Social Media Usage Is Up: How to Grow Your Following and Reach!
Giselle Aguiar
Digital Marketing Consultant | SEO Copywriter | Editor | WordPress Trainer | Social Media Coach | WordPress Website Designer
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic lock-downs, with people stuck at home, social media usage trended up tremendously!?
The best way to grow a social media following is still organically — not paid. You never want to buy followers — they are fake accounts and the networks are purging fake accounts. Moreover, it’s a waste of money.
How do you grow a social media following?
First, you need to post relevant content daily of interest to the audience you want to attract. If you don’t post, there’s no reason for someone to follow you. Before you start posting you need to ask yourself…
How to get People to Notice you on Social Media:
Follow the people you’re targeting. This works on Twitter and Instagram. They’ll get a notification when you start following them and they’ll decide if they want to follow you back or not based on what you’ve posted. Keep posting great content and your followers will become advocates and share your content with their friends.
On Twitter , make sure to thank people for following you, retweeting (sharing) your tweets and mentioning you via a tweet — not with a direct message (DM). Use TweetDeck to help you manage notifications and scheduled tweets. Plan ahead to take advantage of what trends on Twitter regularly. I also write an article at the end of each month with what’s going to be trending as to awareness and observance days. Search for this month’s through my search bar in the upper right.
If you’re B2B, on Facebook , you can follow a company’s page with your page. They’ll get a notification. For B2C, you can’t reach out to individuals without doing paid ads. You can invite your friends and family to like your page. However, realize that not all of your friends may be interested in your product or service.
Facebook groups are becoming increasingly popular.
Should you start a Facebook Group?
If you want to start a group, you need a core number of people which will, in turn, invite other people. Don’t expect to start a group and it will fill with members automatically.
Join Existing Groups
Search for and find groups with…
Share content there 2-3 times a week (and not just your stuff). Make sure you read the group’s rules and respect them. Share useful information — DON’T SELL! You can use a tool like Sendible (affiliate link) to automate and schedule sharing to groups on Facebook as well as your Facebook business page.
On LinkedIn , users get notified when someone views their profile. But the best way to get noticed on LinkedIn is in groups. Use the same strategy as for Facebook.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy or automatic way to share to groups on LinkedIn or schedule posts. You have to log into one group at a time and copy the URL of the webpage you want to share into the post box. Read this article on LinkedIn to know which groups to join and how to maximize this tool.
Pick 5 of the most populated and active groups and once a day, share something to each group. Make sure it’s relevant!
Time-saver tip: Save the bookmark to the group’s page on your browser you can return to it quickly. Also, don’t log out of LinkedIn.
Also, like and comment on other people’s posts. They’ll notice you that way.
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How often Should I Blog?
Seriously, at first, especially if you’re brand new and Google doesn’t know who you are yet, DAILY — for at least 2 weeks. Then 2-3 times a week . Once your analytics tell you that Google is the main source driving traffic to your website, they you can go down to once a week.
Share every blog post on your social networks. WordPress has a free plugin called JetPack with a feature, Publicize, that automatically shares your posts to your Facebook business page, Twitter, your personal LinkedIn and tumblr (if you determine that you want to reach millennials – they still use tumblr.) Use Dlvr.it to automate posting to your LinkedIn Business Page.
Adjusting What Type of Content You Create
Here’s a tip to help with SEO:
Here’s another tip that many people forget:
Have both social media share and follow buttons on your website. Make it easy for people to follow you and make it easy for visitors to share your content with their friends.
These are also legitimate links that Google notices for SEO .
How long does it take to grow a Social Media following?
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it’ll happen overnight because it won’t. If starting from scratch, plan to spend at least 90 minutes a day for the first 30 days — and that’s just on social media, not blogging. Yes, it’s a little sweat equity, however, once you’ve got a following built, using the free tools, you can manage your social media marketing in 30 minutes a day. (And blog once a week.)
What if I don’t spend this time up front?
The longer you wait to build your following, the longer it’s going to take you to start seeing results.
How many is a good social media following?
In 30 days, you should have:
On most of these, you need at least 100 followers to get decent analytics. However, with the general increase in social media usage, it may not take you that long.
It’s so overwhelming! Where do I start?
If you build it they will come – NOT!