Social Web Tips - Social media & digital branding for the restaurant business - SocialCoco The official blog of Paul Barron

Get More Social Web audience TODAY

Building a social audience is really about the metality you have in trying to do what thousands if not millions of companies and indiciduals are trying to do today. Many ask how I have been able to propel myself to the tol tiwtter lists on the wen and build the kind of authority that lands me hundreds of followers, friends, blog readers and subscirbers per day (yes I said per day).

As much as I would like to say it is my Ninja Superpowers I have to admit is really just a mindset. The Mindset that most don't have because they are too busy trying to sell something. On the social web you have to connect first before you ever even attempt to sell something and in most cases the real value comes from the connections you make not the sales you make. This is really important to understand, so take some time to read that again.

You can have all the glory and benefits of more Social Web Followers (and followers=power, right?) without having to pay someone else, and without having to surrender your login and password to a third party source (who will then just spam all your existing followers with links to their site anyway). Are you ready to start thinking a new way?

Follow these steps, you will succeed

Find great stories or resources from other people and share them with a link (and/or attribution). Do this 3 times or more a day! Not too much since most will see you as noise. Now once you reach 10,000 in your audience then the rules change a bit.
Share useful information that others can use, too! example: “I’ve discovered that Mashable.com is very useful for sharing my social web interests.” (Bonus points if you provide the URL).
Participate in online discussions and events that use #hashtags, because others in the event will find you and appreciate you, too!
Respond to OTHER PEOPLE using the @reply method. This is advanced, so here’s an example: “@sexythinker – great post you continue to amaze me”
Use Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) to find people talking about the things YOU talk about, and follow them! Not too many here since Twitter has a daily limt so be sure to read the User Agreement.
Add your Twitter URL to your signature line in your email! I use Wise Stamp which gives me great resources for all my social web locations - http://www.wisestamp.com/
Don’t overtweet (more than 20 a day tells people you are trying way to hard) exception to this rule is if you are at an event or working a #hashtag discussion since at that point people DO Want to know what you are doing.
Don’t talk about your food or business too much may 1 in 10 messages.
Don’t use Twitter like IM (use direct messages for that)
Don’t tweet all about you: tweet all about your new social web friend, spend just a little time on thier profile or blog or website to be relavant to the messages.
And never, ever, ever invite your friends to be part of some online group, game or contest. This social web is a real business tool so treat it that way.

Some other thoughts

Most do not realize the power of audience and getting that audinece to grow more audinece the real solution here is not the message as much as it is the conversation. Message is usually one way where Conversation is of course, guess what -- a Conversation!