social media

How to Build Your Following on Social Media

Social media is essential for all businesses.

Growing a brand means attracting the right people’s attention at the opportune moment.

There are a few options: Pay for Google advertisements, SEO, or learn the art of social media marketing.

Establishing a social media following and an audience that engages with your material is feasible using the appropriate approaches.

But how can you get these outcomes constantly?

Choose the Suitable Social Media Platforms to Get Followers

With so many social media platforms to choose from, you can only be everywhere at a time to promote your Etsy shop. It’s about being where your target audience is and connecting with them.

Your first step should be determining who your target audience is and which social media platforms they use frequently.

Once you’ve determined where your target audience spends their time, it’s time to study the platform so you can begin creating content that will entice followers. What kind of material works best and why? This will establish whether or not the social media outlet is appropriate for your brand.

For example, if your target demographic utilizes Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, you may discover that Facebook is the best option. You’ll struggle to develop the visual material effectively on these channels if you don’t have a “visual” brand or industry.

Optimize your Profiles on Social Media

Now you are aware of what social media platforms your target audience uses. It’s time to create and improve your brand profiles to gain a following.

Here are the things you can do:

  • For increased appeal, use a professional photo, logo, or video. Check that it is a suitable size for the platform. Each has different image size restrictions.
  • Choose handles that are the same or similar so that you can be found across channels.
  • Use the same image across all your profiles so your readers can identify your pages.
  • Make yourself searchable by targeting specific terms that your target audience uses. Please include them in your bio and description sections.
  • Complete all sections of your profile.
  • Include links to your website, landing page, and other social media accounts. Make sure to test the links to verify they function correctly.

Study the Best Time to Post

What is the ideal time and day to post on social media? Your industry, platform, and audience determine it. Several postings and analyses discuss the best times to publish posts on various social media platforms. 

It is crucial to choose the optimal moment to post. Examine your social media analytics on the site or program you use to collect this information.

Post Consistent and Relevant Content

You’ve undoubtedly heard a lot of misconceptions and rumors about how frequently you should post on social media to get results.

However, there is more to posting frequency than how frequently you post. It all comes down to consistency and value. If you publish every day, but your audience needs to find your content useful, motivating, or actionable, they will not engage with or follow your accounts.

If you’re having trouble coming up with compelling social media post ideas, consider these basic tips:

  • Use polls and surveys to ask your customers what kind of content they like. This reveals which topics pique their attention and, more significantly, which do not.
  • Examine each platform to learn what sorts of content work best on it.
  • Analyze analytics data to determine which forms of content work best. Are images being clicked on? Videos? Links? Only text? What types of content are most popular? How many people have liked each piece? Which items garner the most interest?
  • Examine your competitors’ activities to identify what kinds of posts they share. Do they prioritize product launches? Updates on customer service? What about sales promotions?

Be Active and Engage with Your Audience

Social media is a method of two-way communication, not a bullhorn. Use your platform to speak to (rather than at) your audience. Responding to comments, liking/commenting on photographs, sharing relevant articles, answering questions, and starting new conversations are all ways to accomplish this.

Being active tells your audience that you care about their interest in your business, whether reacting to urgent customer support inquiries or just expressing gratitude for nice shout-outs. Audiences on social media often demand a quick reaction time, so make sure your staff is prepared for success.

By actively connecting with followers, you are making an influence on your business: Creating lasting relationships with your audience.

Connecting with your audience humanizes your business, and turning followers and consumers into devoted advocates is vital.

Follow Relevant Profiles

Engaging your audience on social media is a terrific place to start. However, if you want to broaden your reach, follow relevant businesses in your field (excluding competitors).

The idea is to locate other businesses with similar audiences with whom you can publicly engage. Share their posts and add substance to discussions by leaving valuable comments.

Doing so regularly will increase your brand’s visibility and follower count.

Should you use the same procedure with rival profiles? Nope.

Contrary to popular belief, following and engaging with their material will enhance their reach. Use competitive analysis tools like social listening to go further into what consumers desire if you want to acquire an edge with information from your competitors.

Work with Micro-influencers

Working with micro-influencers is another approach to broaden your reach and establish a real audience (less than 50K followers). Why micro-influencers rather than macro-influencers (500K to 1M followers)?

There are various reasons why micro-influencers might be an ideal fit for companies, particularly those just getting started with an influencer strategy or trying to target a specific niche:

  • Increased real engagement (macro-influencers have a large number of followers, but interaction could be higher or more legitimate).
  • Reasonable rates (some will even do free collaborations in exchange for a free product or service)
  • More influence (like it or not, smaller influencers tend to have better ties with their followers, so when they endorse a company, there is more trust)

How do you pick the best influencers to work with? Here are a few things to think about:

  • Are they reaching out to the individuals you want to engage with?
  • Do they receive frequent engagement, and if so, what kind (comments and shares are more valuable than likes alone)?
  • How many individuals have seen their social media posts? Consider their involvement rate.
  • Is the content valuable to your target audience? Is it consistent with your brand’s values?

An influencer is a person who knows how to develop a social media following. So pay attention to the possibility of collaborating with the proper people to increase your following count.

Drive Traffic from One Social Media Platform to Another

You consistently post on Instagram and are experiencing fantastic results. Your audience is expanding, and more people are engaged with your material. However, this is different with your TikTok account.

Why?

Perhaps your target audience needs to be made aware of its existence.

Cross-promotion is a great way to drive visitors from one social network to another.

By cross-posting your material, you may showcase the many sorts of content that followers may receive if they interact with you on other platforms. More visual material on Instagram, extensive professional information on LinkedIn, or shorter, viral-ready films on TikTok are all possibilities. Use your existing top platforms to grow your audience on new social channels.

About Charles Curry

Charles founded his Etsy shop Wall Decal Source in 2012. He opened his decal shop and decided to create a nursery decal for his sisters new baby. Funnily enough he published the decal as an item for sale on his Etsy shop and people really liked it. Well a few years later and his shop has been almost completely taken over by nursery wall decals. He must still be a kid at heart. As Charles tested and tried all sorts of methods to expand his shop he stumbled upon a few simple formulas for consistently growing Etsy sales and views.
Back to Courses