4 Simple Tips for your SCUBA Business to Increase Twitter & Facebook Followers

So, you have taken Nick’s advice. You setup a Facebook page for your scuba diving business. Then you created a Twitter account. You’ve posted events for your classes, coupons and advertised products. You have done all of these things, but you only have a couple hundred followers or less. Do you know what you are doing wrong? Here are some things to consider to grow your Facebook and Twitter following.

• Think Bigger – Like many small businesses, local dive stores and instructors tend to only serve their local market place. Certainly this makes sense. By broadening your market place, you’ll get more followers. Will this bring in more business to you? If you have an on-line store, then yes. If you only have a brick and mortar store, maybe. I may be just a small, independent instructor in the Chicago area, but I have traveled all over the United States to teach all levels of classes. I have even had people from different parts of the country travel to me for classes. All because I appeal to a broader audience.
• Show Behind the Scenes – Some of the most popular posts on my scuba dive training blog are about the issues I’ve had with my compressor. The reason why these posts are popular is because it shows my readers much of the difficulties I have to go through trying to run a very small scuba business. They can relate with me or they enjoying seeing what I do when I’m not diving. Post pictures or videos to your social media sites showing what goes on in your shop. You’ll be surprised how much people will like them and share with their friends. Thus growing your following.
• Be a Rock Star – I grew up in the 80’s. So naturally, I listened to hair band music. My favorite at the time was Motley Crue. Their music wasn’t very good, but they lived the Rock N Roll lifestyle. That drew their fans in and kept them around. Scuba businesses should do the same. Promote the diving lifestyle on your Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every dive store offers trips to someplace great. Show your pictures and diving adventures. People will follow you if you can transport them to an amazing place. Combine this with showing the behind the scenes of a trip someplace nice and the followers will come in flocks.
• Don’t just advertise – In a nutshell, you shouldn’t be using your social media accounts just to blast out advertisements for your products or services. Your followers want to know more about you. The more you give them, the more they will be willing to pay attention to your advertisements.

Does all of this stuff really work? Like I said before, I’m just a small time instructor in the Chicago area. Between Facebook (both personal account and the scuba page) and Twitter, I have around 2,000 followers and growing. I’m averaging around five new Twitter followers per day. Certainly some of them are duplicates (i.e. one person following on both Facebook and Twitter), but that’s a pretty decent following for a relatively unknown scuba instructor.

Nick’s Note: If you feel like nit-picking the numbers, I can verify that Duane has over 800 personal friends on Facebook as well. For a dive center or equipment manufacturer, I wouldn’t personally count these numbers very heavily. For an independent SCUBA instructor, I most definitely would consider personal friends on Facebook to be potential business contacts, just use a much softer touch with those people.

Give it a try and don’t forget to interact with your followers frequently.