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10 Ways to Grow Followers on Social Media
Is your business struggling to expand its social media presence? You're not alone. With 62.6% of the global population on social media, it's crucial to constantly grow your followers to stay ahead.
Having a strong social media following isn't just about numbers — it's about impact. Did you know that 90% of people follow a brand on social media and 76% have made a purchase based on what they saw? Moreover, a large and engaged follower base provides invaluable customer insights.
By understanding what your audience likes and responds to, you can tailor your marketing strategies to meet their needs, fostering loyalty and turning followers into long-term customers. Read on to discover effective strategies for boosting your social media followers and engagement.
6 Key challenges that impact social media followers
To create social media content that resonates with your viewers, you need to understand your target audience's pain points. Adjust your social media strategy based on these insights. So, what are these pain points? Let’s take a closer look:
- Lack of engagement: When your audience's messages, posts and comments go unanswered, they feel undervalued and ignored. Implement a responsive customer engagement plan to fix this issue. Ensure you address customer queries promptly and interact with your audience regularly through personalized responses, shares and likes. Show them you value their input and keep the conversation going!
- Irrelevant content: Avoid sharing information that does not match your audience's requirements. Conduct thorough research on your audience's preferences and create content that adds value and aligns with their interests. Leverage social media analytics to track the performance of your content and then, if necessary, adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Overwhelming information: Bombarding your users with too much information can lead to disengagement and confusion. Experiment with different content formats and curate concise pieces. You can also share bite-sized, visual content like short videos and infographics to engage your audience.
- Lack of personalization: Make your followers feel valued by personalizing your social media interactions. Use insights and data to tailor your content, address users by name and customize recommendations and campaigns.
- Negative feedback: Followers won't hesitate to switch to another business if a brand handles negative feedback poorly or ignores it. Adopt an empathetic and transparent approach to handling criticism. Acknowledge your mistakes, show willingness to improve and offer genuine solutions based on the feedback you receive.
- Irregular posting: Inconsistent posting can make your audience lose interest. Create a content calendar and stick to a regular social media posting schedule. This helps you be relevant and authentic, ensuring your audience stays engaged and keeps returning for more.
How to grow social media followers for your business
Here are some effective strategies to enhance your brand's visibility and gain more social media followers:
Tip 1: Find relevant hashtags
Create unique brand-related hashtags to build community and inspire user-generated content. For example, Nike’s #JustDoIt encourages users to share their fitness journeys, while Red Bull’s #PutACanOnIt invites creative photos of their cans.
Balance unique and popular hashtags to maximize your social media impact. Research your audience’s preferences and craft hashtags that align with your brand. Advanced tools like Sprinklr offer hashtag management features for Instagram, helping you create content that resonates with your audience.
Bonus Information: Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags in a post or reel and 10 in stories. On LinkedIn, you can add as many hashtags as you want, but sticking to a maximum of 10 is recommended. X suggests using 2 hashtags per post, but you can add more if needed.
Recommended Read: How to Find the Hashtags That Actually Work
Tip 2: Focus on search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO helps grow social media followers by increasing visibility and content discoverability. Optimize your social media profiles and posts with relevant keywords to improve your search engine ranking. Use keywords, hashtags, and metadata properly to ensure your content is easily discoverable, leading to more followers who find your posts valuable.
Consistently publish SEO-optimized, high-quality content to establish yourself as an authority in your field, which attracts followers who trust your expertise. This attracts followers who trust your expertise. SEO helps you understand your target audience's interests, allowing you to create engaging content. You can also integrate SEO with social media to cross-promote platforms and improve user experience, keeping visitors engaged and more likely to follow.
Need help with fast content creation?
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Pro Tip 💡: Integrate your social media profiles with your SEO-optimized website. Linking your profiles to your website and vice versa can drive traffic between platforms, increasing your followers.
Tip 3: Create a unique brand identity
Did you know that 55% of first brand impressions are visual? Consistency with visual elements leads to immediate brand recognition. In today's competitive business landscape, standing out can be tough. But successful brands like McDonald's and Burger King have unique brand identities that set them apart.
Use brand management techniques to make your business stand out, like adding your logo to social media posts and maintaining specific color themes and fonts across all content. Ensure uniformity in videos, images and text.
Clearly define the traits and values associated with your brand and incorporate them into your messaging and content. For example, if sustainability is your key focus, share posts on environmental tips and eco-friendly practices.
By creating a consistent and recognizable brand identity, you can distinguish your business and attract a loyal following.
Read More: How to build a comprehensive brand strategy framework?
Tip 4: Add games and polls to your content strategy
Enhance your posts with polls, quizzes and interactive stories to engage your audience. These fun and interactive elements also help you analyze your audience's preferences and gather valuable demographic data, such as location, gender and age, for targeted content strategies.
Keep your interactive posts platform-specific. Stage polls on Instagram Stories to grow followers. Utilize the X and Facebook poll features for interactive and fun engagement. For LinkedIn, publish polls by integrating the LinkedIn poll API to publish and fetch LinkedIn poll posts with Sprinklr. Consider leveraging quiz ads on Pinterest to engage users by providing personalized results or recommendations based on their selections.
Pro Tip 💡: Host quizzes about your brand or industry, encouraging followers to share results by tagging friends. Create monthly or weekly social media challenges like DIY projects. Light-hearted tasks engage both players and viewers. Incorporate leaderboards and rewards for regular participants.
Tip 5: Collaborate with influencers
Influencer marketing strategies thrive because they build authentic connections and trust, leading to impactful endorsements and engagement. Collaborate with influencers who align with your business values to tap into their established audience. Partner with other businesses for content sharing and shout-outs, and feature guest posts from satisfied customers or industry experts to boost brand credibility.
