Social media can be a great tool for small businesses — but once you get started, that follower count seems to creep up rather slow. Building a social media following is even more essential ahead of busy seasons, like the upcoming holidays. But you don’t need to wait years before you actually have a significant follower count, with a few tricks, you can accelerate your social media presence. Here are five ways small business owners such as print shops and photographers can increase their social media following.
Share fun, informative content.
First things first, no one is going to follow you if all your posts are marketing. Create content worth following — that means something that’s fun or informative. Create funny memes centered on topics related to your business. Share links to helpful articles. Craft tips that are helpful for your target audience. For example, wedding photographers can share wedding planning tips. The more worthwhile your content is, the easier growing your follower count will be.
Run a contest.
Shares can drastically increase your reach and the number of followers. Creating a contest is an easy way to encourage shares and new followers. Give away something related to your business — like a product or gift card for a service. In the contest, require entrants to like your page and share the contest post. Those actions will help boost your follower count and help new people to see that contest. Online contest tools can help make contest planning a bit easier.
Create an exclusive coupon for followers.
Another way to encourage followers is to share exclusive offers on your social media page. That gives customers a very good reason to follow your page in order to see and use those discounts. Think of email coupons, but on social media. Facebook, for example has an option for businesses to create an offer. This creates in-store or online coupons for customers to use.
Make it a two-way conversation.
Too often, small business social media pages are all talk. One of the best ways to increase followers is to engage with them. Besides just creating posts, comment on other posts, and share posts from other users. When followers comment on your posts, be sure to respond or like the comment. Social media is about being social, not a one-way conversation.
Try boosting posts.
Social media advertising can often reach hundreds of people just for a five dollar bill. Experiment with boosting posts and targeting your business’ audience. On Facebook, for example, a wedding photographer can advertise only to couples that list engaged under relationship status. Try boosting images or video, offers or helpful links.
Social media followers climb slowly at first — but once you start sharing the right kind of content and interacting with other users, those numbers grow quickly. Always share worthwhile content that’s fun or informative more than you share content that’s strictly marketing. Try contests, coupons, conversations and paid social media ads.