HOW I BUILD MY 300,000 K FOLLOWING
I wanted to give this ADVICE to you for free, everything i learned over the last 4 years. Take it or leave it. This is your opportunity to change your thinking and do well. I have posted something similar before, but I decided to redo it and add to it. I have been working on my social media for last 4 years. I have build my following from scratch, I have never paid for any followers, I have never boosted anything, its all organic. However as fancy as those figures sound, it took A LOT of hard work, dedication, resilience and never giving up mentality. I want to share few tips with you and hope it will help some of you!
My stats to date :
Steemit : 1,200 k followers
Facebook : 218,00 k followers
Youtube : 67,5000 k followers
Instagram : 16,000 k followers
( P.S feel free to follow me on any platform - its the same name @allasyummyfood)
If you’re starting from scratch, then trying to build a social following can be a daunting and very frustrating experience.
Do you feel like people aren't liking your content and the only people following you is your mum and friends? That is how I felt 4 years ago… First of all, the question to ask yourself is what are you trying to achieve? You have to know and understand what is that you are building and why? You need to be unique and add value. As hard as it sounds, there is always a niche for something. But there is also loads of repetitive rubbish out there. REMEMBER YOU WILL ONLY STAND OUT when you have something original. Those people that steal ideas, steal everything you did - will never succeed, because they are not original.
Getting started...finding a niche..
Three years ago I realized that no-one was doing Russian and Eastern European food recipes in English. I saw the gap and decided to become the first one. I believe that anything you write/blog about will be valuable to someone. That is why platforms like YouTube has seen such success, because you can learn/find anything you like. However in recent years Youtube has been going down. I have over 4,5 million views across all my videos and guess ho much money I make? 100 $ .... yes thats right! Here is a screen shot to prove. Hours and hours of work, 400 videos, each video takes 4-8 hours to produce... you do the maths. Ive been paid nothing, pennies.
How does this apply to Steemit?
Steemit is a very new platform, which gives you a massive opportunity to start writing about something that doesn’t exist here YET. I love Steemit, it has given me an opportunity to feel worth it again, to feel that my hugh quality work, my high quality videos and pictures are appreciate here! Anyone who is just starting, why even bother going on youtube anymore? Just start right away here, THIS IS THE NEW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM that WILL CRUSH IT!
The competition will come, eventually....
but you will be the first in that field and have a bigger following and more Steem Power. You have to be positive, inspiring and authentic. Your content needs to be unique and useful to others. Most importantly you need to add value to the community. If you haven't watched the interview with @dan and @ned posted by @dollarvigilante in his second article, you really should. Like Dan said, the most important thing is to add value to the platform and the community.
Let's go deeper...
I have outlined several key points that I think could help my fellow Steemers build their following from scratch.
1. Time and Patience.
It takes a long time for things to develop. Nobody is an overnight success. Every successful business or person worked their ass off in order to get to where they are now. I worked for 4 years every day, every weekend building my brand and my following. I invested so much time and effort into building my reputation and it is finally paying off… 4 years later. But not even money wise... its paying off with the following and strong brand I created. I used to work 7 days a week 16 hour days!!
It is the same with Steemit. You have to work hard, you have to invest time and build your reputation. The rewards will come and it will pay off eventually. I am very impatient person, but after creating Allasyummyfood I had to learn how to be patient and that everything takes time, It's all about the process and continual improvements. There were a lot of times I nearly gave up, but I didn’t and kept going and I am happy I did.
2. Have a plan.
A lot of people don’t have a plan or a vision of where they want to be. They start using social media and realize it takes a lot of time, engagement and dedication and then they stop altogether at the first hurdle because its a lot of work and effort. Everyone is so LAZY these days. You just think by putting content out there people will just jump right on and love you and subscribe - think again! Its HARD WORK!
I have seen it on Steemit as well, how people are “giving up” after posting several articles that didn’t get noticed. That’s life, just because you want it, doesn’t mean it will happen right now. You have to work hard, add value and something unique for it to work. Stop posting links on other peoples blogs! I have seen it a lot on my post - I am telling you I will start flagging the spam.. because thats all it is! Instead of spamming me, go and comment on others who have same or similar interests and they are more likely to go and check you out!
Assuming you’re starting from scratch, remember that you don’t need to overwhelm yourself with the task of putting a complex plan together in the beginning. Start with a basic plan that provides you with some direction. Make a simple word document and write some ideas you have for the future posts.
3. Make Goals and have dedication.
First, set mini goals and KPIs (key performance indicators) so you know where you’re going. I learned this from my job as a recruiter where I had to meet KPIs every day and have goals for every month. “A goal is a desired outcome. KPIs: Key metrics showing whether your performance is good enough to reach your outcome.” I have goals for the next year.
Seeing those goals keeps me going every day and work harder. This is exactly what you need to do with Steemit. Set your mini goals. Where do you want to be? Do you just want to earn money here, do you want to add value or do you want to have more power or meet amazing people and connect with them? My next goal is to become a baby dolphin, after that I want to be an orca and so on. I am fully investing into Steem and will be powering up as well, and I know it will pay off. I am not saying if you set your goals and don’t do anything, it will happen. You have to be dedicated and work hard.
4. Stick to a schedule and have consistency.
Organize your time correctly and stick to your schedule. Whether you are doing 1 post a week or 2 posts a day, have a schedule you can look at and track. I have written an article about it - check it out! Create a schedule. How many times you want to post a week? What are you going to post? Is it going to add value to the community? Will it send a larger message that brings in more people? Plan in advance. Read the news, articles, and look out, things might change and you will have to adapt and shift your focus.
5. Build a community
You have to share stories that trigger emotions and make people feel part of your story. The stronger the emotion, the more likely people will react to your content. I shared my childhood recipes that my grandmother cooked for me and this triggered emotion in a lot of people that had similar story and left their country at a young age.
Sharing beautiful and powerful images is a great way to communicate your message to your audience and make them feel certain ways: happy, hopeful, curious, excited, nostalgic, proud... etc. You want to build a community that engages each other to create a positive change. You want people to be inspired by your stories.
6. Know your audience.
Statistics are not available at Steemit yet, but I am sure they will be at some point. For other social platforms, you have the power to do analytics and study everything. On other platforms, I know exactly who my audience is, what age they are and where they are from. This will help me plan my future recipes, engage with them and predict what they might like.
7. Be Responsive, Genuine and Supportive
To truly attract and keep people interested and engaged in your social media channels and content you have to be responsive to their comments, genuine with your replies, supportive and helpful with your answers. To this day I reply to every single comment on Steemit, Facebook and youtube accounts. I have a score of 99 % response rate! If someone comments on your article here, take some time and respond to the comment. Go and check out what they are posting about and support each other.
Someone was just a nobody yesterday, but can become somebody tomorrow. Don't judge people by the amount of fans/subscribers/followers they have. If you truly believe in them, and you love their content, support them now. Be genuine and be yourself, people will see that and appreciate it.
I hope you found this article helpful and it added value to the community. Please re steem it , comment and like it :)
If you follow me on Steemit I'll be posting an article about managing your time and organizing yourself on Steemit.
Alla xox