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Social Media Growth Strategies
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There isn’t a theater performance or a speech without an audience. An audience is exactly what followers and subscribers are to social media pages. Undisputedly, social media is a huge trend.
The total of active social media users globally is totaling to a little shy of 3 billion users–in a world of 7.7 billion people, that’s a huge fraction. However, although the number of social media users is so high, the struggle is for followership.
For instance, the highest following for an individual on social media is set a little above 209 million, while the highest organization is put at 340 million users. The number of social media platforms is set to keep increasing.
This has resulted in a massive turn to social media for business and audience. The puzzle now is how to increase the followers and subscribers on your social media pages. Different services, such as Social Media Daily, help get the desired audience for your social media pages. To help further your quest to increase your followers and subscribers, here are 16 ways to effect an increase systematically:
1) Switch Up Your Homepage Often
A social media page with the same profile picture and cover photo running for years may not come off as an active one. Try to update your social media page’s profile picture and cover occasionally. On Facebook, you can use animations in your profile picture space. This can attract more followers. Speaking of which, check out themarketingheaven.com.
Also, ensure to herald these profile changes. On Facebook and Twitter, you have the opportunity to write a caption for your every profile picture update. On Twitter, you even get a dedicated hashtag “#NewProfilePicture”, so make sure that you add this each time you change your display picture.
2) Know The Content Your Audience Loves
Social media users are there for the content, but not useless or wrong content. A comedy page might get away with random postings about their delayed afternoon meal, but a business account might not. A business account will be more likely to lose followers than gain followers for random posts.
Therefore, it is important to post what you know your audience loves.
Publish opinions, data, news, and trends. Most importantly, all the content you are posting on your social media page should be loyal to your brand’s message.
3) Be All About Content Quality
Many people on social media don’t pay as much attention as they should on content quality. Content quality is high on people’s minds regarding websites because they simply won’t rank in searches if they continue to churn out poor content quality.
This simply means your content should be meeting a viewer’s needs. A viewer is not on your page to read a mass of disconnected words with a random image. Therefore, you should put some more into the thought process behind your posts.
Social media users might not be need-driven, but they sure know a quality piece of content that meets their unconscious needs. This is the reason why most verified accounts’ followership continues to increase, while that of others experiences a decline.
4) Tailor Your Content To Each Platform
As a social media user, you need to realize that the same content format does not work for all platforms. This calls for a need to tailor every piece of content to the specific platform where it will be posted. The frequency of content also matters on social media platforms.
Twitter is about the most realistic platform in terms of the newsfeed. Twitter’s newsfeed is real-time, while that of others, like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, are based on algorithms. Thus, Twitter calls for a higher frequency of daily posts than the other ones.
Take note that, generally, videos are more suited for Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube than other platforms. Text-based content types are great for LinkedIn and Twitter.
5) Include A Visual In Every Post
The importance of visuals in social media content cannot be overemphasized. On every social media platform, visuals have a significant impact on engagement. Of course, more engagement translates to more followers. Multiple types of visual content are supported on all major social media platforms.
These include graphic images and videos. Even podcasts can now be presented visually on these platforms. If the length of the video you plan to upload is more than the limit allowed on a platform, then, be sure to give a snippet of it and redirect them someplace where they can watch the content in full. Concerning video length, Instagram now has IGTV for longer videos.
6) Tell A Story
Everybody loves a story. You can use storytelling to connect on an emotional level to social media users.
Users are more likely to follow an account that has storied content. Stories can be generated from your existing audience or from actions that have been taken in a while. The effect of stories lasts longer when they are published or posted episodically.
You can make use of Instagram and Facebook stories, Twitter moments, and LinkedIn articles to help users connect better with your page.
7) Spread The News About Your Social Media Presence
Apart from social media, you should use other platforms to connect to your audience. Examples include websites, blogs, email subscription lists, search engines, and TV.
You can increase your social media following by reminding your loyal audience on these other platforms to follow you on social media.
However, expect that there will only be a few individuals who might go off on their own to look for your social media pages. You can also use this trick to redirect users to specific platforms.
If you’re new to this specific platform, you can redirect the huge audience you have on one platform to there to increase your overall social media following.
8) Be Consistent And Strategic
Social media campaigns thrive on a high level of consistency. If you don’t possess the ability to be consistent, there is a lower likelihood that your social media following will experience a dramatic increase anytime soon.
Consistency conveys a sense of seriousness to users, as well as significantly increases your social media visibility. Being strategic is also important because you ought to post during specific times of the day when there is a higher number of users who are online.
9) Follow Verified Accounts And Influencers In Your Niche
If you have been around social media for a while, you should have an idea of the verified accounts and influencers in your niche. You should follow these accounts and share their content with your existing followers.
