Getting 10k Followers. The Hard Way

This is an email I’m reposting that was shared by Lisa Hickey of the Good Men Project. The lady is a social media Maven! I figured this would be useful to our audience to share! Enjoy!

Ok, here we go. To get to 10,000

(some combination of followers, fans, connections, etc.)

1) You have to want it because you understand the results have value.

2) If you’re starting from 0, give yourself 3 months.

(you can do it quicker, but may kill yourself in the process)

3) You need a connection strategy and a content strategy, and the two need to work together.

 

Connection Strategy

1) Connect with people every day.

2) In “rapid growth mode” (i.e. the first 3 months) aim to connect with 100 people a day. The bulk of those should come from Twitter.

100 / day x 90 days = 9,000

The remaining 1,000 will seek out and connect with YOU. (Unless you have already spent years building a public name, then more people will connect with you first.)

3) Remember: “Nothing draws a crowd like a whole big group of people”

The more people you connect with, the easier it gets. The first 2,000 are by far the hardest. Once you get to 10,000, I would still suggest connecting with some new people a day, but you can be MUCH less aggressive and as long as you continue to be involved, your network will grow.

4) Here’s what worked for me. Daily I would:

Follow 100-125 people on Twitter

Friend 3-5 new people on Facebook

Connect with 2 people on LinkedIn

Connect with 5-20 people on Google+ 5-10

Connect with 5-10 on StumbleUpon

That ends up being more than 100, but not everyone will connect back with you.

Others like Reddit, Scribd and YouTube are more content driven sites, not true “social” networks, so the strategy there is more to put good content and comment when appropriate.

5) You may have different set of “favorite” networks that works for you. But my basic rule of thumb is – the faster I can connect on a network, the more I connect with daily. Twitter you can connect with 100 people in about 20 minutes if you’re in speed mode and are only mildly fussy.

6) Don’t connect totally randomly. You will need to mix up friends and strangers, but can do so judiciously.

Facebook – Start with people you know in real life and then move on to people that you’ve at least had a conversation with. Some people connect with people they don’t know, but in general, I choose not to.

Twitter – Here is the best kept secret for following people on Twitter.

Wait until someone @’s you or RT’s you. Then follow all their followers that look like you have something in common with. About 75% will follow you back – and they will be high quality followers even though complete strangers.

LinkedIn – Connect with people who you would want to hire, want to work with, want to work for or have some sort of professional relationship with. I connect with strangers IF I they are likely to fall into one of the above categories, and I always send a personal note. (Ditto Facebook if I’m connecting with someone that won’t immediately recognize me).

Tumblr and StumbleUpon – I use Tumblr and StumbleUpon as completely random ways of seeing what’s out there. Tumblr you only see content from people in your stream, Stumble you can “stumble “ stuff from either your connections or everyone who is submitting content to the topics you’re interested in. So, I am willing to connect with totally random people on both of those, as long as they are sharing interesting content.

Google+ — Everyone who is “Part of the Project” that is on there. Most of my followers there found me because I am known as an early adopter in social spaces.

CONTENT STRATEGY

1) Adapt your content to the networks. You should have distinctly different types of connections on each network (some overlap of course, but I try to keep them relatively different), and know what those people will like. What I put up on Facebook (stuff about the intersection of my kids and technology, cool photos, events I’m at that I’m sharing with my friends) is completely different then LinkedIn (work related stuff that I’ve written or shared) than Twitter (conversations, commentary on news, links to my content and others), than Tumblr (almost all re-blogs of random, cool stuff, interspersed with a few of my own links).

2) Use the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 strategy

1/3 of what you post is your own content

1/3 is other people’s content that you share

1/3 is actual conversations, connections with people

3) Think of yourself as a media channel.

- Timing – spread out your content throughout the day

- If you repeat links (which I would suggest ONLY doing on Twitter), say something different about them each time.

- Each network has a threshold for how often you can post without seeming spammy.

Facebook 3-4x per day (on my personal page, I general only do 1 or 2)

Twitter – once every 15 minutes, unless you are really engaging people, and talking about stuff, then unlimited.

Stumble and Tumblr – you can reblog/restumble other peoples stuff unlimited, try to mix in your own stuff every 10x or so.

LinkedIn – once a day

Google+ TBD, but I do once a day for now.

4) When you post content, don’t think about YOU, think about THEM. What will you post that will be interesting enough that they can’t help but like it? If you are posting your own blog post to Facebook for example, say something personal that gives people a reason why you want to share it with them.

That’s it! 10,000 in 3 months – go!