So, how exactly to you create massive, organic growth in the social media sphere? Well, it takes patience and a firm understanding of the following tips.

#1: Create something worth paying attention to. It may seem like an obvious tip, but even after social media had its year and the hype has begun to die down and it has entered mainstream acceptance in the marketing industry, there are still people making the same mistakes. In order to get people to start paying attention, make it about their favorite subject: themselves. Instead of talking about you (or your brand, in this case), ask for their opinions or embrace topics that are relevant to what you do and to your audience. Then, to get them to keep paying attention, it’s essential to open up and share. Give fans and followers an inside look into your organization and the people behind it.

#2: Build connections. Focusing on your audience will large in part aid in creating a connection with your consumers, but there are other strategies that can help turn regular old customers into brand advocates. Contests where winners are chosen and featured are one way to build a connection with a select few. Giveaways and promotions (such as discount codes) are another way to keep your audience’s connection and help build an affinity towards your brand. Another simple strategy that will help build relationships is just simply to acknowledge your fans and followers. Did they retweet your latest blog post? Let them know that you’re appreciative with a thank you tweet or direct message.

#3: Reach out. One of the easiest ways to gain a large, genuine audience is to promote, promote, promote. Link up with influencers in your market on Twitter and work out a deal where they tweet and blog about your company or product. Do something innovative and unique enough in the social media sphere that your story is guaranteed to attract some press. When people find out about you, and search you out on social media to find out more, the connection is a lot more genuine than if they’re just thinking “Hmm, I guess I’ll follow them.”

The last and final step, is to have patience and be persistence. A large fan base and following won’t happen overnight, but it if you keep it up and constantly experiment with new strategies, it will happen.

photo: foxofthetrail

If you’ve taken a social science course at any point in time, you’ve probably heard this exact scenario, or at least something similar, laid out before.

You’re standing in line at Starbucks debating whether you should just go with the skinny latte laced with a couple Sweet and Low’s, or totally splurge and go for Venti, 2 percent mocha with extra whip. You decide, with the holidays and all, it might be best to go with the slightly healthier option and step up to the plate to order. The young girl scribbles it down on the red cup as you hand over a crisp bill. As you get your change, you glance down at the tip jar. It’s brimming with coins and paper currency (because, again, it’s the holidays), so you nonchalantly slip your left over change into the jar to join the party.

Now, when the holidays are over, you repeat the exact same process (again, choosing the lower cal beverage option after devouring too many holiday party treats). However, with everyone out of the giving spirit, the tip jar is practically empty, and you follow suit, and slip your change in your pocket upon receiving it from the cashier.

So often, we rely on society to tell us what the social norms are that it essentially becomes subconscious. Just as in the examples above, society’s actions can dictate how we behave, and the same holds true for social media. Did you ever notice that you’ll almost automatically follow @Twitteruser1, with 508,970 followers, yet completely ignore @Twitteruser2, with only 32 followers? It’s because we associate a value message with all of those followers; the large following signifies that the user is providing content of value (whether it’s true or not is another story…). On the flip side, we automatically assume that the second user with the same amount of followers as there are students in a third grade classroom isn’t saying much that we could apply to our own lives, learn from or get a laugh out of.

While we will always promote organic, natural growth, it is equally important to focus on the numbers game, because it will send a strong message to potential fans and followers. Now how do you experience explosive, yet organic growth? Well, that’s a whole other story for another blog post…

photo: eecue

What stops them in their tracks? Figuring out how to measure the success of their social media endeavors. Well, as with most marketing campaigns, the best way to track success is to create goals.

Let’s say I own a small online retail shop and I want to reach out to consumers using Facebook and Twitter. I would need to come up with goals that could easily be measured. My goals could read as follows:

Adding social media to my marketing activities will impact sales by reaching out to a wider audience over six months. And, when that happens, the added value of business will be $40,000, which will give me a ROI of $20,000.

Then I can track this hypothesis. Say I want to see how my social media outreach has affected my sales. I could offer a special promotion to all of my fans and followers, “Are you a Fan? Spend $50 and enter FBFAN to get $10 off.” And, I can track how many of those fans made purchases using the offer.

Part of my goal also included reaching a wider audience. In order to measure this goal, I should track how my audience grows over time, looking at the increases in fans and followers.

Since it is social media, after all, I’ll also want to see if my fans and followers have recommended my site to friends. A few ways to track this is seeing where people are visit your site from and if they’re being referred there. Also, looking at the number of retweets in a given time will help track your reach.

The thing with social media is that it’s constantly evolving, so things may not always go according to plan (sometimes it’s way better than you planned). If measurements fall short of your goals, it’s time to reevaluate what you want to accomplish using social media. Maybe you’ll find that it does nothing for sales in the short-term, but does wonders for customer service, thus creating more loyal customers than before. Social media is constantly evolving, so plan on growing and learning with it.