Are Your Social Media Followers Truly Yours?

I asked a client this, and it opened their eyes. To follow up on the question, what happens to those followers if your business gets banned on social media?

You Lose Them

It is that simple.

Don’t get me wrong. Social Media is an incredibly valuable tool when leveraged correctly. That doesn’t change that those fans and followers on a given platform, belong to that platform.

Now you could argue, even if your business was banned you would still have them. I hope, genuinely hope, that is in fact the case. Although how do you know you didn’t lose any?

So What Can You Do?

Here are 3 ideas on how to get people from your social media page to your website where you can collect their info.

• Weak – Ask your followers to fill out a contact form.
• Moderate – Run a promotion that requires their info.
• Strong – Provide unique content on your website in addition to a combination of the other two.

Remember unless you have full control over the tool you’re using to interact with your customers you’re always at risk.

Now you’re probably saying it is unlikely that your brand would get banned. As long as you aren’t too controversial then I think you’re completely right.

So if banning is unlikely why worry?

Do you control what info you can see about your customers?
No.
Do you control how changes happen on a given social media?
No.

In short, if you don’t own the tool there is a risk of things you don’t want happening.

Regardless of the likelihood. I know you’ll agree that giving your customers/followers more of what they want is a good idea.

Reach out to your audience using the various tools and mediums they want to use. Give them the content they want, the way they want it. Unique interactions for each social media, and a natural back and forth with your website is a win-win.

All while keeping in mind that if you don’t keep track of them you might lose access to them.