans. If there are any activist groups that you support then do the same for them as well.
Fans will be more receptive of the message if it's coming from the other candidate or the activist group.
3) Buy Advertising
We ran some Facebook ads for one of the clients we consulted. Our goal was to get "likes" through ads. The client ended up paying about 33 cents for every Facebook like.
4) Embed Widgets
There are a number of widgets you can easily embed on your website that will help get you more fans. Here is a list of widgets with instructions on how to install them.
I recommend looking into the "Embedded Posts" and "Comments" widgets.
5) Use Tagging
Recently I was at a rock concert where the band on stage did a genius social media move.
They stopped the concert and the lead singer did a "selfie" in front of the crowd. He then announced that he was sharing the photo on Facebook, and that people in the audience should tag themselves.
The reason why this was a smart move is when someone tags themselves in a photo on Facebook it shares the photo with their friends. This marketing stunt granted the band huge exposure.
Encourage your fans to tag themselves. Give a speech at an event, and do a "selfie" in front of the people you're speaking to. Tell them to tag themselves. It will work.
6) Tell People To Like Your Page
This same band also announced at the beginning of the concert that if they surpassed X amount of fans they would do something special at the end.
Throughout the concert they announced how many fans they had, and continued to encouraged people to like their fan page.
Eventually they hit the magic number, and they invited a girl on stage. The lead singer then sang a love song to her.
If you're doing a political event that is kind of lengthy think of a reward you could offer at the end if you get enough likes.
Here are 3 reasons why you should use Pinterest:
1) Viral
Pinterest is the most viral social network I've seen so far. 80% of the content on Pinterest is re-pinned.
Basically...8 out of 10 posts on Pinterests aren't original posts. That means people love to share each other's stuff on Pinterest.
To put this into perspective only 1.43% of the tweets on Twitter are re-tweets.
If you learn to master Pinterest then you'll be able to reach an incredible amount of people.
2) Mostly Female
80% of the users on Pinterest are female. This makes it a great network to use to reach out to the female vote.
They're also mostly rural too. Pretty rare for a social network.
3) Drive Traffic
Pictures uploaded to Pinterest can link to any website. This means you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website. This will push up your ranking on search engines.
How To Get Followers On Pinterest
Below is a list of ways to get more followers on Pinterest.
1) Use The Search Function: Follow & Comment
The search function in Pinterest is a great way to find content, and followers that you're interested in.
You can find people who support specific issues, parties, or even people who live in your general area.
Let's go through how to use this:
Locate the search bar in the upper left hand corner of your Pinterest page.
Type in politics, and press enter. From here you can look at Pins (content), Boards (place to organize content around a specific term), or Pinners (users of Pinterest). In this example we used politics.
From the Pins page you can like (heart), comment, or repin (share) posts that are interesting to you. When you do this the content creator will be notified of your action.
On the Boards page you can follow boards that contain content around specific issues. When you follow a board the owner is notified.
On the Pinners page you can find people who are talking about politics. This is a great place to find potential digital supporters.
Take some time to follow users who support specific issues that you also support. You might find them quickly becoming huge advocates for your campaign on Pinterest.
Be sure to engage with content on the Pins, Boards, and Pinners page. When you like, comment, or share someones content it increases the chance that they'll like, comment, or share on your posts too.
The natural byproduct of people liking, sharing, or commenting on your posts on Pinterest will be lots of new followers.
2) Share Pictures And Infographics
Pictures and infographics tend to do very well on Pinterest. If you create infographics then focus on creating content that people can actually use.
For example, an infographic on universal healthcare would be really great to share right now. Two weeks before election day you might create an infographic explaining how people can register to vote.
Remember...80% of the content shared to Pinterest is re-pinned. If you create something that is helpful people will likely share it. More shares will result in more followers.
3) Link Your Accounts
Linking your other social media accounts to Pinterest will allow you to send an invite to your followers on other social networks.
Get your Twitter, Facebook, and Google + connections that are already using Pinterest to follow you.
