4 Things Millennials Know About Followers That You Don’t

Reasons You Want More Connections or Followers on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest

Ever wonder why Millennials get so jazzed up about followers? After all, who cares how many people follow you, as long as your followers or connections are high-quality, relevant accounts? Isn’t quality more important than quantity?

The short answer is, “not always.”

Some people spend years building a small following of highly qualified prospects. They’re building networks with the intent of using their social media contacts to get leads or find jobs. But that’s a very narrow view. Many Millennials are doing much, much more.

That’s why we’ve decided to share more Millennials’ more open, long-term approaches to building social networks, so you can create the kind of ginormous social network that would make any Millennial proud.

Millennials Know How to Build Affiliate Networks

Building an extensive social media following is a great way to expand your influence and knowledge by connecting with people who are “affiliates.” While it’s not productive to load up your account with purchased followers (especially since more and more platforms are disallowing them now), your followers don’t have to be well-qualified prospects or potential employers. Think about connecting with people interested in the same things as you, involved in the same broad areas of business, or who may be good to know at some time in the future.

What’s an affiliate? It’s a person who’s adjacent to your field. If you’re a marketing company, like Cup O Content, an adjacent is PR, product and service innovation, or tech dev. If you’re a financial planner, affiliates would be charitable giving, estate planning lawyers, and tax accountants. If you’re an author, you may want to connect with journalists, historians, field specialists, or even proofreaders. If you like music, why not connect with concert venues, promoters, record labels, singers, symphonies, and up-and-coming garage bands?

Millennials understand that you don’t have to actually know an affiliate to connect. You just need to live in an adjacent “universe.”

Millennials Know That Big Social Media Numbers Can Translate into Tangible Financial Opportunities

If you want to be known as an expert in your field, you need to build a vast social network. When potential employers, investors, agents, venues, recruiters, or marketers are looking for an expert in your field, they look for active social media profiles with lots of followers and relevant, engaging content.

If you’re an entertainer, a comedian, or a keynote speaker, agents check out your social media following to see if you’re well-liked and relevant.

If you want to be the CEO (right now or someday), a large social media following is a clear signal to your future employer that you’re a leader in the field.

If you’re trying to land a new account, you want your prospect to see that you’re popular, well-followed, and well-loved in your industry.

Like it or not, extensive social media followings are a type of business bling that you need. If you’re not paying attention to your social media, you may be losing out on significant financial returns.

Millennials Know that Social Media Leaders Can Become Celebrities

While you may not want to be the next guest star on The Kardashians, you may wonder why certain people show up on news talk shows and others don’t. Maybe you’d like to be quoted in industry publications or even be the guest opinion on MSNBC. Journalists, writers, and media content developers are searching social media for opinions and experts. Even if they find out about you from other channels, they’ll check out your social profiles to see how active you are in your industry or field of expertise. If you have 300 followers, you won’t impress. If you have 13,000 followers, you will become much more attractive as a source, guest speaker, quote, or resource.

Millennials Know You Can Express Your Opinions…if You Stay on Topic

Your social media should focus on your area of expertise and stay there. If you want to be known for music, talk about music. If a musician has done something crazy, you can comment on it.

If you want to be known for politics, talk about politics. If a politician has done something crazy, you can comment about it.

But it kills your credibility if you start posting opinions about topics, people, or events unrelated to your expertise. That’s why you must think very carefully about the value of your content before you post any of the following categories of material:

• Your family

• Your pets

• Your religion

• Your politics

• Your opinions on breaking news

• Your views on famous people

• Memorandums for any type of celebrity

• Technology (especially if it frustrates you)

• Memes

• “Funny” posts or jokes of any kind

• Reposts or sharing posts that cover any of the above

Now, if your area of expertise happens to land squarely in one of the areas mentioned above, have at it. Otherwise, posting off-topic content will encourage people to opt out, even if your content is without controversy. After all, people connected or followed you expecting a particular type of content. If you start filling up your feed with pictures of your baby, your baby with a dog, or your baby and dog as a meme, your followers will quickly lose interest.

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Is it time for you to get serious about your social media numbers? Are you ready to build social media followings like a Millennial? Then contact Cup O Content and ask for a custom-built proposal, scaled to your goals and needs.