Social media is a great and very personal way to show off what you can do, even if a lot of businesses struggle to keep it interesting (and not use it as a sales ticker). The key to social media growth are not high ad spends, but unique content and – here comes the secret of social media growth – activity.
Don’t forget what makes a social media platform social
Because at the end, it all boils down to the “social” in social media. We often see businesses spending hours on crafting each post, but at the end barely reaching people with it. To be fair, it’s hard to gain reach on Facebook nowadays, as the platform has increasingly limited the organic reach of business pages, as the new Facebook strategy is to gain money via ads and focusing more on groups. On the other hand, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are still out there, giving you plenty of chances to grow your social media channel with a simple, yet barely used tool: Activity. It’s the heart of each of those platforms, the idea behind it of sharing information and consuming information, but many businesses forget the part where they actively consume information. If they don’t enter this cycle, they’ll not be part of it, earning information consumers in return.
This is what you should do to grow your social media
If you’re active on Instagram, YouTube or Twitter, try the following:
Spend a daily amount of time you have available, i.e. 15 min or up to 1 hour, being active on your social media platform.
That’s all. Check out what your followers do, which content they share (and learn from it!), spread the love by liking their content and comment if you have a compliment or something to contribute. Social media growth does not come overnight, so give it a few weeks to gain traction. Follow users who share great content, for three reasons: to get continuous inspiration from them, to have them showing up in your timeline regularly (so it’s easier for you to spread the love), and to make them aware of you (if you follow them, they’ll get a notification that you did). You can find users by hashtags or by checking out who liked or commented suitable content.
Be there, participate, engage. You don’t need to wait for people to come and find you, but you can go out there and find your people. This literally leverages a snowball effect: Once you start participating, people are more inclined to follow you. You don’t need to post advertising or being the sales guy on social media. Share your knowledge, share the fun you have at work, share what your business does and share insights and thoughts. This is how you build an authentic brand, and how you can grow followers organically.
