Today one of the best ways to gain recognition for your business is through social media channels. Even if your startup is on a roll you still need to continue to grow your social media audience - your on-going sales largely depend on the number of people you can reach and plain advertising techniques are just not enough anymore. The competition is vast, so it's not enough just to create a profile on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, or Twitter. Every experienced social media marketing professional knows that these accounts must be polished and regularly updated to keep users engaged.
Having a strong social media presence can do wonders for your business, but this presence needs to be built in the right way - following can be developed only if you know how to give your users what they really want. Sometimes this seems like an impossible task - you try to interact as much as you can, but nothing seems to be happening. Maybe you're pushing too hard, for engagement must be organic. Or maybe you're just not doing it right, so we've made a list of engaging ideas to try out.
1. Introduce yourself
Before you even start thinking of going on a quest to build an audience you must introduce yourself first. Every social network offers a range of fields where you can enter your personal details (website link, phone number, address, and a short description on Facebook, location, website link, and a 160 characters bio on Twitter, etc.).
One of the most common mistakes that people make is that they find it unnecessary to fill them all in. But you should look at these information fields like a questionnaire on a job interview and try to fill as many fields as you can. You certainly won't state only your name on a job interview, right? As for the visual presentation, you are required to include branded profile and cover photos. The goal is not to have pretty photos, but to represent your brand.
2. Give them a reason to follow you
Now that you've made your profile and pages strong, the next step is to share some updates. Five to ten is enough for the beginning and this will give users who visit your accounts a reason to follow you. Just make sure that the content you share has quality and that it's connected to the products of your business. So, if you're promoting some Facebook marketing tool you'll need to share the content on Facebook. Of course, there are numerous types of content - presentations, blogs, videos, infographics, podcast, etc. - and the trick is to recognize what content is relevant and will be enjoyable to your target audience.
But maybe the most important thing is to know how and how much to post. First of all, you can't go around sharing just your own content - only 10 % of the content on your social media channels should be self-promotional. It's important to share the posts and ideas of others because it provides a variety of truly valuable information and content that builds a trust with your followers. If they realize you're just bombarding them with your promo offers all the time they will quickly lose interest.
3. Be easy to find and connect with
Let's get one thing straight - people don't have the time to search for your profiles, you need to lead them to it. One of the easiest ways to do it is through your website by implementing links to your social media accounts. To do this just add small square network icons - make sure you put them on your website's sidebar, footer, and header. You can also use the official social network buttons, such as the like button for Facebook.
There are official brand widgets, buttons, badges, and assets on almost all main social media networks, including LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Another place where you can include these links or icons is your email - this way you'll point every email correspondent to your social media accounts. If you want to go an extra mile we would recommend the WiseStamp service that creates professional signatures on your emails with your social links. Also, many social media networks have friend-finding features you can use to connect with people you know. Most of them are based on your email contacts, but some can also find former or current work colleagues or classmates based on your profile information.
As you can see, growing your social media audience is pretty simple if you look at it as a common human interaction. You need to introduce yourself and provide them with the reason to interact. To make this friendship everlasting you also need to be aware that, in order to get something - you need to give something.
Guest Author
Leila Dorari is an entrepreneur, freelance writer and business-improvement enthusiast from Sydney. Currently, she is consulting companies on various effects different marketing solutions can have on their business. In her spare time you can usually find her window shopping.