Social media is an important tool for brokers in generating leads and engaging with clients, but how can you really make every post count?
Social media is an important tool for brokers in generating leads and engaging with clients, but how can you really make every post count?
In a recent study by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan, researchers analysed 507 Twitter users and over half a million tweets over 15 months to find out what was most effective in generating followers.
“Followers are Twitter’s most basic currency. Building an audience of followers can create access to a network of social ties, resources, and influence. Yet, little is understood about how to grow such an audience,” said researchers.
The study produced five main ways you can get the most out of your Twitter account:
- Stay positive
Because Twitter usually involves weak social ties (most people who you interact with Twitter you don’t know personally), negative comments tend to make people feel uncomfortable, whereas the number of followers a person has increases with the number of positive posts they make.
- Put yourself out there
A complete and well-thought-out profile can increase your followers by two to three times, found the report. By sharing information about yourself, you incite trust from your followers.
“The shared context of social networking sites such as Facebook helps facilitate explicit and implicit verification of identity claims, and users are motivated to present their ‘ideal self’.”
- It’s not about you
While over 40 per cent of tweets were focussed around their authors, researchers found resisting the temptation to be a “meformer” and instead writing informational, outward-focussed posts, can increase followers but up to thirty times.
- Get personal
Directing tweets at specific members and retweeting the messages of others helps to engage your followers, shows other Twitter members that you are connected and up-to-date with current trends and exposes you to the followers of your followers, broadening your reach and also your value to other users.
- #KeepItMinimal
Without the traditional contextual cues available in face-to-face communication, Twitter users rely on aspects such as spelling and vocabulary, found the report. Clarity of tweets can have a major influence on your number of followers. Hashtags, while useful in linking your posts in with other relevant conversations, can reduce clarity if overused. Keep it simple.
The research also suggests a compounding effect in Twitter popularity, as people are more likely to follow members that are already popular.
“The number of followers a person maintains has been shown to reduce the likelihood that the person will be unfollowed in the future, meaning popular people often remain popular,” said the researchers.
Being successful in the social media sphere can have wide-reaching benefits for brokers and other business people.
“Social capital is a necessary (though not sufficient) precursor to the notion of interpersonal influence in social networks - an attribute of interest to strategic communicators, marketers, advertisers, job seekers, activist groups and any entity or organization wishing to disseminate specific messages in a timely manner.”
