When expanding your online audience, don’t ignore contact with prospects and customers occurring offline.  Encouraging  your customers and prospects to follow you online keeps your brand in front of them long after they have left your store or your sales meeting has ended.  Here are 5 offline methods to grow your online following.

Promote Your Blog and Social Media Profiles on Your Print Marketing Pieces

It’s common practice to include your website url on your business cards, brochures, and post cards, but are you promoting your social media profiles or blog?  One lesson I learned early on in business is to make it easy for your customers to do business with you.  Similar to how offering a variety of payment methods increases the chance of a sale, the more ways you give someone to follow you the better the chance that they will.  If you aren’t already, add your social media profiles and blog urls to every print marketing piece your company uses.

Speaking Engagements and Presentations

Speaking engagements are a great way to promote yourself as an expert in your field and to generate leads.  It is also a great way to grow your online following.  At the beginning and end of each presentation you should show a slide or at least mention how the audience can connect with you via social media and your blog.

*Tip – Promote a time following your presentation that you will be available to answer one-on-one questions via your Facebook or Twitter profiles.  This will provide great content for your Facebook or Twitter followers and increases the chance that your presentation audience will connect with you after the presentation.

Networking Events

Todays technology makes it really easy to grow your following at networking events.  If you have an iPhone equipped with the Bump app, you can use the “bump” technology built into the app to instantly connect with other people at the networking event via LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.  Instead of exchanging business cards, that will potentially end up in a desk drawer, instantly connect with them via social media so you can begin a dialogue.

In Store Signs and Cards

If you own a business with a storefront you should be promoting your Facebook Page in your store.  Put a sign right by the cash register that tells people to connect with you on Facebook and save 10% off their purchase or some other incentive.  People love a deal and will gladly Like your page for some added bonus.  Now you have a way to promote upcoming sales or events to your current customer base.

*Tip – A similar concept is to offer an incentive for customers to check-in to Facebook when they are at your store.  Again, put a sign right by the cash register offering a free gift or a percentage off their purchase if they check-in via Facebook.  They can simply show their phone to the cashier to prove they have checked in.  When customers check-in, their Facebook friends see that they are at your store right in their news feed.  What a great way to expose your business to more people and to also show your customer’s friends that they are a customer.

Traditional Media

If you are advertising on the radio, television, or print, don’t forget to include the urls to your social media profiles and blog.  Again, make it easy for your prospects and customers to interact with your business.

Don’t think just because your offline that you can’t grow your online following.  Make it easy for people to follow you and continue to point prospects and customers to your social media profiles and blog.  Keeping your brand in front of customers is challenging and potentially expensive.  Social media can help make it easy and much more cost effective.

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