It might seem as though by following them, you don’t benefit from it. In the end, however, these influencers notice those who have been following their accounts and sharing their content.
If you have done your part, then, when they are making an appreciation post, they could tag you or go a step further and follow you back. A follow back by a major account in your niche will drive up your following by some numbers. You can also leverage on the relationship for more following in the future.
10) Use Hashtags
Hashtags are very useful in tailoring your posts for specific audiences. Of course, Twitter created the concept and still holds the lead in terms of the effectiveness of hashtags. However, the truth is that hashtags can be used on almost any other platform today.
Hashtags help ensure that your posts show up in specific conversations. You can make good use of hashtags on Twitter by using trending ones in your posts. Also, for all platforms, when selecting hashtags for your posts, make sure to only use those that relate directly to your social media pages.
You can also create hashtags that are specific to your page. Personal hashtags might entail some work, but when they actually start to trend, they will do a lot of good for your social media posts.
11) Be Active And Engage Your Audience
For every content you are posting, you should expect reactions. These could be questions, opposite viewpoints, compliments, and even abusive comments. Your response to these reactions has to be timely and should be a deliberate one.
Many social media users are sensitive to the tone of response, so they know when you really didn’t pay attention when you were giving them a response. Also, social media followers often have requests.
It can be for a follow back, financial assistance, promotion of their personal products, and more. Do as many of these favors as you can and give a good reason for refusal when you need to. Having a professional online presence through a well-designed website can also help build credibility and make it easier for others to support your work.
12) Encourage Tagging
Tagging is another great way to get followers. Tagging works on most social media platforms with the “@” designation. If this is done relating to your account, it drives more people to your page. This often translates to more followers. It’s even better when you get tagged by an influencer. You can effectively encourage tagging in two ways:
- You can ask to be tagged in topics relating to your page and posts.
- Ask your followers to tag people who might be interested in your page.
To give you an idea of the first method, imagine having a college-focused page. What you can do is add a line in your caption asking users, who are students, to tag your social media handle in their posts in order to get featured on your page.
The second method is more like a referral. It encourages your followers to tag your account in a bid to redirect their followers to your page. Both methods work satisfactorily; you only need to decide which one works best for you.
13) Add A Call-To-Action In Your Post
A call-to-action is a directive to viewers to take specific actions after engaging with your post. This works tremendously for increasing followers. You can ask your viewers to follow, subscribe, or comment on your page.
This is a way to remind those who might forget to do so. This ensures that no one leaves your page without first following your account.
14) Be As Entertaining And Unofficial As You Can Be
Social media is highly driven by casual discussions and entertainment. A social media page doesn’t have to be overly official in its tone.
Infuse some amount of entertainment in your posts by using mildly funny captions.
However, swear words and slangs may be overstretching the limits of being unofficial. Also, keep your captions as short as possible. The truth is that many social media users don’t have a long attention span.
15) Organize Competitions And Promotions
Occasional competitions and promotions on your social media pages are a proven way to increase your following.
It is also a way by which you can reward your most loyal followers.
This can encourage users to follow your page even when they naturally would not. You can reduce the high financial impact of these promotions by organizing them occasionally.
Here are ways you can successfully hold competitions and promotions:
- Alert existing followers of upcoming competitions early enough.
- Create inconspicuous reminder posts of the competition.
- Be outspoken about the true and fair process that will be used in selecting winners.
- Make sure you can afford the prizes.
- Decide on the frequency of such promotions.
16) Try Sponsored Posts
Facebook and its associated platforms are big on sponsored posts. Twitter and LinkedIn also have these. If you can afford the cost of sponsoring your social media posts, it is a worthy consideration to make. Also, don’t make all your posts sponsored. This is the mistake some major brands make.
This practice can greatly raise the cost of sponsored posts. It can, then, be frustrating if you are not getting the results you desire. Create a budget you can work with, and schedule the frequency at which you will do it.
Conclusion
Increasing the number of followers and subscribers on your social media pages should be a top priority. It often requires a lot of work, but the results are astounding.
The methods discussed in this article can help you attain social media success much faster.
Consistency is a prerequisite to an increased social media following. Ensure you keep your page looking active by constantly updating your homepage.
Figure out the content your audience loves and make it available to them. Content quality must not be compromised because it is social media; your content must be tailored to specifically suit the social media platform you are posting on.
Improve post engagement by adding visuals to your content, telling a story, adding a call-to-action for post viewers, and responding to follower comments.
Also, follow verified accounts and influencers to get more attention to your page in the long term. Encourage tagging, and use and create hashtags to redirect more users to your pages.
Organize competitions to reward loyal followers. Lastly, you can boost your visibility by occasionally sponsoring your most viral social media posts.
