The role of social media in growing businesses has never been more apparent than it is today. With 2.8 billion people using social media out of the 3.75 billion people on the Internet, and 30% of online time spent on social media platforms, social media is certainly the shortest way to reach your market.
If you want to get noticed on social media by a large segment of your target market, you’ll want to have a large following. Did you know that you can buy Followers for all of your social accounts so you don’t have to start from scratch? This is a great way to kickstart your progress.
There is value in having a large audience and often, it’s the opportunity to grow your business. The potential to expand your business will grow as your audience becomes ever wider – what are you waiting for?
Image credit: emilymakes
You’ll find all sorts of strategies online to help you build a healthy number of Followers. The tips you’ll find here, however, are based on research and studies, and are grounded in why people Follow and un-Follow brands on social media.
Read on and find out how you can gain more Followers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and all your other social media accounts.
Identify your Target Audience and Build a Connection
You cannot build a deep connection with your audience unless you understand their interests and motivations. Identifying your target audience will help you pin down reasons why one would say “I want to be associated with this brand” while another “This brand is not for me.”
Psychological research suggests that it isn’t objective reasoning that makes us pick certain brands over another. In fact, it is our feelings and identities that influence our choice of brands the most.
We like certain brands because of our desire to fit in. One study revealed that 40% of Facebook users follow certain brands because they want the world – and their friends – to know their brand affiliations. It’s all about social acceptance and the need to ‘belong.’
Not everyone in your audience demographic will fit into this model, but this kind of subcultural affiliation definitely has a strong pull. Consider Mac and Windows.
Apple knows its target market and capitalizes on this by employing consistent brand messages in their marketing. They use the iPad, iTunes, and iPhone to acquire new consumer segments and strengthen their brand personality.
Meanwhile, Microsoft remains an iconic brand with Windows running in computers of the rest of user population.
Each has built its own loyal user fanbase who rise up to defend their brand at the slightest provocation from the other.
Give out Discounts, Promotions and other Special Offers
According to research conducted by Nielsen, 52% of Twitter users follow brands on the platform to learn about special offers and promotions.
So, give out discounts, promotions, and special offers that will motivate your audience to Follow you on your social media channels.
Giving something to your consumers also follows the reciprocity principle in marketing. The Reciprocity Theory states that people feel obligated to reciprocate in kind what another person has given them. By offering your products or services for free, you let your consumers feel indebted to you.
You can guess how Converse’s musician customers felt after Converse launched Rubber Tracks – their own music studio that offers free recording sessions to unsigned artists. The response was clearly seen in the revenue increase. They also experienced exponential growth in their Facebook and Twitter Followers after the program was launched.
Image credit: referralcandy
Talk Less About Yourself: Apply the 80/20 Rule
We’ve all met people who talk about themselves all the time and we’ve probably all felt bored at some point. In social media, the feeling incited is the same. In fact, a survey revealed that too much self-promotional and uninteresting content posted by brands will make users Unfollow them.
If you want more Followers, talk less about your brand and more about topics that your audience will find interesting. The 80/20 Rule in social media marketing says you should post content that engages your audience 80% of the time and info about your brand should appear in only 20% of your total posts.
Learn from a brand like Red Bull. Red Bull focuses on sharing content that reflects their brand image rather than pitching their products to their audience. Their strategy works because their posts get shared a ton and are Liked by many.
Be an Authority
Nothing says “authority” more than a massive number of Followers. Conventional wisdom also tells us that as you increase your authority you’ll gain even more followers, who will increase your authority, leading to more followers, etc.
Psychology explains this phenomenon as Social Proof. That is, people are likely to follow what the majority is doing with the reasoning that if there are a lot of people doing it, then it must be OK.
To grow your Followers using social proof, you can buy Followers for your social media accounts from trusted providers. Your bought Followers will paint you as an authority in your niche, and real users will follow you because of your increased Follower count.
Bought Followers, however, can’t replace your organic marketing efforts. It’s much better to buy Followers and other signals of engagement to kickstart your organic growth, and move on from there.
There are many other ways you can use social proof in your overall social media marketing campaigns. Consider how Fitbit used reviews of their product as evidence of its superiority. It didn’t just use social proof generated by their customers, though, it displayed reviews from industry experts, too!
Image credit: Hubspot
Share Happy and Positive Content
Several studies show that there is a relationship between positive content and your Follower count. One particular study illustrated how accounts with higher Follower counts have a proportionally higher percentage of positive posts, and vice versa.
Positive emotions in posts also impact users in a way that makes them want to share. So, using positive words, a cheerful tone, and happy photos will not only encourage people to Follow you but will also give your posts that virality factor that everyone is going after.
Take positivity as your new theme and stay away from all kinds of negativity, including aggression. Take Nike’s great example, that they consistently show in their posts.
Nike has always supported controversial topics like equality, women’s empowerment and more. They have always inspired people to be more and just do it! People like this attitude and it shows in their number of Followers.
Post Consistently
You hear this advice often enough: post consistently to have a successful social media channel. It’s common knowledge that consistent posting is good, but it is also supported by plenty of research.
In a study done by Union Metrics, they found out that some brands on Instagram lost Followers because of lack of consistency in posting. So, if you want to attract more Followers, be sure you keep feeding them fresh content.
Strike a balance between quantity and quality in your posts, determine your posting frequency and then stick to it.
Take a look at how MAC Cosmetics stuck to their plan and reap the benefits in the likes they get.
Image credit: Hubspot
They do not sacrifice the content of their posts, and yet they have managed to keep posting consistently. The result is 15 million Instagram Followers to date!
Time to Expand Your Business!
In this era of social media, when people spend large chunks of their time on various social networks, it is prudent to establish a strong presence wherever your target market might be.
Go where your market is and enact specific tactics to attract a large audience to grow your business. It pays to know what the current research and studies have to say about gaining more Followers – science is smart!
So, keep these results in mind and employ these tips on social media, because growing your audience means growing your business!