Social media networking has already become an indivisible part of our daily lives. I cannot help wondering what ways did bloggers use to advertise themselves a few year ago when Facebook and Twitter were not widely used. With an increasing popularity, nowadays, Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Follow” buttons are a”MUST” for bloggers to promote blogs. Besides bloggers, organizations, hotels, clubs, big companies etc. are aslo seriously relying on these two small buttons to connect with fans.
Maybe for us, normal netizens, “like” and “follow” is just a “click” , but in fact they are very important for companies. There is a big power behind buttons. The number of how many “likes” and how many “follows”could demonstrate what interests are in audience. And a big audience makes a company easily to beat their competitors.
Social network is a global network, Facebook and Twitter could even be treated as the biggest online traffic booster. And there is indeed some investigations going on on the traffic data of social media. It is said that there are 22% more pages for Facebook users to browse, and the traffic increase more than 3 times trough Facebook buttons.
One day after attending a party with awesome music, I liked the page of this party organization on Facebook, then continually I began to receive new parties from this organizations. Since it is always fun to hang out with friends in the weekend for wonderful parties, I am never tired of receiving news feed from them. Thus, I think the “like” and “follow” buttons are in fact positive for both sides: companies and fans.
Not only companies could earn merits, but it is also convenient for fans to get their interested information. Companies can know more about their audience, audience can be better informed. The “Likes” follows the rule of development of social media : social and easy. Plus, humans like giving kudos.(for more information, please read here)
We also say that internet is a virtual world, however, “likes” and “follows” are virtual “kudos” but not virtual relationships. “Followers” stands a real relationship between you and your followers, and it all about real people and real relations. Remember what did Gary say before? We must interact with our followers and we have to talk to them.
“Followers” are real people. Besides the fact that some of them are “follow psychos”, most of them are showing their interests, and hope you could follow them back. There are some methods on what to do with Twitter followers, and I think am really bad at it.
Some people are looking down on the important side of “followers” as me, but it turns out that keeping relationship with followers is important for online promotion, otherwise no one will care about you anymore. I do believe that the communication with followers also means a lot for the social media marketing too. Keep updating and asking questions could help keeping followers informed and let them participate in a small social network.
“Likes” and “Follows” goes viral.
Swimming in the Social Media Sea 