Promotion in social media is a fantastic way to develop business marketing. It’s free, you can create your posts whenever you want and how often you want, and the reach of recipients is theoretically unlimited. Any online sales expert will say that there is no point in wasting time and energy sending content if you don’t have an audience and social media offers huge numbers of it. Of course you have to work hard for it. You won’t reach hundreds of thousands recipients immediately. Well, unless you enter paid solutions.
The number of internet users in Poland has already exceeded 28 million people. According to the We Are Social and Hootsuite report, 4,021 billion people worldwide had access to the internet in 2018. That’s over half of the world’s population. Active social media users have reached a numerical value of 3.196 billion. This sum is steadily increasing from year to year. It increased by 13% compared to the previous year.
What does this mean for you as an entrepreneur, blogger, artist or creator? Larger reach. These more than 3 billion people are more accessible than ever; ready for conversation, fun, information and networking wherever they want and whenever they feel like it.
An increase in the number of followers should always come first when it comes to managing social media accounts. Why? Because a lot of followers lead to increased brand recognition, improved customer loyalty, increased conversion potential and rate. Of course, everything is within your target groups and not as part of buying blindly thousands of fans in packages on auction sites.
On the other hand, poor oversight of accounts on social media channels contributes to shrinking the number of followers. It will leave us far behind the competition, which may result in the loss of marketing advantages gained.
Whether you are just starting out with social media or already consider yourself a professional in this matter, below are some great ways that will increase the number of your followers.
Get to know your audience
The first thing you need to do is to identify future customers. Consumer profiling provides the in-depth knowledge you need to attract a large number of people. Some of the more important factors to consider are:
Profiling your customers can really help you, because once you understand who they are and what they want, you will be able to present them ready products that will interest them.
Present attractive content
Remember that social media channels are not friendly places for posts with long content. People are visuals. We are attracted by short, visible information, preferably in the company of photos, videos or various graphics referring to the presented issues. Seconds count to attract someone’s attention and stop users from “scrolling” the page. Proven ways to interest others in the sea of information are primarily:
But be careful: not all social platforms have the same best practices when it comes to effective visual effects. Test what works and engages in your industry most effectively on each platform. Pictures that do well on Pinterest and Instagram differ from those that do well on Facebook. According to Curalate’s research, successful Instagram posts are characterized by: brightness, a large amount of white space or background, colors towards the blue end of the spectrum, single dominant color, low saturation, relatively gray, faded or pastel color, lots of texture.
Pictures in social media should be easily consumed, quickly providing an emotional and simple message. Here’s what research tells us about what types of photos are best to share:
Be active and consistent in responding to comments and messages
A very important element of success in the category of “social media engagement” is building long-term, meaningful relationships with recipients. Virtualization of posts is no longer the main determinant of audience retention. People want a responsive conversation and interaction that will make them feel that their opinion is important and companies willingly listen to the advice or comments they want to share.
Care on social media is one of the most effective forms of new marketing, which means that if brands don’t respond to comments or messages, their real answer is: “We don’t care so much about you.” This approach can trigger a negative approach to a given company, which will result in the loss of customers and critical opinions in cyberspace.
What is the solution? Engage in conversations with your audience. Hear them. Respond to as many comments as possible quickly and consistently. Use social media monitoring to notify you of discussions about your products or brand. Never use the same answers from any pattern or crisis instruction. They don’t look trustworthy when they are posted one after the other in public comments. It is very easy to notice such actions towards users and this does not bode well for the future in terms of customer service. Always approach each comment and customer individually.
Be authentic
People will judge your brand on the way you engage them in social media, so always be authentic. This is especially important because 80% of users on social media decide to follow brands whose content appears to be reliable and true.
In fact, people often stop observing profiles that have no personality or use slang and jargon that does not match the sound of a given brand. Undertaking political topics is also not conducive to acquiring new customers.
Also try to reply to comments and messages from time to time with funny, but cultural GIFs or memes (of course, if the situation allows). It’s a really simple way to show users that you are very similar to each other, and this will cause them to visit your social media profiles more often, which will increase brand reach.
Encourage to reply
Ask your followers for an opinion on your product or service and respond to each of their comments (especially the negative ones). Start a conversation about a popular topic and ask them on which questions they would like to receive answers in the next blog post or recently popular webinars.
Ask them, how do they deal with specific challenges? What are the best experiences associated with a specific product or platform? The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to ask further questions and create valuable content that will increase the number of visits of your website and profile. Engagement must go beyond gaining likes in order to establish true, reliable relationships with consumers.
Tag other people and pages
Add specific pages, users and locations to your posts. This increases the likelihood that other people will see you. This will increase your reach and allow you to gain new followers. This may result in future advertisers coming to you to promote your product or service, or to establish some broader, valuable cooperation.
Commitment to social media is a great, long-term investment
The foundation of social networking is building relationships, so try to follow the same principles that apply in every other social relationship – be a good and consistent listener. Also remember that it’s not just about you and your needs. People must trust you. In return, you will understand your clients’ approach, and this will help you create better and better products and services, which is a key element of your brand’s future.
Good relationships take time, so don’t be discouraged and don’t give up. You won’t get everything served right away. Don’t worry about the fact that your engagement indicators will not get out in one night or one month. However, if the meters move up, find out exactly what your recipients have reacted to and remember in which moments it happened. Most importantly, social media is a constantly changing environment, so stay tuned and be ready.