As a business owner, using social media platforms as a part of your marketing strategy is one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness. Social networking is also significantly more cost-effective than traditional marketing such as direct mail, magazines, or newspaper.

The number of internet users has grown to more than 60% of the world population as of April 2021. Out of that group, nearly 4.33 billion users have also joined social media platforms, which is over half of the people living on this planet! For any business, the staggering number of people that you can reach is a huge opportunity. 

There are plenty of ways to use social platforms to their fullest potential and expand your business’s reach. We will provide you with several options on how to grow your social media following. 

What are the benefits of social media for a business?

Any company needs to have social media accounts if they want to be competitive in their industry. No matter the size of your business, you too can reap the benefits of strengthening your social media platforms. Some of the advantages include:

• Improved communication with users

• Increased brand awareness

• Positive reputation management

• More audience engagement

• Generating leads

• Increase in sales

How to grow social media followers:

With these benefits in mind, who wouldn’t want to expand their social following? As a business, there are countless ways to build your follower count that will also meet the following requirements:

• Followers are real, not bots or people who have no interest in your business

• Followers will be helpful for your company without causing damage to your brand reputation 

Here are 15 ways to build your following and grow your business online in no particular order:

1. Use hashtags

Hashtags can be a great way to get your profile found by other users. There are a few ways to use hashtags to increase your followers:

a) Participate in trending topics and current events

If relevant to your brand and content, hashtags of popular topics and events can get your page noticed by users who wouldn’t usually stumble across your page. Those users may search for specific hashtags, see your post, and if they enjoy it, will look further into your profile and follow you.

b) Use popular hashtags strategically 

These hashtags are always popular, rather than being a temporary trend. Some examples include #TBT, #LOVE, and #NOFILTER. You can include these types of hashtags in your post, but limit it to one per post and only if relevant to the content. 

2. Paid social

Although most functions on social media platforms are accessible for free, there are ways to level up your forums with paid social advertisements. You can use these ads to promote your content, reach new people, and increase conversions. This will allow you to improve exposure, grow your audience, and gain more followers. 

There is also the option of precise targeting, enabling you to focus the advertisements on people who have visited your website before. With either option, you’ll be able to increase the brand awareness of your business and work towards building your audience. 

3. Motivation tagging

A great way to engage with followers is by encouraging them to tag others in a post they would enjoy or benefit from. For example, if you were to post an inspiring quote for #motivationmonday, your caption could be “Tag a friend who needs to hear this.” By prompting your followers to tag a friend, your post will get shared through an online community. The aim is to get more traffic towards your page and create a profile that others want to follow. 

4. Changing page profile and cover photos

Your profile photo, cover photo, and banner are some of the most-viewed elements of your socials. They are typically one of the first aspects that viewers notice about your profile and make up their first impression. You can use these visuals to showcase your brand, company, and who will benefit from your products or services. 

Consider creating a unique profile, cover, and banner image, and change them every so often to highlight your most recent work and style. On Facebook, the cover photo could be changed each month alongside an updated caption, or on LinkedIn, you could modify your banner to reflect your career progress. With each change, you should be striving to personalize, customize, and humanize your channel with exceptional visual images. 

5. Listen and respond to the online community

The ability to respond online can either make or break your social media strategy. Experts have found that:

• Answering a complaint on social media will increase customers advocacy by 25%

• 79% of consumers expect a response from brands within a day of reaching out over social media

• The average brand response rates across all industries are lower than 25%

Based on these values, it’s safe to say that companies need to prioritize communication with their online community. As a business, you should be responsive to your follower’s concerns and needs and respond accordingly. It can also be beneficial to publicly recognize accounts that favourite, share, mention, or retweet your company. Building a community where users feel heard and valued will improve your brand image and influence others to follow. 

6. Include visuals with every post

Visual elements are considered high-performers on social media and should be included in every post if possible. Content with images has 94% more views than content without pictures. It’s beneficial to have something colourful and captivating that will grab viewers’ attention. 

Visual content is also 40x more likely to get shared on social media, so optimizing your posts for sharing will allow other users to find your page easily. If your content is appealing enough, more people will be willing to follow you and support your business. 

