THE VIRTUAL WORLD: CHAPTER 10 – 10 WAYS TO EXPAND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK & PROMOTE CONTENT FOR FREE

The Virtual World is a series of recurring articles, in 10 Chapters from District 73 Toastmasters' Public Relations Manager. The series aims to inform and educate readers about the power of social media.

We aim to connect with friends, family and acquaintances and share our activities, thoughts or photos and videos with them through social media platforms.

We are also there for reaching out to new people and getting followers. Who would not like a good follower count and engagement on their account?

If you are wondering, “how can I get a high follower count? I am not a business or brand!” Stop right there and read on.?

There are some amazingly easy and free ways to get noticed by people and see your follower count inch up.

1. Ensure you fill out your entire profile

You would be surprised at what you might be missing by not filling out all the details about yourself on social media. In the ‘about’ or ‘profile’ tab, add the place you live in, your favourite quote, links to blog, website, your other social profiles. Social media algorithm suggests ‘people you may know’ because based on the city you live in or your hometown or the company you work for and so on.

District 73 Facebook Page

If not, use the ‘story’ section to give out more information about you. Story feature allows you to post text or share photos, videos only 24 hours.

2. Cross-promote Yourself

You can provide your social media account details in all your social accounts. Looking at the images above, you can see that District 73’s Facebook page has information about its Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube accounts.

Now, let us look at the example below from LinkedIn.

Depending on which platform you are using, you provide your details about your other social media accounts in the ‘about’ or ‘profile’ or ‘contact info’ or ‘bio’ section.

Besides that, sending occasional reminders to your followers, informing them that you have other social media accounts is a clever way to cross promote your social media accounts.

Also, do not be shy about requesting people to follow you on other social networks.

Alternatively, you could put a post out with a link to your social media account on another platform and state that you are available there. Or as said earlier. you could provide your social media account details in the ‘story’ section.

3. Follow other users

Following other accounts is also a safe way to get other users to follow you. However, you should only follow those accounts that are real and authentic, and those accounts should also resonate with you. This is so that you?have something to take away from them and it is perfectly fine if they do not follow you back.

Please avoid the follow-only-to-get-a-follow-back game. You do not want a horde of followers spamming your timeline.

Most social sites will give you recommendations for people you may know and who are likely to engage with your content. Take advantage of this feature.

District 73 Twitter Homepage

Another promising idea would be, especially on Twitter and LinkedIn, to send a message to a few of the people you follow. You could let them know what you liked about their profile and content, why you followed, and start building a relationship. This can help you get some credibility (and follow backs) with other users while you are establishing your following.

4. Engage with and share other people’s content

You must create content to get noticed on social media. There is no substitute for that. Just so you know, entertaining and humorous content have maximum takers.

However, to be able to widen your network and follower numbers, you cannot just create and post your own content. That is poor social media etiquette.

Good social media behaviour is to also engage with and share other people’s content. It is like endorsing someone. It also leads to building and cementing your rapport with them.

Engaging on content particularly helps getting noticed when it belongs to a public figure or an influencer. It is a well-known that followers of a public figure not only read their posts but also diligently engage with comments on those posts. Therefore, when followers of an influencer see your comment, for instance, and agree with it, they would often like to connect with you.

5. Be a part of ‘groups’

Groups are common across all social media platforms. Also, their power is highly underestimated not just in terms of getting answers or recommendations but finding new people to connect with.

Joining groups of your choice and engaging with posts is a clever way to find like-minded people to follow and get a follow back. When you are a part of groups, ensure you engage in those groups - ask questions, clear doubts, help with answers or views or recommend books, movies and so on. It always works!

6. Be consistently active on social media

This one is a no-brainer! The more you post on social media, the higher are the chances of your profile and your content getting noticed.

It is highly recommended to post regularly (at least twice a week). Keep an eye on topics that are trending and use it to create posts. Posts related to trending topics get more attention and people relate better to such posts. Alternatively, you could easily be share trending content from others or engaging on them. Like I have mentioned before, use the ‘story’ feature. That is also good enough to be active.

But remember to not go overboard with your posts. Connections and followers do not appreciate being inundated with posts, as that is like spamming.

7. Post more visuals

Visuals – photos and videos - are high performers on social media. Hence, ensure that you include an eye-catching, colourful image with your post for it to get noticed.

An infographic is equally well received on social media. Make it colourful, easy to read and understand, and it will be noticed.?

District 73 Instagram post

Videos, on the other hand, are preferred a tad more than photos and infographics. Videos with sub-titles or captions get higher attention.

8. Use hashtags and encourage tagging

Hashtags are an effective way to attract attention to your content. Hashtags are used to aggregate content with similarities to improve the search experience of online content marketplaces. However, you may need to understand the types of hashtags and use them strategically.

For instance, popular hashtags like #TBT (throwback Thursday) must be used sparingly because popular hashtags have a lot of content aggregated together and so, your content has a good chance of getting lost in the crowd. Refer to this article for a lowdown on hashtags. Though the article is specific to Instagram, most of the rules remain the same across.

Another strategy to reach out to new people (and get followers) is to encourage your existing network or connections to tag other people who may benefit from or enjoy your posts. A typical example could be a video post of you goofing around, which is accompanied by this caption – ‘Tag a friend who is a goofball’. Or post an inspirational quote and ask people to ‘tag a friend who needs to hear this today’. Those who get tagged could be drawn into the fold and start following you.

However, this strategy must be applied sparingly because it can look like spam.

9. Change your profile and cover photos regularly

This is the easiest way to get attention from your followers or connections.

This also helps you to widen your audience base. Every time someone reacts to your photo or comments on it, people on their friend list get to see your photo. Some or many of those may know you but are not connected to you yet. They may decide to connect with you when they see your photo.

10. Make your account and content worth following

I saved the most difficult one for the end.

I do not intend to scare you, but it needs effort to think about what you are able to offer to your audience. What do they get to take-away from your posts? It could be something as simple as some inspiration or entertainment. But you need to offer something to entice them to stay tuned.

Invest some time into listing down reasons for people to use each social media network. Then, formulate a plan to consistently post and share content that will resonate with your specific audience.

This applies to both existing and potential followers, especially when you want them to follow you on multiple platforms.

I cannot finish this article without talking about paid promotion. Most social media platform allow you to pay and promote your business pages like our District 73 accounts. It is a good strategy for small businesses and brands and is particularly effective on Facebook and Instagram.

On Twitter and LinkedIn, the organic growth is usually tremendous and so, you usually do not need to take the paid promotion route. But that option is available on Twitter and LinkedIn, too (paid promotion on LinkedIn is said to be expensive).

Before I go, this is the last article in The Virtual World series. I really enjoyed putting together these articles for you. I hope it benefited you.

Until next time!

This article first appeared in the June 2021 edition of District 73 Toastmasters' Southern Cross newsletter. Here's the link -?https://bit.ly/35VeGZB.