The purpose of social media is to increase your level of engagement with your audience. It’s to move people from some state of general unawareness to another state of admiration, loyalty and advocacy.
You do this so you can achieve some higher level business goal. Such as selling goods, hiring staff, increasing student enrollment, building goodwill etc.
But before you can achieve that goal you need to remember that the first step in social media (I would argue anywhere) is getting people to like you.
Rock stars and politicians understand this.
A politician without a following is just a guy standing alone at the podium talking. A rockstar without fans is just singing to an empty stadium.
It’s a popularity contest. And, the one who has the most engaged friends/fans/followers wins.
Notice I said engaged fans.
A politician with many followers doesn’t matter if the followers don’t vote. A rock star who has fans that won’t pay for mp3s or go to concerts can’t make a living.
So, if you need a check on whether your social media plans are on the right track I would offer these two questions (the answers will guide your actions):
1. Will my actions make people like me? If not, I would reconsider your plans/posts/tweets etc
2. Will my actions make the people who already like me, like me more?
What are your thoughts? Do you agree/disagree? What is the key to getting people to like you?



