Social media, what a confusing and misunderstood digital marketing tactic. I don’t think a day goes by that one of our customers asks me how to get more social media followers. I just did a “Social Media Strategies for Innkeepers” webinar for BedAndBreakfast.com and sure enough, someone in the the Q&A asked about getting more social media followers. I gave a quick answer there (the whole presentation was basically about acquiring more followers with good strategy ;)) but I wanted to lay out some very specific tactics here.
It Isn’t About the Number of Followers
…Unless it is. You need a “critical mass” of sorts when it comes to a number of followers on any social media platform, but you can build one by sticking with a strategy and executing.
Many innkeepers set an arbitrary benchmark that they want to achieve. 500 Twitter followers, 900 Instagram fans, or 1,999 Facebook likes. The number doesn’t really matter. Instead, focus on generating followers that are engaged and will they help amplify your content.
8 Tips for Attracting More Social Media Followers
I chose my language carefully. I say “attract” because this is ideally how you want to “get” or “acquire” more social media followers.
1. Use Hashtags
Networks: Twitter/Instagram
The best way to grow followers is to get other people to amplify your content. What does that mean? Basically, you want your followers to comment, share, and repost your content. But just sharing is not enough. That’s where hashtags come in. If you want to reach a wider audience, use hashtags.
Using hashtags in your posts (and following streams of posts with certain hashtags in them) puts your tweets in front of people who aren’t directly following you but who are interested in the topics you’re tweeting about… And of course you can follow hashtags yourself to find other people to connect with over a topic.
What Hashtags Should You Use?
It can be a challenge to find and use the hashtags that people actually use. There are all kinds of tools out there that help analyze individual accounts and figure out which hashtags to use.
I prefer hashtagify.me. You can use a hashtag to find related hashtags, rather than look at your own account and see which hashtags you use. But there are lots of hashtag tools out there.
2. Post Your Content More than Once
Networks: Facebook, Twitter
This absolutely works. When you’re sharing your content – don’t just share it once! You can share the same thing several times over the course of days/weeks/months without it being spammy. I’ve had great results from simply posting a piece of content several times over the course of a month or two vs the one and done approach.
I find this visualization from CoSchedule really helpful – but you don’t have to follow this exact schedule.
Pro Tip! Don’t tweet the same text over and over again. Vary it up! See the links below for ideas on how to make that work.
Here’s some helpful reads to help you formulate a plan:
- Tweet and Repeat: The Power of Sharing and Sharing Again – MarketingLand
- How to Easily Double Your Traffic from Social Media – KissMetrics
- The Case for Reposting Content – Buffer
3. Know When to Post…
Networks: Facebook, Twitter
…And use a scheduler. Most social media management tools have a scheduling / management function. (Odysys does too!)
When Should You Schedule Your Posts?
Start by analyzing your own Facebook Page Insights
Then graduate to using tools like Followerwonk, BufferApp’s Optimal Scheduling tool, and others.
The point is – for maximum impact you really need to know WHEN you should be posting to your chosen social media platform. You should periodically revisit the schedule as your follower base grows.
4. Understand the “Follower to Following Ratio”
Networks: All
You want to have more people following you than you follow. In my experience, especially early on, it’s important to follow people back. It’s social networking after all. There is a lot to be said for having more followers than people you follow. This isn’t a hard and fast rule but for most people – you’ll really want to try to have a high number of followers compared to the people you follow. But to have this type of ratio become a reality – you’ll have to work really hard at sharing great content and engaging with other users.
The big takeaway here is be generous but judicious about who you follow. If for no other reason than to be practical about using social media. The more people you follow, the less manageable your accounts become.
