Social media nowadays has grown massively. Platforms like these have the power to make or break a business, brand, or corporation.
Most corporations use these platforms to engage with their customers, improve their outreach, and most importantly, work on their online presence so their brand gets recognition by the masses. Besides having a social media account up and running, there are plenty of other aspects you need to look into so it becomes easier to grow your online following. In this article, let us go over some tips you can use to improve your brand’s image and gain a reliable online following.
Increase Engagement
Social media is all about engagement. Stay active on your social media handles and engage with your audience. Engaging more means you will get the right exposure and will be picked up by social media algorithms that will then suggest your content to users with similar interests. Keep your profile up to date and be sure to reply to comments. Engaging with users takes time, but is a simple task that can be done between other tasks, and which goes a long way in satisfying your customers.
Being consistent is also imperative when engaging with customers. You can make a schedule of engaging content that will be used every week. However, some planning and content creation will be necessary before you implement the schedule for posting content. If you post content once a month, your engagement will not increase significantly even if you upload 10 pieces of content at one time. Instead of posting once in a while, schedule your content as mentioned earlier, and be consistent when posting. As you keep pace with posting content, your user base and followers will grow organically.
Create Valuable Content
Work on providing value to the customers when they visit. It can be a piece of written content, an infographic, or a video. Make sure you provide value to the customer through various methods to keep them engaged. Let us say you run a dog grooming business. Your target audience will be individuals who love to take care of their pets.
To point their attention towards your brand, provide valuable and relevant content like ways to cook homemade treats for your pet or share with them some pet grooming tips that they would love to read. Providing valuable information instills the trust of the customer in the brand, and increases the brand identity of the business. If you are still confused about what type of information to present, start thinking like the user and evaluate what type of answers you would most likely look for. You can also create a buyer persona that aids in defining your ideal client. Knowing your target audience ensures the production of promising and impactful content.
Purchasing Followers
Getting a substantial amount of followers is never easy. You need to pull every trick out of the hat to make it happen. When a new account is created, it might take a few months or even a full year to grow your follower base using organic ways. Several companies are offering services that allow organizations to buy IG followers and likes so they can increase their outreach. However, when searching for these companies, make sure the accounts they will use to follow your brand look genuine. Using bots is unethical and can affect your brand identity, so always choose a company that offers genuine followers with active accounts.
Review Relevant Profiles
Learning how other business profiles are engaging on social media can provide valuable insight. You can follow relevant brand profiles, share their profiles, and engage with similar audiences to increase your brand visibility by many folds. However, completely avoid following your competitor’s profiles. Only follow businesses that are related to your niche. Let us say you have a pet grooming salon. Endorsing a pet food product and engaging with that audience will prove to be beneficial for your business in the long run.
Optimize your Profile
Similar to search engine optimization, profiles on social media platforms are also optimized to organically attract followers. Here are a few steps you can carry out on your own before calling in optimization experts.
Use a professional image of your brand and logo using the correct size. Most platforms accept a resolution of 400*400 pixels.
Never use multiple images on different social media profiles. Be consistent and only use a single image across all online platforms.
Search for relevant keywords that define your business or are linked in some manner. Make sure to use them in your bio and description tags for optimized results. These keywords can be recognized by social media algorithms that can push your content towards a larger viewership.
Include all links like your website’s landing page, other social profile links, e-mail, and contact in your social media profile.
Dedicate some time to filling out information about your company so your followers can know your business better and connect with you.
Never allow malicious or inappropriate content to be associated with you. There might be some users who can tag your business in content like this. Make sure to untag the business and keep an eye out for these activities.
Find Collaborators
To further boost your followers, you can hire micro-influencers to spread the word through their social media profiles by mentioning your business. Micro-influencers do not have a lot of followers, but their follower base is more loyal to them. When a couple of micro-influencers are used, it produces better results than hiring a single macro influencer with millions of followers. These micro-influencers offer services at affordable rates and love to do collaborations with brands. Most of them might even collaborate in the exchange for the product or service you are offering.
Increasing your followers requires dedication, persistence, and the right strategy. Depending on your goals, you might even need a social media management team to carry out relevant activities. By taking the steps mentioned above, you will surely get more followers and increase the brand identity of your business.
