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Social media growth can easily equate to brand growth. Leveraging social networks is, in fact, one of the best ways for small businesses to grow beyond their current customer base.
Publishing on social channels increases your visibility online by giving you multiple virtual spaces within which to deliver your brand message. It also helps to engage audiences with what you have to offer, so that you can maintain ongoing conversations and grow brand loyalty.
Most importantly, well-run social media accounts not only help to convert followers into customers, but they also create brand advocates. These are people who share your content just because they like it, and they’re excited for others to know about you.
But building your brand on social media isn’t just a case of having a presence there; you also have to work to present your business in a way that attracts, engages, and delights your audience. Let’s explore how to grow your brand using social channels.
Increasing brand visibility using social media
The more places you appear online, the more opportunities people have to find you and get a sense of what your brand is all about.
Explore as many social channels as you can when planning your strategy. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn are some of the most popular social channels. Just be mindful of your social media resources (people, time, and shareable assets). If you don’t have resources to spare, it’s wiser to focus on a few social channels that are highly targeted to your brand audience, rather than stretch thin your resources.
Posting high-quality content to each of your social channels tells the search engines that your brand has expertise, authority, and trust. That can influence your off-page SEO and help to drive your brand visibility on search engines.
Some of the best ways to increase your visibility on your chosen social media channels are:
Target channels with high numbers of users that match your audience.
Post content that has value for your target audience.
Create lots of visual content (posts with images and video perform better).
Make your content shareable, and encourage people to share it.
Use hashtags to make your content easy to find.
Engage with influencers who might advocate your brand.
Tell rich stories about your brand that give people an immersive experience.
Tailor content specifically for certain channels; don’t just blast out the same exact content across all of them.
How to grow social follower numbers
Maybe you already have some presence on social media, or perhaps you’re just getting set up on a few different platforms. Either way, if you’re wondering how to grow on social media, you need to get serious about increasing your followers.
There are some tried and tested ways to do this—and none of them involve buying followers, which is a mistake many small businesses make when trying to increase their audience. Purchased followers are often bots that won’t engage with your content, so your posts will be less likely to show up in your real audience’s news feeds. They’ll also never buy anything from you. You might even put yourself at risk of suspension from some social platforms. Growing your followers organically is the way to go.
Here are some tips on how to grow your social media following:
Build a brand that’s attractive, sets you apart from your competitors, and is identifiable in everything you post on social media.
Follow other brands and influencers who you’d like to follow you back.
Join relevant groups and communities, and post to them.
Engage with your followers and anyone who comments on your posts.
Share news, data, humor, trends, and opinions that play to your buyer persona’s tastes.
Create competitions and ask entrants to like and follow your page.
Turning social media followers into brand advocates
The ultimate goal of any commercial social media activity is free publicity from your followers. There’s nothing more trustworthy to a potential customer than hearing an authentic, positive message about a brand from an existing customer.
In order for people to start saying nice things about you on their own social media (and out in the real world), you have to develop an impeccable reputation with your followers. Fortunately, there are a few relatively simple ways to do that.
To encourage brand advocacy among your followers:
Use “top follower” options on different social platforms to make your most engaged followers feel special.
Plan even more impressive rewards for your most engaged followers, such as invitations to product launches and focus groups.
Actively source user-generated content (e.g., ask customers to share photos and videos of them using your product along with a hashtag, or invite guest bloggers to post).
Curate your most brand-aligned followers’ content (i.e., share content by followers who mirror your values).
Bring your brand advocates directly into your growth journey (e.g., send them prototypes to test and review on social media, or develop signature products for your highest-profile influencers).
Give your followers more to engage with by directing them to your Bio Site to learn more about content in your posts and connect with other parts of your brand.
Turning social media followers into ambassadors is sometimes about thinking outside of social media itself. Generating engagement with your brand in the real world can pay dividends because it encourages people to share their experiences on their own social media platforms. What is it about your brand that will get people posting? Understand this, and you’ll have taken a significant step to developing your business’ reputation.
Read more about which social media channels make sense for your business.