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Is your social media follower base a little… stagnant?
This guide explains what you must know to jumpstart your number of social media followers.
Choose the Right Social Media Channels for Your Business
With so many social platforms available, your business can’t be active everywhere all the time in a meaningful way. What’s important is being present in the social media channels where your audience is.
Start by determining who your audience is and which social channels they like. You can do this by:
Asking prospects and customers
Leveraging social listening tools to find out where discussions about your field are happening
Looking for appropriate niche groups on social platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn
Researching competitors to see what platforms they’re on (and doing well on)
You can also check out online reporting on the different social channels and their users.
Selecting the right platforms will help ensure you’re not trying to build a follower base on one your users aren’t engaging with.
Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
People are less likely to follow social media sites that seem sketchy or incomplete. Here are tips for optimizing yours:
Upload professional photos, logos, and videos to help explain your organization and present your brand in a positive light. Make sure they’re the correct size for the platform and use. Each has its own picture size requirements.
Consider using the same banner image across your profiles so the people you’re targeting recognize your brand.
Choose social media handles that are the same or similar so it’s easier to find your company on different social sites.
Make it easier to be found online by using meaningful keywords in your bio and company descriptions.
Add links to your website, landing page, and other social profiles so people can explore your brand more completely.
Ensure all business profile fields are filled out completely and correctly
Doing these things will make your social media profiles more complete and reputable, encouraging people to follow you.
Determine the Best Times to Post
The best times and days to publish social media posts depend on your industry, the platform, and the people in your audience. Don’t depend exclusively on articles or studies that make these types of recommendations. Use them as guidance, but conduct A/B testing to see if you can beat the recommendations and find the actual absolute best dates and times the people you’re targeting engage with social media content.
By posting optimally, more people will engage with your posts, making it more likely they’ll follow your business.
Post Consistently
It’s a good idea to post frequently on social media to keep followers engaged. However, you should focus more on publishing consistently and delivering value in your posts. Doing so helps followers know when to expect to see posts and to anticipate them because they impart knowledge, inspiration, humor, or other things your followers value (the algorithm will reward you, too).
Building a social engagement habit with the people you’re targeting makes them more likely to follow you.
Actively Engage With Your Audience
Social media should be what its name implies: social. It’s more than merely publishing content. It’s also about engaging with users. Do this by responding to comments, liking and commenting on photos and posts, sharing relevant content from other users, answering questions, and starting new conversations.
This demonstrates to your audience that you’re interested in them. People are more likely to follow brands that regularly show care, concern, and helpfulness.
Take things to the next level by responding to comments and questions in a timely manner. Audiences on social sites generally expect a fast response. Make it a point to check your accounts for new activity a few times daily.
Follow Relevant Brands
If you want to extend your reach in social media, follow relevant industry brands (excluding competitors). The objective is to identify other businesses with similar audiences you can engage with online. Share their posts and add value by participating in conversations. Doing this regularly enough will raise your brand’s visibility and could increase your follower count.
Collaborate With Micro-Influencers
Another way to extend your brand’s social reach and build a following is to work with micro-influencers (typically people with fewer than 50,000 followers).
Some of the reasons it makes sense to work with micro-influencers rather than macro-influencers are:
Affordability: Some will collaborate in exchange for free products or services
Higher genuine engagement: Macro influencers have many, many followers, but engagement with their content isn’t high or authentic.
Greater influence: Smaller influencers usually have closer connections with followers, so there’s greater trust when they promote a brand.
Ask yourself the following questions when researching micro-influencers:
Are they targeting the people you want to reach?
Do they earn high engagement levels with their social content?
How many people see their social media posts?
Is their content valuable and meaningful to your target market?
Does their brand and content align with your brand values?
If you answer YES to these questions, you’ve likely identified a micro-influencer that could be worth partnering with.
Drive Traffic From One Social Platform to Another
Let’s say you publish regularly on Instagram and get great engagement. Your follower base is growing. However, the same is not happening on TikTok. It could be because your audience doesn’t know your brand has a TikTok presence.
Cross-promotion is a proven social media strategy for driving traffic from one social platform to another. Simply post on the more popular platform with links to the less popular one. Explain the value people get from following you on the other platform to entice them to check things out (such as exclusive content, different features, and more).
Building Your Social Following: The Final Word
Nurturing an authentic, active, and engaged follower base is critical to building brand visibility on social media. Leveraging the tips in this guide will help you attract new social media followers who will actively interact with your brand.
Always remember that the quality of your follower base is more important than its size. Make it a priority to deliver value, and the followers will come (and stick around)!
