When you first get your business on social media it is important for you to build your community and your reach. This is called expanding your breadth. However, there comes a point when you have to expand your depth and start digging deep. This is where most brands fail.

Starting out in social media, you will be focusing on getting followers, talking to people, getting retweets and shares. You will be focused on driving clicks to your site and building your engagement. Those are things that will never shift focus. However the way in which you reach those goals will shift.

As your social media accounts grow, so does your audience. In the beginning, during the introduction phase, they might be ok with nominal communications, tweets that shared basic information and generally skimming the surface. Think of this as your cocktail party conversation. But once you get past the handshake and a quick chat over a drink they are going to want more from you. If you cannot deliver more then your engagement will decrease. Sure some new followers will still like your generic tweets. But the people who you have been developing relationships with will likely start turning away.

It is time to increase your depth. Don’t be afraid to dive into your topics. Don’t be afraid to open up discussion on the controversial topics. People want you to have opinions, and not everyone is going to agree with you and that is ok too. People like to have debates and discussions and as long as you keep them civil, they can be a very healthy thing.

Diving deeper into topics will encourage people to look to you for a formed opinion. They will turn to your information to be a source for in depth coverage. You will become a valuable contributor and resource.

Though this transition can be scary, what it means is that your account is maturing, so make sure you mature along with it.