Five years ago, when I was waiting for my publisher to release my bestselling book Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months, I knew that I needed to build an audience for my book and I needed an author platform to market the book. After a conversation with PR maven Cathy Larkin @CathyWebsavvyPR, we decided that Twitter would be a great place to build an audience. Now keep in mind, Twitter was only 3 years old at that point so building an audience was a little different than it is today. However, there are time tested strategies that are fundamental to building a following that will get people to like, share and talk about everything you do. If you’re ready to build an audience, but not sure how to begin, here are 9 steps to building your social media following.

1. Use HELP Mantra: Help others. Always help your target audience with the content you share. Engage people. You need to acknowledge people and work on getting to know them. Listen First. Don’t assume you know the culture of each social media site.  Facebook friends don’t want to be talked to like they are Twitter followers. Understand the unique language of each platform and determine what you will communicate.  Promote yourself with care. Be careful not to start pitching before your audience likes, knows, and trusts you. Don’t sell first, focus on building relationships. You have to be strategic about selling on social media.
2. Develop a Content Strategy: Social Media is all about attraction marketing. What stories can you tell or ideas can you share that add value to the people you would like to attract? Develop a detailed customer profile for your content. Then determine if you are going to develop written blogs, podcasts or videos to inform your target audience.  Your content strategy should include the type of content you will develop, frequency of your content, editorial calendar, where you will promote your content and what actions you want people to take.
3. Create a Blog. Get started by figuring out what are your target customers’ biggest pain points and making an exhaustive list of them. Once you develop the list, start developing your content! I suggest starting at least two months in advance before launching so that you have an archive on content already in place. Otherwise maintaining your blog could become quite stressful.
4. Learn to Eavesdrop: A common misconception is that you don’t have to participate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking social media is a distribution channel. You wouldn’t go to a friend’s house say everything you want to say and leave. Social media works the same way. Use tools like Twitter Search to learn what topics are being discussed. Gain followers by commenting, answering questions and sharing helpful links but only when it’s adding value.
5. Build A Tribe: Social Media is great for making new friends, contacts and leads but you don’t want to keep the entire interaction there. Continue building trust by inviting them back to your website where they can join your email list. Consider setting up a private Facebook group or LinkedIn group where you offer exclusive value to community members. Engage fans by appointing frequent participants as ambassadors. Offer access to your products or services in exchange for the ambassadors keeping the group active by answering questions for the community.
6. Expand Your Reach: Start interacting with those outside your new community via Twitter chats. These are a simple way to reach and expand your market by interacting with like-minded users. Try #Smallbizchat every Wed from 8-9pm ET on Twitter to get more great tips on how to grow a small business and leverage social media. Questions are introduced and users engage in meaningful conversation surrounding their interests for about an hour. This is a great way to meet other people and promote the services and principles of your business.
7. Keep it Consistent: Now that you have a following going and a community that you can share with, it’s more important than ever to stay on schedule with your communication. I like tools like Hootsuite which will allow you to set up social media posts in advance and set a specific date and time that you want them to go out. This way you can bundle creating content and simple focus on participating in conversations or responding to questions.
8. Make it About Them: As you build friends, followers and subscribers, you want them to feel that what you are sharing is uniquely tailored to their needs. Have users submit their questions or suggestions for new content.  Consider highlighting a fan of the week on your page. Everyone loves to see their name in lights, and it’s a great way to foster engagement.
9. Track Your Process: The great thing about social media is – it’s instant. If you make a post or send a tweet and no one responds, then it tells you that you are either posting at a time when your audience is not active or you are not sharing information that’s compelling. Aside from comments or shares, you can leverage free services like Facebook Insights, Bit.ly and TweetReach to measure the number of people you’re reaching over time.

Looking back, I didn’t imagine how fast my following would grow to 260,000 and counting. My point is that using these 9 strategies you can grow as far and fast as you want to.

Thumbs Up Icons Showing Follow Apps And Internet Symbols courtesy of Stuart Miles / www.freedigitalphotos.net

What is the #1 strategy that’s helped grow your social media following?