While it’s hard to build a healthy online presence, social media is an incredible place to promote your business. Isn’t it? If you are reading this, you are probably interested in growing your social media following, so you know how important social media is to your business.
It’s free, attractive, and growing at an unbelievable pace. If we look at the stats, there are over 4 billion social media users worldwide.
But let’s be honest!
The majority of businesses use social media, yet most of them fail to create an impact. Have you ever wondered why?
That’s mainly because they don’t focus on finding and connecting with the right people. And when you fail to identify your social media audience, it becomes almost impossible to create the right message.
Ending up having a few hundred followers on Twitter or Facebook isn’t what we call social media success.
So, do you really care about the number of followers you have on social media? Most businesses do but do nothing significant to grow their audience.
Since you’re reading this post, let me assume that you want to grow your social media following and improve your bottom line.
An increasing number of businesses are turning to social media to grow their following.
Unfortunately, not many of them have an effective and thriving presence. If you’re one of them, it’s time to get it right once and for all.
Let’s get down to 10 tips for growing your social media following with great ease and speed:
1. Define Your Goals
Well, I know you want to grow your social following. But why did you decide to build a social media presence in the first place?
Do you want to increase brand awareness or looking to get more traffic on your site? Or you just created social profiles because everyone else was doing the same?
To get more loyal followers, you need to start with setting SMART goals. In other words, your goals must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
It will give your social media efforts the right direction.
Here is an example of a SMART goal:
“I want to grow my Instagram followers to 10,000 in 6 months using a mix of both organic and paid tactics”.
2. Find The Right People
There are over 4 billion social media users worldwide – you don’t have to target all of them.
Finding and connecting with the right people is the key to success to growing your social media following.
If you have not yet defined your target audience or developed your buyer personas, it’s time to get it done first. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are your ideal customers or clients?
- What are their challenges, problems, and needs?
- What kind of content they’re most interested in?
Demographics, psychographics, interests, and behavior are some of the factors that will help you reach your ideal audience.
Here is an example:
Let’s say you’re a business coach that helps entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business executives have a clear vision and direction.
Now, your job is to learn as much about your audience as possible so that you could create highly specific content.
Asking everyone to follow you on social media doesn’t make sense unless you sell water.
So, be specific about who you want to connect with.
3. Show Some Personality
In a growingly digital world, people like to know brands and businesses on a more personal level.
It’s a noisy world. Isn’t it?
Everybody is struggling to get their share of attention. When you stop being robotic and start showing off the human side of your business, it makes it easier to grow your followers.
For example, you should feel free to show off some great office photos or pictures of your team.
Talk to your audience like they are your friends. The objective here is to have a personality. That’s the only way you can set your business apart online or offline.
4. Focus More on Visuals
Imagine yourself as a regular social media user for a moment.
What do you like the most? Long, text-based posts or visuals?
I think the answer is obvious. People just love to consume visual content such as videos and images. Emerging social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are more about visuals.
So, create some form of video to boost engagement and following. Unique forms of visual content such as Facebook Live or Webinars are a good way to make your social presence felt.
Besides, don’t forget to tailormade your content for each social media network you want to focus on. For example, if you post videos on Facebook, make sure your audience can easily understand them with the sound off.
Why? Because most Facebook users watch videos with the sound off.
5. Grow Relationships, Not Just Sales
Here are two scenarios:
First: you’ve 100 followers who like to engage with your brand and are likely to do business with you.
Second: you’ve 10,000 followers that show zero interest in your content or business whatsoever.
What do you think is beneficial for your business?
When it comes to social media, your focus should be on building healthy relationships with the right people rather than trying to sell to random people.
6. Listen And Respond
One of the most effective ways to grow your social following is to be proactive in responding and listening to your audience.
83% of your Facebook users expect your response within a day.
Don’t make your audience feel like you don’t care. Be responsive and helpful. Listen to their challenges and respond every time your audience asks a reasonable question.
You shouldn’t be limited to your own social profiles. Feel free to be a part of conversations wherever people talk about your business or something that relates to your business.
Making your existing followers feel heard and cared for will get you more followers down the road.
7. Have Fun
Who does like boring, static content?
Why would people follow you if you have nothing exciting or valuable to offer?
Try to share fun and entertaining content on your pages. However, whatever you share must be relevant to your business in some way or other.
For example, sharing cute dog pictures will confuse your audience if your business has nothing to do with dogs.
Here is how Fredericton SPCA uses humor to make their content more entertaining:
8. Don’t Be Afraid to Use Paid Techniques
It’s challenging to get your presence felt on social media. Organic reach has declined on Facebook dramatically over the last few years. In other words, it has become difficult to reach new people without paid distribution.
So, don’t be afraid to invest in social media advertisements to reach new audiences.
When done right, paid ads can help you put your content in front of new people. But make sure to use advanced targeting options to promote your content to the right people.
Platforms like Facebook allow you to narrow down the target audience based on their demographics, behavior, location, and interests. So, use them wisely in order to make the most of your ad spend.
Pro Tip: Target people who’ve already interacted with your content; for example, your existing fans, or people who’ve visited your website or social media using the Facebook pixel.
9. Don’t Buy Followers
Many businesses think that buying followers and fans will uplift their social media game.
Let’s face it.
It’s the worst thing you can do to grow the number of fans and followers. You don’t want to engage people who aren’t interested in your content. Do you?
You will end up ruining your audience insights and putting your content in front of the wrong people.
Ironically, so many businesses and celebrities try to get fake followers, especially on Instagram.
10. Choose the Right Network For Your Business
While you want to expand your reach, you can’t include every social media platform in your marketing strategy. If you do, growing your social media following will be very difficult to do across all platforms.
Here are some quick tips for choosing the right social platforms:
- Consider the nature of your business. Linkedin is a must-have platform for B2B business, while B2C companies should be focusing on Instagram and Facebook.
- Spend time understanding your audience and where you can find them.
- Research your competitors to find out what platforms they’re focusing on or what kind of content they’re producing.
- Figure out social platforms where your content will create the maximum impact.
- Take your goals into account.
Final Thoughts
Your social media is just as important to getting found online as your SEO strategy. Tips I’ve shared with you aren’t hacks for growing your social media following. You need to be consistent and strategic because you can’t get millions of loyal followers overnight. These tips will surely set you up for sustainable social media growth.
Implement some of these strategies to grow your social media audience today!
