We know that organic social media growth and creating a social media presence that helps achieve your goals is easier said than done. If you’ve been struggling to find your place on social media lately, here are five strategies that can help you do just that.
Identify your audience
We have already mentioned that many people use social networks, but they are very varied. Some are there solely to connect with friends and family, others want to find companies and people related to them, some people want to see content that suits their interests, and some, like you, want to be recognized and build their brand image.
Add to this already complex mix of people’s diverse backgrounds and preferences when choosing the type of content they want to see, so you can safely rule out basing your strategy on a one-size-fits-all approach with organic social media growth.
Before starting with your strategy, you must know what audience you want to reach. This will determine which channels you should use, what content to post and when to post it, the message you will write (copy), and the images and tone of the posts.
For example, having more fun, a laid-back attitude, and colloquial language may appeal to teenagers and people in their twenties. Still, if your goal is to achieve a professional or corporate profile, you may prefer to take an approach that highlights your experience and skills.
If your target audience is the former, you can choose to be more active on social networks like Instagram and Twitter. But for the professional approach, you may prefer to focus more on LinkedIn and organic social media growth.
To better identify and understand your audience, you should:
- Define the demographics of your audience: age group, location, profession, income, stage of life.
- Identify their psychographic characteristics: passions, interests, aversions, values, challenges.
- Investigate their behavior on social media for organic social media growth : what channels they use, brands they follow, posts they like, the content they post (created and shared), the language they use.
Focus on relationships, not benefits
Social media is about building meaningful relationships and is what the audience expects; if all you do is talk about business updates and how great your products are, you will project an image of a cold, clinical and uninteresting person.
The brands that do well on social media aren’t afraid to show off a strong personality and adopt a friendly tone when talking to their followers.
The right way to achieve business goals through social media is to find the optimal balance between marketing and connecting with your followers for more organic social media growth. To do this, along with sales-related posts like product updates, ongoing promotions, and business news, you should plan other posts that show the human side of your business.
For example, show followers what’s behind the brand through posts that showcase company culture or introduce team members to make the company look more human. Something as simple as sharing a post from your followers that your audience might like can help you find more things in common with them.
Instead of selling, tell stories, inspire and entertain.
In addition to the content you post and organic social media growth, there are other ways to connect with your target audience on social media:
- Join groups and communities where your audience is active and participate in discussions. You can answer questions to demonstrate your expertise, but avoid any sales intent behind the answer by doing so.
- Personally target the people you’re talking to by tagging them in posts and comments.
- Give feedback to the people who share your content to show that you appreciate their support.
Run contests or giveaways
Virtually everyone likes a good contest. They’re fun, they increase engagement, and they can even turn followers into brand ambassadors simply with the chance for entrants to win some prize, or they might have the opportunity to go viral on social media, and who doesn’t want some of that?
The best part about contests is that they usually don’t cost too much, depending on the prize and how you promote the competition. It is not always necessary that the award be a 15-day cruise. As long as you define the games’ objectives and find creative ways for the audience to participate, there is much you can achieve with them.
Choose your communication channels for organic social media growth
You need to know s well your target market. Defining it demographically will help you understand which social network to use. It is not the same to want to reach an audience over 40 years old on Facebook than on Instagram.
Another factor in assessing is the number of staff you have to feed your social networks. If you have only one person designated for this task, you want to grow your brand on five different social networks.
The main recommendation is that you start with small efforts. To start, try managing two social networks at the same time. Measure the performance you are having and the effort involved in managing them, so you can add more social networks as you adapt.
Create a content calendar for more organic social media growth
Creating a calendar will help you better organize yourself and plan your content months (some experts update their content calendar every two months, others every three). You can use an Excel sheet containing the following:
- Content Title
- Format
- Description
- Keywords
- Call-to-action
- Communication channel
This will help you create a much more detailed publishing strategy, and in addition, you will be able to plan the critical content for your brand.
Properly allocate your budget to paid advertising
To get the most out of the money you’ll spend on your paid campaign. Deciding between having new followers or regaining a presence among people who already know your brand will help you identify what type of ad you should invest in, as well as appropriately allocate your budget.
Measure your effectiveness if you want organic social media growth
This step is just as important as the first. Measuring the effectiveness of your effort and investment will help you optimize your approach and ensure continued success.
The same social network platforms provide effectiveness reports, some of them even by individual publication, which will help you know how your social networks are being managed.
Define the objectives
Is the goal of this contest to gain more followers or get feedback from customers? Do you want to raise awareness of a new product and get people to try it for free? Do you want to increase sales?
Your objectives will determine the contest’s rules, the prize for the winner or winners, and the parameters to determine if the game has been a success.
Decide the prize
Giveaways are the easiest way to promote a new product or get a new customer segment to try what your business offers. If you wanted to increase sales, the prize could be a free sample along with a discount coupon for future purchases.
Be creative and gain organic social media growth
Don’t just ask your followers to like or share contest posts. You should find more fun and creative ways to engage them.
For example, you could ask them to share a short snippet of how they feel reading their favorite book, reply in the comments with what their dream vacation would look like, or even ask them to share a video of clever ways to use your products.
The more you encourage your audience to think and act, the more engaged they will be.
Sell ​​on social networks.
Nowadays, social networks help connect with the audience and create brand awareness and serve to sell your products. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest allow brands with business accounts to display catalogs and even allow direct purchases.
The advantage of organic social media growth and selling directly on social networks is that it encourages reactive buying, which is an excellent option for people who have just discovered your business.
The way you sell your products on social media marketing varies by platform. We leave you how to do it on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
About The Author
Stephanie Braga
Hi, I am Stephanie Braga. A professional blogger and content community manager on this platform. I love to write and post content on different niche. Contact me, if you need any help related to digital marketing or content marketing.
