As a business trying to make it in a digital world, having a social media presence will help you grow your customer base. With over three billion active users on most social media platforms, your business needs to leverage social media for growth. The good thing is that you don’t need to have advanced IT skills to operate a social media account.
However, having a social media account is one thing, standing out in the sea of already established accounts is another thing entirely.
Luckily for you, we will be sharing expert tips on how to grow your social media presence with active users in 2020.
(Do you want to get better at engaging with others on social media? Or are looking to increase engagement on your own content? Check out our newer blog post: ‘Successful Social Media Engagement Is a Two-Way Street’)
Tips for growing your social media presence for your business
1) Use the SMART technique to set social media goals
The SMART goals concept is a marketing technique that companies use in creating their marketing strategy or marketing goals. By setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, you:
● Get a sense of direction in your social media marketing strategy.
● Achieve the necessary clarity and focus required for you to reach your goals
● Can track your goals and measure progress, etc.
So, make sure your goals follow the SMART goals concept. An example of a SMART social media goal would be “Our brand will increase our Instagram followers by 20% on or before the end of September 2, 2020.
This goal is:
● specific – to grow Instagram followers by 20%
● measurable – you can measure progress at the end of the time frame
● achievable – there is enough time to achieve the goal
● relevant – IG followers increase is relevant to the growth of your customer base.
● time-bound – has a set period to achieve goals (September 2, 2020)
Quuu recently wrote an excellent blog that I’d recommend on social media tools your team needs in 2020, these tools can help you easily achieve your SMART goals.
2) Know your audience
Next, narrow down who your intended audience is. This will help you figure out:
● The social media site to target with your highest audience base.
● When to post on the said social media platform.
● What to post on social media that your audience will like, etc.
There are several ways to identify who your target audience is, but our favorite is through audience personas. Although creating an audience persona takes time, it gives you a clearer perspective on who you are marketing to, and how you should sell to them.
3) Humanize your brand
Next, ensure that your brand doesn’t come off as a faceless corporation on social media, but instead has a human personality and voice. Your audience wants to connect with your brand on a personal level, so make sure you are:
● Replying to them on your social media.
● Sharing useful information they can connect with on your social
● Showcasing your brand personality through your comments.
● Sharing BTS and workplace photos
● Once in a while, showing them the face behind your brand.
These are just a few ways to bring out the human entity in your brand.
4) Create a relationship with your followers
We can debate all day whether or not your follower count is a vanity metric. It is better to have 100 followers who actively engage with your brand on your social media networks than to have 100,000 followers who couldn’t care less about your brand.
So, make sure you are building relationships with your customer base. This will help boost your social media presence.
Some tips to get you started:
● Don’t be afraid to engage with your followers.
● Start a conversation, share your views and opinions.
● Use ‘@’ to connect with people, share picture credit, etc.
● Reply to comments on your page and comment on other’s content.
5) Optimize your engagement
Social media platforms take engagement very seriously. Engagement on your profile tells them that people like your content, so they show it to more people, thus increasing your social media presence.
You can optimize your social media engagement by:
● Posting consistently interesting/value-added content. Quuu curated content suggestions can save you time with this!
● Using relevant hashtags in your content.
● Adding relevant keywords to your profile and posts.
● ‘@’ relevant accounts in your profile and posts, etc.
When you properly optimize your profile and engagement, more people get to see your brand, thus improving your social presence.
6) Be active
It is a famous saying that if you leave your social networks inactive for too long, and then go back to it, it’s like starting on an entirely new social media account. Think of your social media accounts as a 9- 5 job. You need to show up every day with fresh and new content.
But, we recognize that it’s not easy to sustain an active social media account, so here are some tips that could help you:
● Repurpose content for your different social media platforms
● Don’t focus on too many social media networks at a time.
● Create and schedule your social media posts beforehand.
7) Leverage on trends
Also, don’t be afraid to use trends to your advantage. Leveraging trends will bring your social media account to the front of a lot of social media users. Here is how you can expertly use trends in your social media growth:
1. Go through the trending pages on your various social media platforms to see what’s going on.
2. Pick trending hashtags that are relevant to your brand.
3. Create content around the current trends and use trending hashtags in your social media post.
8) Don’t be afraid to pay
While we would all want organic followers, a lot of social media networks monetize their platforms to cater to brands. With various business features, social media introduces to their platform and the constant change in their algorithm; you will find it hard to grow on social media if you don’t pay for ads.
There is a massive ROI on social media ads, so you have nothing to worry about.
Another way to grow on social media is to hop on the influencer marketing trend and use it to your advantage. Build relationships, collaborate with influencers with identical brand values, and pay them to promote your brand. Don’t focus so much on the following the influencer has, instead focus on engagement. That is where the real value is.
9) Use visuals to create valuable content
Finally, remember that social media is a primarily aesthetic platform. Videos and imagery make up about 98% of the platform. They also create the most engagement from your audience. So, ensure to incorporate necessary visuals when creating your content.
But, don’t forget that your post caption also matters, so do your best to make sure your caption provides value to your audience. If creating marketing copy captions isn’t your strength, look to writing service review platforms like Best Writers Online where you can hire professional writers to help.
Conclusion
The tips detailed in this article are clear and easy to follow. Follow them to grow your social media accounts in 2020. While using these tips in your social media strategy might not come naturally, the more you practice incorporating them into your social media strategy, the easier it will get. So start today and see a clear difference in less than three months!
