20/03/13 // Written by admin

How to Increase Your Popularity on Social Platforms

Online social platforms have proved in the past to have had a noticeable effect on ‘real life’ popularity. This has been no more apparent than in the 2012 US presidential election, when social media played a vital role in helping Barack Obama to secure another term in office.
The influence of social media, in this respect, can also be observed operating on a smaller scale during high school elections. The Huffington Post, commenting on the role social platforms play in propagating a culture of popularity in school politics, stated that such contests are invariably influenced by who has the greatest – and most visible – social presence.social media
Why this is important, is because thinking about social platform popularity in terms of an election is a good way to kick start the process of improving said popularity.
Rhetoric and Regionalisation: Making Yourself Visible
First and foremost, it’s important to remember that one cannot simply approach each platform in the same way, using the same strategies. Each platform – Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Twitter etc. – operates differently and appeals to a different market.
Not only that, but recent studies have shown that social platforms encompass numerous different social groups who use each platform in different ways, and even with different languages. For example,
•The majority of users on Pinterest are women. 
•Tumblr appeals more to teenagers.
•On Twitter, fans of Justin Bieber have been found to consistently use the words ‘bieber’, ‘please’ and ‘<33’.
Making yourself more visible on social platforms, therefore, becomes a question of not only how to reach your intended audience, but how to communicate with them in language that they will understand. Just as with elections, appealing to a wide audience will involve your needing to understand the diverse and often complex demographics of said audience in order to more effectively build a brand image which will reach and appeal to the largest number.
Kissing the Baby: Brand Interaction on a Personal Level 

Building popularity during an election is as much about knowing what your voters want as it is about appealing to them on a personal level. Similarly, brand image is the business equivalent of a winning smile – it’s the charismatic face of your business which will help you to connect with your audience and encourage them to invest on a deeper level.
In this respect, building brand image will at some point involve your needing tokiss the proverbial baby. Just as this time-old trick once helped politicians to win the hearts and votes of their constituents, so too does personal engagement help to boost a brand’s popularity on social platforms. Personal interactions have been proven to improve trust between a brand and its audience, and will give your potential audience an incentive to interact. And, when it comes to social platforms, interaction is the key to building popularity.
Conversations VS Cover Ups: Handling Negative Press 

In terms of election conversation, social media can be a source of unendingly negative feedback. According to a study performed by Pew, as discussed on both Forbes and The Guardian, negative conversations on Facebook about Mitt Romney occurred 62% of the time, whereas in mainstream media they only occurred at a rate of 30%. And on Twitter this trend was even more prevalent; here, negative conversation about Romney was 42 points ahead of positive conversation, in the 8 weeks which were studied.
This study points to both the potential of popularity on social platforms to be undermined by negative press, and the tendency for social media to be used as a platform for the voicing of sentiment, rather than simple fact. In any case, it highlights the need for any individual or brand to be well prepared to handle negative publicity on social platforms, lest it derails your campaign for popularity. And the experts agree that confronting negative publicity head on and in a timely fashion – especially on social platforms – is much more effective than ignoring the situation or attempting to deny it.
Examining past popular social media platform campaigns can be a great way to get tips for improving your popularity, by finding out what has and hasn’t worked in the past. Managing negative feedback is part and parcel of both averting and handling social media crises, and just as politicians are coached to handle all bad publicity by bringing it back to their campaign message, so too should a brand be prepared to do the same by implementing, from the outset, a strong, clear and consistent brand identity.
A Likely Candidate: Strengthening Brand Identity 

Just as in politics, any brand will necessarily be in need of a strong identity if it is to survive and become popular across social platforms. This is even more true if your brand is operating in an already oversaturated market.
A brand identity can operate in two ways; by attracting an audience and by keeping them engaged. Your identity is the mouthpiece of your brand; it’s the part which will speak to your audience, kiss the babies and apologise for any mistakes. It’s also the part which people will connect with on a personal level, the vehicle for your values and ethos, and an incentive for forgiveness in the case of a crisis.
Therefore, creating a strong brand identity should be an important part of any good marketing campaign. But in addition, it’s also a way to improve your popularity on social platforms by providing a figurehead with whom your audience can connect and engage, and to whom they can give their vote of approval.