Here's how you link your accounts:
Open up Pinterest, click on your picture in the upper right hand corner, and select "Settings".
Scroll down the "Settings" page until you see "Social Networks"...then simply link each one by moving the slider bar over to yes. Once connected go back to your "Home Feed" by selecting the little icon in the upper left hand corner.
When you select "Home Feed" then you'll notice the "Find Friends" option in the upper left hand corner. Once you select this you'll notice your friends that use Pinterest will populate below. Follow all of them.
This is an easy way to get more followers on Pinterest.
4) Board Placement
Pinterest allows you to move your boards anywhere on your profile page. Place your most popular boards at the top of the page. This will get you more overall engagement. More engagement means more followers.
5) Add Widgets
Pinterest has widgets that can be added to your website. Add them. I recommend the "Board Widget".
6) Volunteer Board
Create a volunteer board. Invite volunteers to contribute to it. Here is how to do it.
7) Thank People Who Pin To Your Website
Type this code into your browser to find people who are pinning to your website:
www.pinterest.com/source/[yoursite]
For example:
http://www.pinterest.com/source/politicit.blogspot.com/
Thanking people will help you get more followers, and engagement.
Snapchat
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Gary Vaynerchuk said, "Snapchat is my most valuable marketing tool right now".
If you'd like to use Snapchat then explore this article, "How To Use Snapchat For Your Political Campaign".
Google Plus
1) SEO
Google + activity will drive you up in search results.
With 85% of the adult U.S. population using the internet...appearing at the top of search results is critical.
For more tips on improving your SEO read this article, "10 Social Media SEO Tricks Every Political Campaign Should Know About".
2) Get Lots Of Engagement
I frequently use Google +, and I get a lot of engagement on the content I share...more so than many of the other social networks that I use.
3) Integrated With Other Google Services
YouTube is integrated with Google +. Comments on YouTube videos that are posted to Google + will appear under the video on YouTube.
Google + is a great way to drive early conversations around a video that you publish to YouTube.
How To Get Followers On Google +
1) Participate In Communities
A Google + community is essentially a forum of people gathered around a mutual interest.
There are lots of political Google + communities. You should get involved in the political communities. Share political content to communities. People will engage with your shares, and you'll get followers that are interested in politics.
2) Add People To Your Circles
Not random people. Focus on adding people who engage with the content you share in communities.
I have used this tactic, and it works great.
First off...you know they're interested in what you're doing because they're in the same community as you.
Secondly...you know they are the type of person that engages with content because they've already engaged with yours.
This is a great way to build an interested and active following on Google +.
3) Post Correctly To Google +
There is a wrong way, and a right way to share content to Google +. Here is an example of the correct way to do it.
Make sure that you post content the correct way. Google + users will appreciate it, and it will translate into more followers (it's a culture thing).
4) Leverage Google Hangouts on Air
This feature allows you to broadcast a live event over Google Hangouts. The event can automatically be recorded, and uploaded to your YouTube account when you finish.
This could be a great way to do digital debates, or to meet with several knowledgeable people to discuss political issues.
Find influencers, and invite them to have a discussion over Google Hangouts on Air. When the discussion is done...add them to your circles. They'll probably add you back, and will likely even share the discussion with their followers.
5) Use CircleCount.com
CircleCount offers free analytics regarding your Google + account.
You can look at your follower growth, what posts are getting the most engagement, and a number of other statistics.
The user interface isn't very appealing, but this is one of the best free tools I've found so far for Google + specifically.
Paying attention to analytics can help you understand what posts are working the best which will help you refine your content, and ultimately get you more followers.
There are lots of ways to get more followers on social networks.
Always remember...social networks are about relationships not broadcasting. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Follow the Golden Rule on social networks, and you'll enjoy sustainable growth with lots of engagement.
Have you used any of these tips before? Are we missing any?
Josh Light is the CEO and Co-Founder of PoliticIt. Feel free to connect with Josh:
Josh@politicIt.com
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