Nowadays, growing social media followers is practically a necessity when creating a marketing strategy. With a single post, video, or picture, your brand can reach your audience where they are, at all times of the day, and all for free. If you do it right that is. We are going to show you how to grow social media followers for business with these 7 tips!
Social media can be a great way to engage with your audience, showcase new products or services, and even humanize and create an appreciative atmosphere for your employees. Moreover, you can use social media as an extension of customer service and really bring your brand’s values to the forefront. All in all, it gives you a way to highlight and make your brand stand out. With all of this in mind, let’s go over some tips to grow your following so you reach more people.
TIP #1
Consistent Brand Identity
To even begin growing your social media following, you need to have a good grasp of your brand identity. It’s not enough to just have a logo and description of what your brand entails. You also need to consider:
- Brand Message: ‘AKA’ the unique value to your followers
- Voice: Your brand’s personality & tone
- Color & Aesthetics: Consider fonts, filters, styles of imagery, & more
More importantly, stay consistent in your brand identity. Why? It makes you recognizable. This means that every post should tie into what and who your brand is.
TIP #2
Get in Front of More People
The best way to grow your following is to get in front of more people. Even if this seems obvious, it is not always easy. Thankfully, due to the popularity of social media and the number of growing communities, there are options.
Join Relevant Communities
Follow relevant brands. No, we don’t mean your direct competitors. Basically, brands with similar audiences who you can draw into your own sphere by engaging with their content. This may seem contradictory, but it does work!
Some other ideas to keep in mind:
- Groups and Communities: LinkedIn, Facebook, and other networks have easily searchable groups that can be followed and joined. Share appropriate content there and engage with members!
- Influencers: Follow influencers who are relevant to your brand, or better yet, see who they follow.
Cross-Channel Posting
If you are on multiple platforms and you notice one doing better than the other, figure out why. Do your followers not know about your other social accounts? Is one type of content more engaging than the other? Sharing content across platforms can show your audiences different types of content as well. Generally, you are posting different content to different platforms.
Just think, cross-channel promotion also allows you to connect similar-interest audiences together. This should build a stronger community all around.
Invite People to Follow You
It’s as simple as that. If your looking for how to grow your social media followers organically, simply ask friends and family to follow and share. Then encourage those followers to tag their friends, but not too much or it comes off poorly.
TIP #3
Make Your Content DELICIOUS
You have probably heard the term “Content is King” quite a lot, and that’s because it is. High-quality, personalized content is where it is at. People are following you for a reason! Grow your social media followers by giving them content that catches their eye, makes them laugh, or maybe even educates or makes them think. It’s pretty dependent on your brand actually.
Strategies to consider using:
- Research keywords and topics that are trending
- Check out what other brands in the same industry or sphere are doing
- People love imagery so use photos and videos (at least a photo with every single post)
- Share blog posts or infographics.
Remember though, stay on brand and create content that adds value to your followers’ lives.
TIP #4
Post Consistently
We cannot stress this one enough. To do social media right you HAVE to be active. You need to be posting consistently and keep your brand in front of followers. People average 147 hours on social media DAILY. This means if you are only posting once every few weeks, or once a month, you are missing the mark.
Don’t get too post-happy though as engagement levels can tank. You don’t want to spam your followers. So, what are the guidelines for posting? It honestly just depends…. Research is your best friend in this case. Certain platforms will call for posting once a day, others even more, and some might only require you to post once or twice a week.
Pro Tip: Do NOT sacrifice quality for quantity.
TIP #5
Keep Engagement High
Engagement equals reach. It’s not enough to just post content and let it go. Check in often to connect with and grow you social media followers, start conversations, and ask questions! In fact, when it comes down to it, you want a quality following. As nice as it may seem to have that number keep rising, you want followers who want to be active with your brand.
Just think, when people engage with content they may even be sharing with their friends or inviting them to join in. However, if you don’t make an effort to engage and keep the conversation flowing, how can you expect that out of your followers?
Check out our guide to Social Media Engagement to get down to the real nitty gritty!
Deeper Dive | Guide ↗
Social Media Engagement Guide: Stay On Top of Trends & Engage Your Followers
TIP #6
Collaborate with Other Brands or Influencers
Collaboration offers a unique opportunity to build relationships not just with other people and brands in relevant industries, but with their followers as well. Again, we want to reiterate NOT collaborating with competitor brands. It just makes no sense.
Influencers have spent time building a special trust with their followers. I mean, they are pretty much social media experts. Generally, their followers view the brands, products, or services they work with or review favorably. At the very least, they can highly value their opinions. No, you don’t have to aim for the most popular influencers either. In fact, ‘micro-influencers’ can be a better choice even though they have a smaller number of followers. Why? Because it can be easier for them to engage with and nurture relationships. Additionally, they may charge less or be willing to work with smaller brands for exposure and other small perks.
Overall, this strategy can increase the reach of your brand and content!
TIP #7
Know Your Hashtags
A great hashtag strategy can get your content in front of people who may have never seen your brand before. While generic and popular hashtags can work, there can also be a ton of competition which means your content can get buried. Therefore, we recommend you research and find hashtags that are more specific and targeted to your brand’s sphere. Start with your industry and then narrow it down from there! Also, don’t be afraid to see what your competitors are using. Check out some examples below:
Generic/Popular
#TBT (Throwback Thursday)
#FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
Industry
#WeddingPlanner
#Marketing
Niche
#StPeteRealtor
#FloridaTattooArtist
Branded
#NowThatsCyberlicious
#ShareACoke (Coca-cola)
Pro Tip: Feel free to even use a mixture of generic and specific if you want, or even make something unique to your brand altogether!
An Expert Can Help You Grow Your Social Media Following
Your following will not grow overnight, even if you take all of our tips and go at it full speed. It takes time, patience, and resources. Between figuring out which platforms you want to use, creating the content, scheduling the content, finding relevant communities and brands, and all of the other research and efforts you must undertake, it becomes a full-time role.
To remain competitive and stay in front of your customers and users, you must focus on your social media strategy. We’ve got you though! Here at Cyberlicious® that is what we excel at. Our team lives, breathes, and understands exactly what it takes. Question is, are you ready to let us get you there?