Social media is occupying a larger and larger part of our lives: this is true on a personal level, and this is truer on a business level. Whether your work is directly tied to social media and you’re an influencer or content creator, or you have some sort of social media presence for your company, it is vital for you to learn how to manage your accounts and ensure you get as much revenue as possible. Sadly, even a lot of influencers, who are supposed to be the most knowledgeable, don’t know how to fully make use of these platforms and come up with empirical and data-driven plans to ensure sustainable growth. Most of them got lucky due to their natural talents and luck and are probably unable to replicate their success if they had to start over in a parallel universe. In this article, we’ll focus on one of the cornerstones of success: your fans and followers, and how you can use rewards to great effect and success.
#1 Simple Interactions Count
Simple interactions count for a lot, and we don’t mean only with your fanbase. Interacting with your community through basic comments, likes, pins, etc. has a few positive effects:
- One of the major advantages of social media over traditional media is how in-reach and available content creators and social media managers can be. When one of your fans leaves you a comment on social media, they generally expect a response. This is why if people see that you’re active in your own community and respond to a lot of people, then they’re more likely to follow you and engage with you on social media.
- A large amount of activity while sending a positive signal to potential followers, it also sends a positive signal to the algorithms that rule over your social media presence. Most people are familiar with the like/dislike button on YouTube, but did you know the algorithm didn’t care whether a person liked or disliked a video, and it documented both interactions as positive, and that is the reason why a bunch of YouTubers started asking their viewer base to hit one of the buttons no matter whether it was the like or the dislike button. A high dislike ratio was a bad look for their viewers, but they didn’t care because they got a lot more viewers due to the YouTube algorithm favoring their videos. Interacting with your community is one of the major ways to encourage more interaction with your social media accounts by your community.
#2 Reward Your Fans to Incentivize Behavior You Like
Incentivizing behavior with rewards is such a fundamental part of our being, that some scientists believe it is hard-wired: a lot of animals respond predictably to rewards. This is why you should present a variety of rewards to behaviors you want to encourage, and here are a few examples of ways you can do so:
- Do you have a fanbase that adores your sense of humor and loves to interact with you? Do you have ideas about interesting merch you can sell? Well, a platform like Fourthwall allows you to mix both by allowing you to respond with unique messages easily whenever one of your followers buys a merch. This is an excellent way to ensure your stuff keeps selling.
- If you have an e-commerce platform where you sell your custom-made bespoke stuff and present it there, it is highly likely that you have a few long-time customers that have been buying your stuff for years. Presenting one of them with a free and unique product and publicizing it means not only is it great viral marketing, but it is also an excellent way to reward and incentivize loyalty.
Of course, every social media page is unique, and you’ll likely be able to find unique ways to reward your followers!
