How To Build a Social Media Following
What do all successful businesses have in common? A top-tier management team? Vast resources at their disposal? What about a fancy website? Those things may be accurate, but a solid social media strategy and a large social media following is the correct answer. Social media is extremely popular, with some 4.62 billion people using the various platforms. The average time spent on social media is almost 2.5 hours per day. That is a lot of potential eyes on your business and products. Can you afford not to tap into this potentially lucrative platform?
Which Social Media Platforms Should I Use?
You should have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at the very least. Depending on your business and the time you can dedicate to creating video content, you should consider joining TikTok and creating a YouTube channel. For the most part, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will suffice.
People rarely used the hashtag key on their keyboards until social media exploded. Now everyone uses hashtags thanks to their importance in making your posts visible to people who do not yet follow you. Make the hashtags relevant to your brand. For example, the leading online bookmaker BetUS expertly uses hashtags to promote its products. People searching for particular topics can easily find BetUS’ social media posts.
It is highly recommended to use one of the most popular hashtags once per week. For example, #TBT (Throwback Thursday), #FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and similar. Social media users actively search for these hashtags. Having a weekly post using these hashtags can see you gain followers who tune in just for those posts!
Make Use of Eye Catching Visuals and Video
Every post you make on Facebook and Twitter must have an accompanying image; every post needs a picture! Research shows that content with relevant images is viewed 94% more than similar content without an image. Furthermore, Instagram photos showing faces receive 38% more likes than photos without faces. Overall, visual content is 40-times more likely to be shared on social media. This is how posts go viral and exponentially extend your brand’s reach.
Post Regularly But Not Too Often
Social media followers love regular content but posting too frequently can severely dilute your content; people become blind to your messages if they see them in their feeds too often. There is no 100% guaranteed perfect number, but research suggests you should send a tweet at least once per day but not more than five tweets per day, and no less than five tweets over a week.
Facebook research suggests the sweet spot for the most engagement is no more than two posts per day.
Try scheduling your posts during hours when most of your potential customers are online. There are several free tools available to make scheduling posts a breeze. You no longer have to be at your computer to send a tweet at a specific time. You can create your posts and schedule them for a time when they will be most effective.
Explore Paid Social But Never Buy Followers
Taking advantage of paid-for Twitter and Facebook adverts is a great way to get your content to a much wider audience. These powerful tools allow you to target users with laser-like accuracy. You can target specific demographics from age, job title, income level, etc. Paid social can get expensive, but it is worthwhile if your budget allows it.
On a slight tangent, you should never buy fans or followers for your social media profiles. Buying fans and followers seems like a quick way to build a large audience, but it is the complete opposite. The sites offering to find you fans and followers essentially sell you fake accounts or accounts that are bots. This means your posts are not seen by actual people, which makes them completely pointless.