10 Strategies to Expand Your Social Media Reach
Every day, brands, organizations, and institutions utilize social media platforms to interact with their target audiences, increase awareness, generate leads, and increase sales.
Brands can efficiently disseminate information about campaigns, fresh initiatives, and novel goods and services if they have an active following on one or more leading social networks. However, having just 200 Twitter followers or 1,000 Facebook likes is hardly the best measure of social media success.
Numerous followers who never read your messages or click on your links may exist. Building an active online community of your ideal fans who actively engage with your material, spread it across their networks, and eventually convert to paying customers is the key to success.
Establishing one requires work, but the rewards of that effort can be enormous.
You want to expand your social media audience. In this piece, we'll look at ten easy techniques to increase your social media following.
1. Run competitions
Contests are a terrific method to keep your existing fans interested in your Page while also attracting new people to Like and follow your accounts.
Experimenting with contests on each social media platform you use regularly is worthwhile. These are some instances of social media competitions:
COMMENT TO WIN -Participants must leave a remark or respond to a question to be eligible to win.
CAPTIONS CONTEST - The caption with the most likes or the greatest caption, as you choose, wins
FILL IN THE BLANKS- ask your audience to respond to a trivia question.
PHOTO CONTEST- The winning image is either the greatest (you decide) or the image with the most likes.
Successful social media contest advice:
Promote all ways, always - Use your website, email list, and other social networks to promote it widely and encourage participation.
Don't give away prizes wholly unrelated to your company - For instance, if you give away a new iPad, you might encourage a lot of participation and engagement, but it's unlikely that these people will become customers or lifelong fans.
Follow the platform guidelines - Each social media site has contest guidelines; this list summarizes the main points.
Follow up with participants who don't win by sending them a thank you note for entering and information about your company's or organization's initiatives.
2. Add a picture to each post.
Visuals perform well on social media, so make sure each post has an attractive, vibrant image or graphic.
Take a look at these HubSpot-gathered data on graphic marketing:
Content with pertinent pictures increases views by 94% compared to articles without graphics.
Visual content is more than 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than other sorts of content.
On Instagram, pictures featuring faces receive 38% more likes than pictures without.
You may add graphics to your blog posts and social media postings using free graphic design tools like Canva.
3. Spread more videos
Every social media site finds that video material is the most engaging, so if you can, it's a good idea to produce at least some video content to increase engagement.
Instead of posting a link to an external website (like YouTube), make sure to publish your video directly to your chosen platform. This will draw additional attention to your video as people stumble over it while scrolling through their feeds.
Many views can boost your brand's reach, engagement, and exposure.
4. Actively listen to and interact with your online community.
Did you know that 71% of Twitter users and 83% of Facebook fans now anticipate hearing from you the same day they ask a question on each platform?
Currently, 32% of Twitter users want a response within 30 minutes.
Being incredibly responsive on social media will give your followers an excellent user experience. Pay attention to what they need, then give it to them.
Additionally, it would be best to thank those who leave comments on Instagram and YouTube and publicly acknowledge those who retweet, fave, and mention your organization on Twitter.
Your online audience is likelier to become passionate fans and your most devoted social media ambassadors when you make them feel heard and recognized.
5. Give followers a reason to stick with you.
Give your existing and potential fans a reason to follow you across several media.
Don't just "set it and forget it" by blasting out generic, automatic links on your social media platforms. Adapt your material to the viewers of each channel.
For instance, Facebook can tell more interesting, in-depth tales about the people who benefit from your work, while Twitter should be used to communicate the most recent news and real-time notifications.
Each social media platform should be used strategically depending on its advantages and user base, and you should give your intended market a compelling incentive to engage with you there.
What benefit do you offer? What do you have to offer that will keep people watching?
Consider the motivations behind each network's use, then create a strategy to post regularly and share material that will appeal to your target audience wherever they hang out online.
6. Support tagging
Encourage people to tag others who might benefit from or appreciate a given post to engage your followers.
If you publish a video regarding Mother's Day, invite your online community to name a friend (or better yet, friends) who means a lot to them and with whom they would like to share your message. For example, if you post an inspirational remark, write, "Tag a friend who needs this today."
Ideally, you can entice these new people to join your online social media following.
However, a word of caution: use this technique sparingly and only in appropriate situations. Otherwise, it may come out as spammy.
7. Use hashtags to help you be found.
Use hashtags in one of these two effective techniques to gain more social media followers:
Use well-known hashtags. sparingly and strategically
One well-known hashtag, such as #OOTD (outfit of the day), #TBT (throw-back Thursday), #fail (self-explanatory), #FOMO (fear of missing out), etc., should be used for each tweet or Instagram post.
Engage in pertinent trending discussions and current events
I frequently check my Twitter feed to see what is currently popular. I share a tweet with the appropriate hashtag if I believe it will be interesting to my followers.
For instance, you may share a motivational quotation or a moving tale with your followers on Monday using the popular hashtag #MondayMotivation.
People looking for that specific hashtag may see your post and decide to check or perhaps follow you.
8. Humor people strategically
Brands that show a bit of humanity and humour do well on social media - but that said, you should always ensure that any content you share makes sense for your particular audience and your brand voice.
9. Look into paid social
Allocating ad expenditure, no matter how small, is often necessary to advance in social media success.
Spending a small amount on sponsored social media marketing is one of the finest strategies to expand your audience and increase awareness. When used effectively, paid social ads can help you promote your content, boost conversions, and expand your audience.
If you utilize Facebook's pixel, you may target those who have visited your website, joined your email list, and are already friends or followers. This allows you to concentrate your advertisements on these "warm" audiences.
In particular, Facebook's advanced features can be extremely helpful in ensuring that your paid outreach reaches the ideal audience.
10. Never, ever purchase fans or followers
Buying fans and followers is a quick way to develop a sizable internet audience. This is bad practice and will typically cause more issues than it solves.
The major problem with this is that it contaminates your audience with robot profiles, which will skew your audience insights, hamper your ability to perform consistently, and ultimately reduce the organic reach of your articles. before taking into account advertisements. For instance, Facebook's system would try to show one of your posts to more people by showing it to those who already follow your Page. The ramifications of using various ad targeting strategies are similar in that you would pay for contact bots.
The people you need to engage, motivate to act, and develop a longer-lasting relationship are the ones you should concentrate on attracting with your postings and information sharing.
Social media platforms can be a terrific method for brands and organizations to communicate with stakeholders, build devoted followers, and increase their reach and audience when used wisely and thoughtfully.
Use these strategies to begin growing your social media following immediately.