It’s not always easy to grow your social media channels. There are a ton of factors that come into play and determine how consumers perceive your business.
There are plenty of ways to connect with consumers in today’s digital landscape and get more conversions on your website. One of the most effective ways people just like you are growing their business is through social media marketing.
An impressive 3.81 billion people use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to talk to their friends, engage with content, and buy products. Business owners and marketing teams know that whatever target audience they want to reach, it’s possible to find them on social media.
Despite the advantages, it’s not always easy to grow your social media following organically. There are a ton of factors that come into play and determine how consumers perceive your business. If people don’t know that you exist, there’s no chance that they will ever follow your account, visit your website, or become a paying customer.
Today, we are going to take a look at five of the best ways to organically grow your presence across various social channels.
Get to know your followers
Before you can get more followers, it’s recommended that you learn everything you can about your existing subscribers. The people who found and actively followed your channel are interested in your products and what you have to say.
Understanding the mentality of your followers can help you find new ways to generate more traction. For example, adding a poll can help you learn about common pain points and goals that users face in your industry. Using this information, you can start planning new content and marketing campaigns designed to help consumers overcome these issues and reach their goals.
If people who haven’t followed your page face similar problems, seeing someone share a relevant post could be the deciding factor when the user can either keep scrolling or click your profile.
You should also take the time to engage with followers in the comments section of your posts. People on social media are vocal about what companies are doing right and where they can improve. Responding to these folks is a great way to build trust with your existing audience while finding new ways to organically reach more prospects.
Host interactive events
Have you ever attended a live online event, such as a webinar? Most people have, and for a good reason. These events are excellent opportunities for learning and connecting with likeminded people.
Businesses host interactive live events to educate potential customers while connecting with them on a deeper level than occasionally responding to comments. We know that events like webinars work to organically grow email lists. In fact, 20% to 40% of webinar participants eventually become leads. By this logic, you can expect to see plenty of people follow your brand after signing up for a webinar.
If you’re running an e-commerce storefront and don’t plan on hosting webinars, there are other interactive events you can create for your social media channels.
Giveaways, for example, are an excellent way to build your social media following organically while getting people excited for your business. On average, giveaways have a conversion rate of 34%. In other words, a staggering 34% of people who see your giveaway on Facebook or Twitter will enter.
You can choose to give away anything from your most popular product to a gift card for your store. Let’s face the facts; people like getting stuff for free. The chance to win something for taking a simple, free action is enough to convince many people to follow your profile and engage with your brand.
The key to using giveaways to grow your social media presence is the rules. You should establish rules that encourage people to follow your profile and join your email list for two ticket entries. Using this strategy, you can dramatically grow your social media channel and email list.
We also suggest that you encourage participants to share your contest for a third chance to enter. Sharing is the best way to ensure that everyone can participate in your event, even if they are already following your channel and subscribed to your email list.
Share visual content
Visual content is the foundation for many social media platforms. Without images and videos, platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube would be obsolete. However, sites like Facebook and Twitter also rely heavily on visuals to keep users engaged.
Content that features professionally made images and videos is more likely to be shared by consumers who are already following your brand. If someone is scrolling through their timeline and sees one of your graphics, they may pause to look at the image or watch the video.
When this occurs, the user may get curious and navigate to your profile. If you can impress these people with interesting content and an irresistible value proposition, they could become followers on the spot. At the very least, they will see your brand name and recognize you in the future. This type of exposure eventually leads social media users to follow brands shared by their connections.
Focus on creating high-quality videos that are jam-packed with valuable content. You can create guides, reviews, infographics, and much, much more. More people are using their smartphones to access social media, so we expect this format to grow in popularity over the next several years.
Connect with other companies
Did you know that 55% of buyers research businesses using social media? This statistic is telling because it shows us that while many people use these platforms to have fun, many use it to look for product and service recommendations.
Put in all of the work, and you’ll see more organic traffic. But there’s another way to boost your followers by reaching consumers outside of your network.
Connecting with other companies in your industry is a great way to spread brand awareness and grow your following. There are plenty of products and services that work together. For example, an email marketing firm might partner with a hosting company. Both businesses can benefit from reaching a similar target audience.
Why?
Because in most cases, customers looking for one service are also looking for the other. Merging your marketing efforts and posting content that promotes both companies is a great way to expand your network. There’s a good chance that the consumers following the partner brand you choose don’t know about your company, and vice versa. The result is a win-win situation for consumers and both businesses.
Analyze your performance and make changes
Finally, don’t forget to review your social media performance and make changes to your marketing strategy. Learn about your posts that see the most engagement, and find out why this is the case. Usually, enhanced traffic occurs on specific posts because they address common problems people face in your industry.
So, if you see a surge in traffic on posts about a specific sub-topic, you can assume that consumers are interested in that subject. Creating and sharing more related content can result in more social engagement and shares, which leads to new organic followers.
You can also test elements of your campaign to see if you can achieve stronger results. Let’s say you see low engagement on your scheduled 7 p.m. post. Try changing the time to 9 p.m. to see if this results in more engagement.
It’s possible to test virtually every aspect of your marketing to see if you can get more shares and comments. Experimenting with headlines, images, and content topics are three more of the most common ways to use your analytics to improve your performance in the future.
These experiments are based on your performance and worth pursuing if you want to get maximum value from your social media marketing strategy.
