So, you’ve set up a social media account for your business. Congratulations! But what comes next? How do you get those first few followers to like your account?
Whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or other, here are a few tips and tricks to get you going.
Invite Your Friends
This is a method often used on Facebook (see here for instructions) but can also be done on Instagram and Twitter. If you already have a personal profile on that platform, where you connect with your friends (or followers, connections etc), then you can invite them to follow your new business account.
While many of them might not be your ideal client (Hi Mum!), they will still help you to put some runs of the board. Already having a few followers when a prospect looks at your profile will give the appearance that you’ve been around for longer and adds social proof.
Follow Other Relevant Social Accounts
This is a method commonly used on Instagram or Twitter.
Often, when a social media user sees that someone new is following them, they will go and check out their profile. If that profile is of interest to them, they might decide to follow them back. This has led to a lot of businesses finding new fans by first following people who match the demographics of their ideal client.
Of course, this can lead to your “Following” stats being much higher than your “Followers” (see the image below). If you are concerned about this ratio, you can always do a clean up and unfollow accounts later.
Link to your new account from your website or other social media platforms
Include a link to your new social media account wherever you have an online presence.
For example, you might include icons in your website menu or footer that will encourage people who want to connect with you to follow you there. You can also list the URL in the bio section of your other social media accounts.
Share it in your other marketing activities
What other methods do you use to market your business? Do you have an eNewsletter that you email to your clients? Do you have an advert in the local newspaper once a year? Do you print catalogues for your sale?
If so, let people know about your new social media account there. For example, in an eNewlsetter, you can link to the new page, along with a paragraph on what benefit they can expect to get there. Adding a Twitter icon with the words “Follow us on Twitter” to your print advertising can also encourage new followers.
(Click to enlarge)
Sherlock Poll Merino promote
their Facebook page on their
annual poster and catalogue.
Paid Targeted Advertising
All social media platforms offer some sort of paid advertising – it’s one of the primary ways that they make money. Unlike the examples above, this method obviously costs money. However, the accuracy in you advertising is greatly improved.
In the examples above (particularly inviting your friends), you are marketing to a broad range of people. Not all might be your ideal client or interested in your business. However, with social media, it’s possible to set a ‘target audience’, so your ad will only be shown to a group of people with a certain demographic or certain interests.
For example, you might decide your ideal customer is a woman, aged 20-30, who loves beauty products. Or it might be a man, over the age of 60 who is interested in golf. Either way, being able to target a certain audience means that you’re only paying for you ad to be shown to the people who matter to you most.
There are many different types of campaigns. It’s possible to set up an advert, purely with the goal of getting new followers for your account. However, from experience, we’ve found that a campaign designed to increase traffic to your site or promote an upcoming event will still result in an increase of likes to your page.
So, there are our five tips. If you’ve had success picking up new followers in other ways, we’d love to hear! Let us know what’s worked best for you.