Social media marketing is about getting the most exposure and engagement for your business to help you spread word of mouth, create community and grow your business.

Notice I said the word “your” twice.

What about the people who follow those businesses? We don’t often talk about exposure, engagement and growth for the customers and fans.

Recently, I had a few interactions with businesses that helped me get a little social media love, and it was a great thing – it’s nice when a brand or businesses send some clicks, views and followers your way.

Sharing followers’ content

One of those interactions was with the Content Marketing Institute. I retweeted their post about creating engaging content using Facebook’s Graph Search. They answered me and asked for more tips. I just happened to write a blog post on this topic a few weeks before (wink, wink), tweeted it to the CMI, and they retweeted it.

Score!

Thanks to their huge readership, I got a bit of blog traffic. In the next 24 hours, I had 54 unique views to my blog, and that post is my third most viewed post. That may not be a whole lot for some people, but that’s fantastic for me and my little blog.

The Content Marketing Institute did not have to retweet my post. They could have said nothing or a simple thank you. The fact that such a prominent marketing blog shared a post on a blog from one of their followers who they’d never interacted with before made me feel pretty special.

Putting the spotlight on what others are saying

The second thing that happened was also Twitter-related. I tweeted about a recent episode of the NPR show Radiolab (if you have not listened to it, make some time to check out their podcasts – amazing stuff).

Radiolab’s website had an embedded widget that didn’t promote their tweets – the widget found tweets that included the search term Radiolab. My tweet appeared in their stream, which, according to HootSuite’s analytics, led some visitors to the link that I shared:

The important part of this example is not the number of clicks (I know, it’s a small number). It’s the fact that Radiolab shared what their followers were saying, not their own Twitter content. Yes, it’s still content that promotes the show, but it was a nice way to spotlight what their fans were saying about Radiolab. Embedding your fans’ tweets on a site that gets a lot of traffic has the potential to direct readers to any content the fans share, whether it’s their own or yours. It’s nice exposure for the people who provide positive word of mouth for what you do.

Share the love

I know this is another item to add to the Social Media Marketing To Do List, but helping your followers get a little social media love is a win-win. Awesome Merchandise, a UK promotion and printing company, does this well – they asked fans to send them photos of their products, and then promoted the fans’ businesses in a Facebook photo album.

Keep an eye out for the people who tweet your stuff, comment on your Facebook posts, or share your pins on Pinterest. Ask them for their tips or blog posts, and share them with your audience. Take a look at your followers’ profiles, check out their work, and link to it. Carve out a little space on your social profiles to show off your fans. It makes the loyal supporters even more loyal, and gives those fans a wider audience for the work that they’re doing.