Obtaining Followers Passively: Best Practices

I previously wrote a post about the difference between active and passive attempts at obtaining followers; basically passive attempts likely result in a dramatic increase of overall effectiveness If you take your time and answer the following 4 questions completely you will likely have a successful strategy.

1. What is your goal? - It’s not enough to just act, you need to first take a step back and think... what exactly is it that we want to achieve?
2. Who are you trying to market to? - Understand who your target market is. Determine exactly what your typical customer looks like.
3. What does your target market value? - Determine what your target market likes or values. What is it that makes your target market tick. What is it that they seem to enjoy?
4. What value can I provide (give away) to my target market? - Determine what you can give to your target market that they will love. This is the critical part; you need to provide your target market with something that they will truly enjoy.

It’s important to understand that followers are not interchangeable. A follower is actually a person and depending on a person’s individual wants and needs their interest in your message changes. Therefor followers the sheer quantity of followers is not enough, you must consider their quality.

Passive followers care: If a person wants to follow you because of the message and the value that you provide, they likely will be "high quality" followers.

Passive followers will likely result in:

• Increased CTR
• Improved Interactions & Conversations
• Improved Amplification of Your Message
• Sustainability
• Long Term Growth

Back to the question: How can I get more followers?

Well, there really is no simple answer. A question like this cannot and should not be answered in 140 characters or less. In order to fully answer this questions one needs to have a full grasp of your company, your product, and your customers. You also need to understand what a customer will see when they look at your Google+ page or your Twitter Page. What will they like? What will they dislike? What will make them want to follow you? What type of content do they want from you?

Bonus: What if not all of my customers value the same thing…? this is where circles in Google+ (market segmentation) comes into play.

Use your Google+ Circles to divide your followers into categories based on what they value. Provide value accordingly.