So you've created your Facebook business page, designed a profile for Instagram and Twitter and you're ready to share content. But if you don't have any followers all of that effort to create engaging, thoughtful content is somewhat wasted. There are several easy and fast ways to start gaining followers quickly, but you need to be consistent and diligent about it.
I always tell my clients after we have created their Facebook page that the quickest and easiest way to get immediate followers is to send out an invitation to their Facebook friends inviting them to like their new page. Not every one of your friends will want to follow your page, but you will find that most people are interested and want to support your business. You can create a personal message and send it out to your entire friend list, or you can individually send a message to people or groups of people. After that, you can start concentrating on growing your followers within your targeted market.
Make Sure to Include Social Media Follow Buttons Everywhere You Can - Place follow buttons on each page of your website, within emails, and even on other social sites. Also, if you have a storefront put signs or displays encouraging people to follow you on your sites. You might want to even offer them a special offer or discount if they follow, check-in or review your business on your social sites.
Make sure you post often - all sites are a little different on how often you should post. You don't want to go overboard but you do want to try and post often. See my blog earlier this week on a guide to frequency of posts per social site.
Tell your Brand Story across all Social Sites, but Pay Attention to the Different Formats. -The way you send your message on one site doesn't always work well on other sites. For instance on Facebook you can create lengthy texts with clickable links, however, on Instagram you're more restricted to pictures and clever captions which can be long but cannot contain links. Twitter is short and concise and uses lots of #hashtags to portray your message and helps categorize or group your content with other relevant topics.
Follow your Competitors and other People that are Related to Your Industry in Any Way - it is always a good idea to follow your competitors so you can see what they are doing and also what is working for them. How are people interacting with the content they post? It's also a good idea to follow people related to your industry or people that you think might be interested in your business. They will get a notification that you followed them and likely follow back. Also, if they are a competitor or someone close to your industry they are the people most likely to share content that they feel is worth sharing with their followers.
Make sure people can share your content and remember to engage with them if they comment or share. - Responding to your followers keeps you in touch with them and shows them you appreciate their interest in your content. It's a great way to start a conversation and make connections. Include social share links on your blog, website or anywhere you post content
You can also promote your content to reach a larger audience -this can be very targeted by geographic, gender, interest, industry, income, etc. You will have to pay for these promotions or boosts, but sometimes it can be worth it to gain additional followers and engagement with your posts.
And as always, create great content and use your analytics to monitor what content works best for you and generates the most engagement. - I know I repeat this often, but one of the most important things you can do when marketing your business is to create content that is interesting, useable, engaging, shareable, and promotes your brand story in a way that tells who you are and what you are about all while making the customer believe it's all true.