To be clear, I am going to be talking Facebook and Linked In here so there is no confusion. Instagram is a little tricky in terms of building your following and there are way too many complexities at play there. I am going to run through my top 5 ways to ensure you are adding quality people to your friends’/connections lists that will engage with you and are your potential ideal clients/team members and to also ensure that the Facebook algorithm in particular will show your posts to the right people. It’s so important to build your list daily and every once in a while have a bit of a clean out so only the right people are on your lists.
- Check the person’s profile is ‘real’ – irrespective of whether or not they have reached out to you or vice versa. Make sure their profile is ‘real’ and not a bogus account. You’ll be able to figure that out quickly by seeing how long they have been on the platform, is there a picture of them, are their posts in alignment with their profile description and do they look like someone you would do business with.
- Ensure the profile picture is a clear headshot of them smiling. I only want to do business with happy people.
- Are their posts positive in general. Again, I don’t want to do business with negative people. Do they post regularly. Are they active in Groups and engage with others consistently. You want to friend someone who is actually active on the platform.
- Have a quick look at their occupation. Is this person in alignment with your niche/target market.
- Have a look at their age – is this person in the age group of your niche/target market.
This is by no means a complete laundry list of what to look out for but after a while you will get great at doing this quickly and spend only around 10 – 15 minutes’ daily to add 5 – 10 people. The key here is to ensure you are filling your list with people who are highly engaged, positive, open to opportunities and look like your ideal customer/team member. Remembering that it’s not about getting your Facebook friends’ list to 5,000 as quickly as possible. It’s not about quantity, it’s always about quality. There are a LOT of Instagram accounts that have over 100k followers but don’t monetize it. And yet some will have only a few hundred that are making a solid six figure income. Focus on quality all the time, and over time you will see some great results. Adding new people daily is key – consistency is the focus. After you have connected (ie they have accepted your request or vice versa), always message them to say hello, introduce yourself, compliment them on something, like their profile picture and then ask them a question that gets them engaging with you. And as always, have fun!