Track and analyze campaign results to gauge effectiveness. Monitor metrics like reach, social media conversions and engagement rates, and keep an eye on influencer and follower feedback. Use an influencer marketing platform to find the right influencers, track their performance, optimize your content and maximize your reach and impact.
Bonus Information: Clear guidelines are crucial for successful influencer collaborations. Inform influencers of your expectations, including messaging, branding and regulatory requirements like those set by the Federal Trade Commission in the US. The FTC mandates that influencers transparently disclose their affiliations with brands.
Must Read: 25 Influencer Marketing Statistics and Their Implications for Your Brand
Tip 6: Use automation tools to create and share content
Managing social media can be time-consuming, but you can enhance productivity and streamline processes by using automation tools. Utilize social media automation tools for monitoring, publishing and analyzing activity. These tools help companies oversee their social media activities on different platforms. With these tools, you can:
- Respond to reviews and comments through Generative AI enrichment
- Schedule and auto-publish your posts with a few clicks
- Gain high-quality, actionable insights for social media KPIs
- Scale your engagement across 30+ digital and social channels Source
Tip 7: Create high-quality content
Consistently publishing insightful, accurate and well-researched content establishes you as a thought leader in your industry. When viewers engage by saving, sharing, commenting and liking your posts, it signals to platform algorithms that your content is valuable. Content that resonates with your audience is also more likely to be shared, helping you gain followers through trusted recommendations.
You should also repurpose your content for social media. Adapt existing content for different audiences, formats and platforms to increase its lifespan and reach. For example, convert webinar presentations into short videos you can share on your page. Break an e-book into a series of blog posts. Extract quotes and impactful phrases from a podcast and post them on X, Instagram or Facebook as quote graphics.
Pro Tip 💡: Share diverse content on LinkedIn, such as industry insights, how-tos, tips and tricks, using various formats such as live streams, infographics, videos and images. Explore innovative content marketing platforms that offer dynamic video templates and bulk video production for greater convenience and impact.
Tip 8: Share user-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content acts as social proof. It shows potential customers that your existing customers are happy with your offerings. Authentic reviews and testimonials from actual users boost credibility and trust.
Ask your audience to share their experiences with your services and products using specific hashtags. For instance, they can creatively share their photographs with your product. Apple Inc. does this very well. The company encourages users to use the #ShotOniPhone tag when sharing photos and videos taken with an iPhone.
Announce that the best picture will be rewarded to increase engagement. Additionally, automate the approval of user-generated content through platforms like Sprinklr Social to reduce administrative tasks.
Bonus Information: Brands that actively incorporate videos showcasing user testimonials and real-life experiences increase purchasing intent by up to 30%. Leveraging UGC also gives you fresh content without spending an extra penny.
Learn More: 8 Tips For Building an Effective User-Generated Content (UGC) Strategy
Tip 9: Offer discounts and promotions
Approximately 93% of shoppers utilize a coupon or discount code at some point during the year. Offering special deals and savings motivates social media engagement. Exclusive deals drive sales and influence customers, while time-based promotions and social media contests create urgency, prompting swift action.
Use Sprinklr social media analytics software to monitor brand mentions and analyze audience responses to discounts and promotions. You can gain a deeper understanding of users through features like real-time automated reporting, custom dashboards and multilingual insight translation.
Pro Tip 💡: In discount marketing, it's crucial to phrase your offer strategically. Instead of presenting a 50% discount, consider "buy one get one free." Bargain hunters are drawn to the idea of receiving complimentary products and services.
Ensure that your posts provide clear instructions on how to avail offers and discounts. The easier it is to participate, the more likely you are to engage a larger audience.
Recommended Read: 7 Best Practices for Social Media Analytics
Tip 10: Post seasonal content
Post interactive content inspired by seasonal themes. Tap into trending topics that people might already be discussing. For example, you can create content about Halloween costumes or a New Year's resolution. When you post about current events, your audience resonates better with that content as it is all the buzz at that point.
Pro Tip 💡: Plan and create a social media content calendar that outlines significant events, seasonal changes and holidays. Stay updated on events and trends relevant to your audience, brand or industry. You can use a social listening tool or Google Trends to track upcoming events and trends.
Case Study: Boston University bolsters engagement to support the next generation of leaders
Challenge
Boston University (BU) sought to share the successes of its students and faculty while bolstering the university's reputation. They needed streamlined processes for managing social feeds and publishing content, robust analytics to measure success and share reports, and a way to monitor and mitigate potential reputational risks.
Solution
BU implemented Sprinklr's Social Listening tool to understand relevant topics and stories for students and track the achievements of prominent alumni. The BU team also used Sprinklr to deliver information, resources and services. They set up automated alerts to monitor social channels, identify red flags and quickly communicate with the right campus partners and address issues. Additionally, BU implemented Sprinklr’s Social Publishing and Engagement software to empower social teams to engage directly with audiences on their preferred digital channels, achieving significant success on Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Weibo.
Results
- 1M new followers on social channels
- 27% increase in engagement on targeted social initiatives
- 150K+ total Facebook engagements
Through Sprinklr, BU streamlined its social media processes, enhanced engagement and effectively managed its online brand reputation, supporting its mission to develop the next generation of leaders.
The road ahead
In conclusion, you need to continuously grow your social media followers to enhance your brand's visibility, credibility and engagement. A larger follower base not only opens doors to more interactions with potential customers but also drives product sales. However, managing this growth effectively can be challenging.
That’s where Sprinklr Social comes in. As the leading platform for managing social media across multiple brands, teams and geographies, Sprinklr makes social media management seamless. With support for over 30 digital channels and the flexibility to incorporate new ones quickly, you’ll never miss an interaction. Elevate your strategy by integrating consumer intelligence, marketing and customer service into one powerful platform.
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