7. Hold contests/giveaways

Contests and giveaways can be an excellent opportunity to get people to like, comment, and follow while getting new users introduced to your page. The contests can be for a product or service your company provides or in collaboration with another business. A few examples of types of giveaways include:

• Photo - Specify criteria at the beginning of the contest and have participants submit their photos. Users can then publicly vote on these photos to select a winner

• Caption - contestants will comment on a photo with their favourite caption, and the most popular one wins

• Comment - participants need to comment on the post, sometimes to tag friends or answer a question, to be entered

• Trivia - answering a trivia question to win

• Sharing - sharing the contest post on a story to be entered

• Awarding a prize to a random follower

While there are countless ways to create a giveaway for your followers, promotion is critical in getting your contests noticed. Ensure to promote it across all of your socials and include it on your website or email list. There should also be designated rules and regulations to follow, and contestants should be aware of these. Finally, the prize for the contest should be related to your brand since you want participants to be interested in your company. 

8. Build partnership content

One of the best ways to obtain views from other audiences is through partnership content and campaigns. It provides you with the opportunity to reach a whole different demographic and gain new followers. 

Work towards building relationships with non-competing companies that are relevant to your business. This partnership can lead to creating content with another, hosting contests, takeovers, and general promotion for each other’s pages. Both parties will benefit, and best of all, you’ll increase your exposure and brand awareness.

9. Include your subscribers

For businesses that have an established email list, utilize this platform to highlight your various socials. One of your subscribers may be interested in your emails but won’t think far enough to independently look you up on social media. Use your subscriber list to bring attention to other platforms. The next time you send out an email, include your primary social media links, and many people will be excited to see your various channels. 

10. Post regularly 

To stay relevant and in people’s feeds, post frequently while still upholding your content standards. As a business, you’ll want to be consistent with posting, engaging, and responding to your followers so that your page isn’t forgotten. There is no rule of thumb, but you can post more frequently for platforms in real-time such as Twitter and post less often for networks heavily controlled by algorithms such as LinkedIn or Facebook.

11. Create share-worthy content

If you want to grow your followers, you have to have a feed worth following. That means having a complete profile consisting of a biography, profile and cover photo, depending on the platform. You should also have a feed/timeline that highlights your most recent work, engages your viewers, and provides insight into your business. You want to create a platform that is valuable and appealing to your target audience.

12. Follow relevant accounts

Your business should follow others as a way to grow your following. It’s essential to find and follow other accounts of people and companies relevant to your business. It is a critical step in building your following since sometimes, the accounts you follow will return the favour. 

While following others is beneficial to increase your follower count, it will also provide you with a base of people to interact with. It can be helpful with local businesses that could eventually snowball into partnership content.  

13. Showcase your socials

An additional way to gain followers is by letting them know of your other social accounts. For example, You may have loyal followers on Instagram that aren’t even aware that you also have a Twitter and LinkedIn page. Creating visibility and awareness for your other platforms is among the best ways to get discovered.

Let people know where they can find you and promote your socials across your entire network. It’s simple and effective to leverage other platforms and direct it towards others, such as sharing your tweets in an Instagram story or adding a link to your Facebook from your recent LinkedIn post. Making it easy for your audience to find you in different places is a great way to increase your following various platforms. 

14. Tailor your channel

To get followers, you need to create content that your audience wants to see. Analyze what content does or doesn’t do well, listen to what your followers are saying, and pay attention to how your audience reacts to specific posts. There are various analytics tools on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram that will provide you with insight into your content and performance. If you can tailor content to your audience, they will be more likely to follow you and share your page with others. 

15. Perform an SEO audit

An audit of your social media accounts will help you better understand what’s working and what’s not. An SEO audit can reveal outdated profiles that need to be repurposed or shut down, opportunities for growth, and content that may or may not be engaging your audience. Once you’ve been able to evaluate your overall channel performance, you can make changes as needed. Improving your social channels will encourage follower growth and brand awareness. 

Conclusion

Although there are countless ways to increase your social media following, we have provided you with a solid foundation to help your business take off. By using various methods to increase your following, your page will be sure to stand out.

FAQs

Why are followers important on social media?

Followers can provide your social profiles with a personality and give a face to a name. Seeing a company with a following can add social proof and make your brand appear more credible, encouraging users to follow and engage with your accounts. 

Are influencers a good way to increase my followers?

Influencer marketing is an effective strategy to promote your product or service to a new audience. Hiring an influencer or micro-influencer can be beneficial if they are authentic and have an audience that respects their opinions. Choosing an influencer that matches your marketing strategy and resembles your brand image can significantly increase brand awareness and build your following.

Should I invest in paid media to get more followers?

The purpose of paid social media is to assist with targeting audiences and driving sales. You can also achieve this with organic media. The advantages of paying for media rather than earning it includes speed to market, message frequency, and campaign sustainability. Paid media can work quickly and effectively, but it will not serve its purpose to attract authentic followers if it doesn’t reach the right people.

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