Building Your X Following
In order for X to be an effective marketing tool for your business, you need to have followers or people who see and engage with your content. Building an X following can be a slow, time-consuming process. You may see others with large followings and wonder how they got to be so popular.
There are many reasons why some X users have vastly more followers than others. Some have been using the network for years, even back when X was still called Twitter. Some have received media attention or have spent a lot of time marketing their accounts in other ways. Others have paid for followers either legitimately through X ads or they take a chance and use questionable services where one can buy a large number of followers for a fee.
While some people put a lot of stock in having a large number of followers, a big following does not always translate into real connections or value for your business. Sometimes, having a smaller number of followers who want to hear from you and actively respond to and engage with you can prove to be more valuable than having many followers who ignore you.
How do you build an engaged following?
Know What to Post
Knowing what to post starts with your business goals, who you are trying to reach, and what you can realistically achieve through the X platform. The chances of closing sales out of the gate on any social network is slim. However, you can use X to locate existing customers and identify prospects in order to engage with them.
Why would someone follow your business on X? Everyone has their own individual reasons for following an X account. Some reasons include:
- They know you or your company or want to know more.
- They do business with your company or are considering doing business with you.
- You are part of the same industry.
- You have shared interests or other common ground.
- They like the content you publish and want to see more of it.
Understanding your audience and delivering content they find valuable in some way can help you gain and retain followers.
Follow Other Accounts Strategically
You can potentially build your follower count by following others; however, you want to be aware of the follower to following ratio. Make sure the number of people you’re following is less than or close to the number of people following you.
What you don’t want is to be following far more people than the number of followers you have. If you do, you could appear to others to be a spammer or scammer or even a fake account.
Depending on building your own following by following others is risky, but you might add new followers if you use this tactic sparingly and intermittently. First impressions and perceptions count when marketing on X or any social network.
Know When to Post
Get familiar with the audience you’re trying to reach to understand their social media habits including how and when they use X. According to marketing experts, some of the best days to post on X are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, but not on the weekends. In terms of time of day, mornings or midday is recommended.
Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite or Buffer gives you the ability to schedule posts at optimal times. Some tools might even have a feature that automatically recommends optimal times to post such as Sprout Social.
While expert recommendations can be a helpful guide, knowing your audience and their social media habits can differ from what the experts say. Check your X analytics to see which posts perform the best and when they were published to get a better feel for the preferences of your particular following.
Be Part of the Conversation
Engage with others in conversation on X to make connections and strengthen relationships. Respond promptly to your followers when they address you. Repost other people’s content, as appropriate, and act as a curator content for your followers. Post quality content on a consistent and frequent basis to help attract new followers.
Market and Advertise
You can market the fact you’re on X in a number of ways. Place the X icon on your website or blog. Include X share buttons on the content you publish on your site or blog. Mention your X account on other social networks you use such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Add the X icon or your X handle to your print collateral, product packaging, signage, and even your email signature.
Like the other major social networks, X offers self-serve ads to help you achieve several different objectives including:
- Reach – to have more people see your ad
- Engagements – to gain more interactions such as likes and clicks
- Website Traffic – to drive traffic to your website
- Keywords – to reach users based on keywords they use to search on the platform
Once you publish your X ad, it is only shown to the target audience based on your objectives and parameters and is not visible on your regular feed. Investing in ads to get more exposure can potentially help build your X following, particularly when using Engagements ads.
In business, if you provide a quality product or service, offer great customer service, and market well, you should be able to gain and retain customers. In the case of X, providing quality content, prompt customer service, and consistent messaging can eventually translate into followers who are attentive and responsive.