The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up and Growing Your Audience on Social Media
Growing Your Audience
As a small business, you probably don’t have the same resources as massive corporations do. You likely don’t have an in-house team that can focus on marketing and building your brand, so you need to find ways to reach your target audience without breaking the bank. Luckily, that’s where social media comes in.
Social media is one of the most affordable ways for small businesses to grow their audience and brand awareness while also reaching their target market. Social media is free or low-cost, and it doesn’t require much time once you get it set up.
In this ultimate guide to setting up and growing your audience on social media, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating an effective strategy for all of your accounts, which platforms are best for your business, how best to optimize each account with concise and informative posts and much more!
Step 1: Pick your platforms
There are tons of social media platforms out there, and each has its own unique strengths and target audience. When deciding which platforms you want to focus on, start by determining what your goals are. Then, based on those goals, you can select the platforms that are best suited to help you achieve them.
Some common goals businesses aim for on social media include driving traffic to your website, increasing brand awareness, and increasing customer engagement.
Depending on your goals, some of the best platforms to consider are: — Facebook — Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world, with over 2 billion monthly users! It’s also the best platform for driving traffic to your website since it has great targeting tools, and you can create custom audiences based on people who have visited your website or liked your page. Facebook is also great for brand awareness, as well as engaging customers since you can create visual content that captures attention.
- – Instagram traffic to your website
- – Instagram is the best platform for visual content and building a brand, since it’s purely image based. It’s also great for engaging customers, since people love to comment on and like photos. Instagram is also a great way to drive traffic to your website, as you can include links in your bio and also add clickable links in your images.
- – Twitter is the best platform for driving topical, business-related conversation and growing your brand if you’re in a field that people are talking about. It’s also great for website traffic if you can get people to click on your links, though it’s not as good for increasing awareness as other platforms are.
- – LinkedIn is the best platform for growing your professional network, as well as getting your name out there in the business world. It’s also great for generating leads and closing sales, as well as increasing brand awareness.
Step 2: Create Your Accounts
Now that you’ve picked your platforms and know what your goals are, it’s time to actually create your accounts. While you can create an account on most social media platforms from your computer, there are some that are easier to set up from your phone. — Facebook — Facebook is easiest to set up on your phone since it has a quick sign-up process. You can also take advantage of the augmented reality features on your phone to add a visual element to your account, as well.
- – Instagram is easiest to set up on your computer, as you can create your account and post images at the same time. You can also use hashtags to find relevant communities and people to follow as you continue to grow your account.
- – Twitter is easiest to set up on your computer, as well, though you can also use your phone if you prefer. You can also use a tool like Hootsuite to manage multiple Twitter accounts at once.
- – You can create an account on LinkedIn on your computer or phone. LinkedIn requires the most information out of all the social media platforms, so make sure you have all the required fields filled out before creating your account.
Step 3: Write great content
Now that you’ve decided which platforms you want to use and created your accounts, it’s time to start posting! This is where those million-dollar brands come from, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see an immediate spike in followers.
Building an online presence takes time, but it doesn’t have to be hard. When creating content for each platform, keep a few things in mind.
Pick a theme — Each platform should have a slightly different theme. On Facebook, you might want to focus on your family-friendly vibe; on Instagram, you might want to focus on being aspirational; on Twitter, you might want a more topical or news-related feel.
Step 4: Grow your audience and engagement
As you continue to post, the next step is to start growing your audience and engagement. To do this, you’ll need to start using a few different tools.
These tools will help you engage with your existing audience while also reaching new people who follow your page.
Some of the best tools are:
– Social media management tools
– These tools allow you to schedule posts in advance and also monitor and engage with your audience. Some of the best tools for social media management include Hootsuite and Sprout Social.
- – Facebook ads
- – Facebook ads are a great way to reach new people who don’t know who you are yet.
Through Facebook ads, you can target your ideal audience based on location, interests, and other information they’ve provided.
These ads also have a low cost per click, so they’re a great way to scale your reach without breaking the bank.
- – Guest posting
- – Guest posting is the process of writing an article for someone else’s website in exchange for a link back to your site.
This is a great way to build both your audience and links, and there are tons of websites that are looking for guest posts.
Step 5: Consolidate your knowledge
Now that all of your hard work is paying off and you’re growing your audience, you can also use these tools to learn more about them. Using social media analytics tools, you can start to understand your audience better.
This can help you determine what types of posts perform best, which days and times to post, and what new content types to try out.
You can also use polls and surveys to learn more about your audience and their interests and concerns. With all of this information in hand, you can create even better content and a more effective social media strategy.
