How To Build Your Business Social Media Following

Social media is an amazing way to keep your customers aware of what is happening with your brand! Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you share content about your brand directly with your customers, which is a huge benefit for your business. If done right, you can use social media to keep your customers aware of your offerings, educate them about your brand, and collect customer feedback. And it’s typically a fairly low-cost medium! That’s not a bad deal.

However, you will need social media followers to maximize your social media presence. Going viral just isn’t a long-term strategy. You will need an established and engaged social media following to maximize your use of the medium. That can be difficult for some brands, especially if you’re new to business social media.

Read Onto Learn More About Social Media Following

Follow Others

If you want to increase your social media following, be prepared to follow. Following other business pages in your local market is a great way to do this. First off, there is an intrinsic urge to reciprocate that will help you increase your following. However, this also is just a great way to be plugged into your local area and up to date with the goings on with your compatriots. Now, we do recommend that you use some discretion when following other social media profiles. Following every social media profile, you possibly can will likely not help. Following social media profiles that are local and interesting is a better practice.

Paid Social

Paid social ad campaigns on Facebook or Instagram do cost an ad spend, but the results are clear. Most of your organic social media followers likely know your business or know about your business. If you’re looking to grow your business profile, you thus need to expand beyond reaching current customers and need to reach net new followers. While paid social ads aren’t for every brand, they are the best way to get your messaging in front of new eyeballs and increase the number of followers.

Ask Your Customers

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. Your current customers are one possible avenue to growing your social media profile following. After all, they know your brand and likely are thrilled! If you ask enough of your best customers for follows, you will slowly but surely begin to expand your social media following. If you get most of your business from a brick-and-mortar store, we recommend training your front door staff to ask delighted customers to follow you on Facebook and Instagram as a part of their process.

Now, it is important to ensure that you make a value proposition when you’re asking current customers. Let’s say you’re a smoothie shop, and you’re instructing your front-end staff on how to ask a customer for a follow on Facebook. We might recommend ensuring that your staff highlights the fact that you share information about monthly specials, coupons, and limited-time offers on your social media profiles. This increases the odds that you’ll get a few followers! The more they understand what’s in it for them, the higher the odds that you’ll be growing your following in no time.

Promote Digitally

If you do most of your business over the internet, gaining new social media followers can be a little different than if you’re a brick-and-mortar store. We recommend including a quick blurb asking for a follow at the bottom of your website and in email marketing correspondence for best results. You also can cross-promote other social media platforms if needed. Let’s say that your Facebook has plenty of followers, but LinkedIn doesn’t. There’s nothing that says you can’t begin linking to your LinkedIn profile to help get a little more traffic on that platform.

Collaborate

Planning a guest blog with another business is one tactic to consider when trying to grow your social media following. The idea looks something like this.

• Find a relevant business to your industry.
• Offer to write a guest piece of content on their website in exchange for you doing the same.
• Once published, the business in question shares the guest piece of content on their social media platforms and tags your profile.

This strategy is a proven way to build relationships in your industry and also to get a little more traffic to your social media profile! This tactic is a little more time-intensive, so we don’t necessarily recommend it for everyone, but if you know a local business that you have a great rapport with, it might be worth considering.

Produce Great Content

It’s much harder than merely stating it, but producing great and interesting content is the best way to grow your social media presence. No one goes on social media merely to go on social media. They’re on social media for entertainment, and if they learn a little something about your brand in the process, that’s ok too. Per that, it’s imperative that you have great content to keep the following you have engaged.

If you need help planning a comprehensive social media strategy, turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design. We’re an award-winning social media agency proudly based in Dallas, TX.

Contact us for ….

• Social Media Strategy
• A Free Social Media Audit
• Social Media Promotion
• Paid & Organic Social Media

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