How To Grow Your Social Media Followers Through Giving Out Of Freebies Using Nigeria Telecom Giants As A Case Study

The success of any online and offline business is vastly depend on the number of followers they have on their social media network such as Facebook, linkedin, twitter, pinterest. The reason behind this is simple: anypost on your social media page can be viewed by millions of people at a go.
Imagine if you have 50000 followers each on your twitter and Facebook account respectively, that means you have 100000 people that can view your post instantaneously. Let assume you are selling a product of $10 per item. Out of 100000 followers, if only 1000 respond to and buy your product, You will make $10000. That's a lot of money!
If you are a blogger. Imagine how much traffic you can be having anytime you post a content.
The aforementioned points show that you need to make use of every means available to increase your number of followers to 10000 and above.
One great way we can increase the number of our followers is to give out free stuffs. This method work wonders and is still working in the case of Nigeria telecom giants - MTN, Glo, Airtel, Etisalat -
Regardless of your country, let see what we can learn from them.
The four telecom giants have chosen to use the resource at their disposal, which is giving out of free airtime to entice many Nigerians who like to reach out to their friend and family but with no airtime into becoming their loyal social media followers.

MTN

MTN Nigeria, for instance, has a facebook quiz show titled ' Movie Tuesday '. A winner will be taken who walks away with 750 Naira ( about $5 ) worth of airtime. In one of such Tuesday, over 7000 people participated. Also, MTN Nigeria enable its followers to win free airtime periodically through their participation in their banner advert. In one of such event, MTN said that the first 20 people to use the
picture of one of their advert as cover photo and comment 'done' within the comment box automatically win free airtime.
As a result, MTN has grown their followers to over 970000 and 172000 followers on Facebook and twitter respectively.

GLO

Like MTN, GLO has a Facebook quiz tagged " fastest finger Tuesday " and winners are to be rewarded with 1000 Naira airtime. The participants and followers were also asked to share a given commercial post with their friends on Facebook. Since people like 'free things' the number of GLO followers on
Facebook and twitter has been on the rise ever since the birth of given out freebies.

AIRTEL

Airtel Nigeria has achieved a steady growth in the number of  followers on it social media platform because it combine giving out both intangible (airtime) and tangible freebies such as I-pods. The giving of I-pods in particular have made many followers to flock massively to Airtel social media platform.
According to report, Airtel is adding an average of 100 followers per day due to giving out of  freebies.

ETISALAT

Etisalat Nigeria like others gives out freebies every week through a quiz program tagged ' Geek question of the week '. For instance, the following statement appear on the facebook page of Etisalat on the first week of May 2013.
" Geek question of the week : What is sim card ? The first three persons to comment with the correct answer win free airtime. Remember to share this post. The 100th person to share this post also walks away with free airtime. "
This with other methods has helped Etisalat to have over 50000 followers and still counting on its twitter account.

What have we learnt ?

Having good product or service and posting interesting  content can help but is not enough to build a huge base of followers on our social media accounts.

Whichever country you are, whether you are individual or company, you can be giving out free product, service or airtime on your social media page according to your budget and pocket.

Organize quiz and the likes to attract people to your page, but you must be doing this consistently to attract new followers and keep the old ones.

Always urge your friends and followers to share your post. This will give your post a wide exposure and coverage.

Individuals can link up with company that can give out their product, as promo, to winners of our qiuz, emulating Airtel giving out of tangible stuffs.

 We should learn from the scope use by Etisalat to give the 100th person a gift. This will urge people to participate because they will want to be the 100th.

Any resources we spend on increasing our social media followers is not a waste because ' the more people the more money. '

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