Some tools/resources for analyzing your followers:
- FollowerWonk.com by Moz
- Commun.it
5. Do the Easy Stuff
Networks: All
You’ve got a newsletter list (or you should have one anyway), and emails that go out to your guests. Periodically email your list and encourage them to follow your social media account(s), and include your links to your social media accounts on all of your emails. If you don’t offer an option to subscribe to emails on your site, get one. (Odysys sites have email subscribe forms)
Website
Are your social media icons on your website? I’m not a huge fan of driving people away from your website once they’re there – so I like to keep the icons subtle and off to the side rather than putting in all the widgets and such. Do me two favors:
- Click on your social icons on your site- do they actually link to your account? Or does that Pinterest icon link to the Pinterest home page? If that happens – fix it.
- How many do you have on your site? Are there more than 2? Ask yourself why. Are you active on more than 1 social platform? Whittle those puppies down. You don’t need people visiting a social account that hasn’t been updated in 2 years, or where you have 3 followers and are simply auto-posting whatever goes up on Facebook.
Blog
I think of a your blog and your website as serving different purposes. Once I have someone on your site looking to book a room – I don’t want them venturing off to social. But on your blog where you’re creating new, fresh content that you want shared – by all means, add social sharing and social following etc. Don’t forget that email subscription option!
Social Profiles
Optimize your profiles
- Use the same profile picture across your profiles
- IMO – your profile picture should be branded. If the sign of your B&B/Inn isn’t included in the picture, put your logo on it or at the very least, add the name of your property to it. Use canva.com to edit photos and super-impose your logo or property name on it.
- Similar/same cover photo across profiles
- Fill out profile details completely
- Open the “customize settings” on each network and make sure images, text and options are being used & optimized
- Be consistent with descriptions but consider the network (what will you tweet or post Instagram images about?)
- Remember local search
- Where available (Facebook): Make sure your Name Address & Phone number is consistent with your website and Google MyBusiness
- Link to your site
6. Be an Authority About Your Location
Let’s face it – the reason most B&B’s have guests is because they want to experience the area (in addition to your great hospitality). People visiting the area are usually coming for an event, or because they want to visit some attraction or experience the nightlife and restaurants or outdoors or whatever it is that draws people to your area.
Your property’s social media stream should be full of local content.
- Find complementary businesses, organizations & event organizers in your area. Follow them, like/comment on their posts, re-share their posts, upcoming events, etc. Include those event #hashtags and be sure to @-mention them.
- Create content on your site/blog about events, attractions, etc. Maybe it’s a “guide to attending xyz event like a local”, or “3 day itinerary for visiting xyz area” etc. Then share that content on your social media accounts.
7. Post More Often
The results are in. Those who post more often have more followers.
Avoid “bursts” of messages with long dead periods in between. Avoid posting only promotional content. The truth is – just any old posts won’t do. Social media is just like a lot of things in real life: you get out of it what you put into it. If you’re fairly careless, sporadic with your posts, and not very engaged, then you can expect the same response to your social media accounts.
And Post Better
Your social posts should be carefully crafted, include images, use hashtags as appropriate, etc. If you don’t put in at least a little bit of thought and work and be consistent, then things probably won’t change much. Here’s some perspective.
Need to improve your posts? Check out our social media strategies webinar which has some great tips in it, or download our list of 50 things to post to social media.
8. Choose One Platform
You don’t have to be active on all your social media accounts. If you’re like most innkeepers – you’re probably struggling with trying to figure out how to post to all your accounts all the time. You’ve also been fed the line of thought that you have to do all the things all the time. You can’t. Pick one. Crush it. Don’t worry about the rest. Which one? Facebook. If you have to choose another, Instagram or Pinterest depending on your ideal guest (target persona), your property, and your skill set / level of interest.
That’s not to say you should ignore your other accounts. You should absolutely claim accounts on social media sites. Fill out the profiles completely. But if you aren’t going to use Twitter – maybe your last tweet for a while should be “Thanks for checking us out – we’re much more active on [Facebook]. Please follow us there!”
That’s it – now go get ’em!
Never struggle with what to post again. There’s nearly one year’s worth of weekly posts here!
The Epic List Includes:
50 fresh, interesting ideas of things to post to your social media accounts
Download the checklist and start getting more engagement in social media.