Did you know that more than 75% of small businesses in the United States use social media regulalry?
In the age of technology, social media has become an excellent outlet to grow businesses and build brand awareness.
If you want to improve your company with effective marketing, you should consider using social media.
Continue reading to discover the best tips on how to grow your social media following naturally to improve sales!
Go In with a Plan
The first step in learning how to grow your social media following is to go in with a plan.
Creating a plan will help guide you through the process and know which steps to take and when. Without a plan, you might become complacent in your progress or fail to meet your goals. Write down the basic plan that you have and which platforms you intend to use.
You should also identify an employee at your company as the social media representative. Having too many hands-on social media accounts can lead to conflicting and repetitive information. Another reason you want to designate someone to social media is so that they can focus solely on those aspects and maintain consistency.
Set Goals
If you want to grow your social media following, you will need to set specific, measurable, and timely goals.
Knowing what you want to achieve is important, but you will need to break that down into smaller steps, or goals. Many people make the mistake of skipping the goal creation process. This often leads to wasted time and resources.
At this stage, you must identify your target audience and know how you want to connect with them. Businesses often use locations and demographics to pinpoint the audience that they want to target.
You should also set goals about how many posts you want to make in a day or a week. Although this number might change, it will give you a solid starting point and baseline.
Don’t Limit Yourself
Improving your social media follower growth will require you to go out of your comfort zone and make multiple accounts.
There are many types of social media that you can use to grow your following, and each platform has unique properties. Facebook and Twitter are two of the most commonly used platforms because so many people logon to them and scroll each day. You can use Facebook and Twitter to make posts about deals, new products, and to share images.
Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are other excellent platforms to use for your business. These platforms are very engaging to customers and give you the chance to show off your creative side.
If you are looking for a more professional social media site, LinkedIn is a good choice to go with. LinkedIn is a great platform for finding employees, but also customers. This site is quite similar to Facebook, but it is used for business purposes instead.
Try to come up with a list of social media sites that you think will hit the right audience for your business and start making accounts.
Post Content Frequently
Did you know that the average person spends about 4 hours a day on their phones or computers in the United States?
Much of this screen time is spent on social media, which means you will have a lot of opportunities to post content. Posting about 3 to 7 times a week after the end of the work day has proven to be effective when trying to grow your audience.
At the beginning of the month or week, you should write out a plan with the content that you want to post about and when to post them. The more that you post content on your social media pages, the more opportunities you will have to engage with the public.
When customers go to a business’s social media site and don’t see any current posts, they are less likely to do business with them. This is because it can give the image that you don’t care to engage with them or have nothing new going on.
Use Relevant & Interesting Content
You won’t see social media account growth if you aren’t posting relevant and interesting content on your pages.
It is easy to make a quick post on social media, but without engaging your audience, your efforts will fall flat. Many businesses post about upcoming sales and new products to catch the viewers attention. You can also use current events and new articles to draw in a crowd and bring traffic to your accounts.
If you aren’t sure what is interesting to post about, it can be beneficial to monitor trending words and terms on social media. Following trends will keep your account engaging and attract potential buyers. Don’t be afraid to get creative and come up with content that you haven’t seen before.
Hashtag Your Posts
If you are new to social media, you might not understand the importance of hashtags on social media posts.
Hashtags are used to connect your posts with other content that people have uploaded.
When social media users go on their platforms and make a general search, the content that has those hashtags will appear. Using hashtags will increase your chances of gaining followers. This is because it will reach out to those that haven’t discovered your business already.
There are many sites that you can find information on about the most common hashtags and which ones will help your business. After you use social media for some time, you will learn how to use hashtags to your advantage and reach the right audience.
Use Analytics
Growing your social media following will require you to monitor website and platform analytics.
Google has several features that allow you to see what people are engaging with on your sites so that you know areas of strength and weakness. You must look at this information to determine if you are on track with your goals and see if your efforts are making a difference.
Using analytics will help make it easy to measure your progress on goals. You will also be able to identify if you are putting too many resources and money into a project that isn’t seeming to make improvements.
Try to look at your website and social media details every few weeks or once a month. The longer that you wait to check this information, the more mistakes might get unnoticed.
Utilize Growth Sites
There are many ways to naturally grow your social media following, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to get a little bit of help.
You can grow your Instagram followers through Instagram and other platforms. This is a great way to find new customers and share information about your company. Make sure that the growth sites that you use are legal and help you generate followers in the most natural way possible.
Most growth sites help your business by posting content and following certain demographics. You should always monitor what these sites are doing to ensure that the following you are gaining is the following that you want.
Try to use other tactics along with these sites to get the most followers on your page. This will help improve sales and grow your customer database.
Keep Your Information Current
One of the first places that people check for information about a business is on their social media accounts.
On social media, you can post your company hours, menus, and other useful information. You must check these details regulalry to ensure that all of the info is current and up to date. When people check social media and find old information, they might think that your business has nothing new going on or might even be closed.
If you post news articles, you should make sure that the articles are from the past year or so, since technology and science are frequently evolving. The more current that you posts and company details are, the more reliable that your business will appea.
Focus on Web Design
Although you can only customize your social media pages so much, you must still put emphasis on web design.
The format of your account and posts will make a big difference in how well you can engage an audience. When you have well-formatted posts, people are most likely to look at them and stop to view more information.
Paying attention to the colors, fonts, and photos or videos that you use can help you gain a larger following. Take time to consult with a web designer or hire one if needed to ensure that you are getting the most out of your accounts and posts.
Think About Your Customers
At the end of the day, you should always be thinking about the customer’s wants and needs.
The customer keeps you in business so you must always make sure that you are trying to fit their molds and exceed their expectations. You must have a strong knowledge of your audience so that you can address your customers correctly and with the right content.
If you are trying to grow your customers for people who are under age 50, you should make sure that the content is relevent to them and not an older crowd. When targeting older generations, your layout should be simple to navigate and have engaging topics to that group.
By looking at comments and likes, you can better determine what your customers want to see and what falls flat with them.
Set a Budget
Did you know that most companies spend 15 to 25% of their marketing budget on social media and digital outlets?
Although you won’t have to pay high costs for billboards and newspaper space, you should still expect to pay some money. Social media marketing can be free. However, when you start investing money into it, your attempts can go a lot further.
Take a look at your marketing budget for the year and identify the areas that you want to put the most effort towards. You should avoid spending all of your marketing budgets on digital methods, as this could hinder your business in other ways.
Try to find a balance of marketing within your community, online, and through various events. Keep in mind that you will also need your marketing money for hosting events and buying promotional materials.
Add Follow Buttons to Your Website
Many people still go to a company’s website when trying to find information about their products or services.
If you want to grow your social media following, however, you must put follow buttons on your website page. Most company have these buttons located on the home pages or at the bottom of each page. The idea of them is that when a viewer is interested in your business, they can click on the link or icon and be redirected to your social media accounts.
This makes it much easier for people to find your business on social media without having to do extensive searches. It should be a one-click process that takes the viewer to your other pages for more engaging content.
Learn How to Grow Your Social Media Following
If you want to learn how to grow your social media following, you must be ready to invest time and resources to the project.
Digital marketing is one of the best methods for reaching out to people and growing brand awareness. When done properly, you can build your following by posting frequent and engaging content. You can easily let your brand shine through social media and interact with the community, no matter how far away that they are.
Take time to create a plan and set goals that put you on the right track for sales and growth in your business.
Be sure to check out our blog for more articles about social media growth tips and how to improve your online presence!
