13 Ways Your Business Can Attract More Social Media Followers
By Shelby Ballou
Most businesses today have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But in order to attract potential customers to your profiles, you need to actively interact with social media users. How should you go about this? Here are 13 ways your business can attract more social media followers.
1. Leverage your company social media profile. Make sure your company’s online profile provides valuable information and is easy to understand.
2. Do some research. Keyword research will help you pinpoint what your target audience is searching for. Once you know what topics they find interesting, you’ll have a better idea of the content they’ll appreciate.
3. Post content your followers will find interesting or helpful. If all you do is talk about your company, people will lose interest fast. Share content from a wide variety of sources to create a compelling stream of information that potential customers will enjoy.
4. Engage with followers, and respond quickly to questions. Answer questions in a timely manner and respond to followers with thoughtful responses.
5. Follow people who follow you. Oftentimes, following someone will get a follow back very quickly. Make sure you follow thought leaders in your industry.
6. Interact with influencers in your industry. Thoughtful interaction with industry influencers will earn you respect and convince others to follow you.
7. Join groups and group conversations. Join groups in your industry and post and comment on posts. In addition, share articles written by or of interest to others in the group.
8. Give people an incentive to follow you. Provide intriguing incentives that are available only on social media. Exclusive offers could include coupons, discounts, freebies, or limited editions.
9. Ask people to follow you. Use calls to action (CTAs) to boldly request that visitors friend, follow, or like your social media profiles.
10. Include links to your social media accounts on your website. You might be missing out on followers by not including a link to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages on your website and/or blog.
11. Time your posts wisely. Post content during times when it’s most likely to get shared on each platform. People look at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter at different times of the day, making it critical to test which days and times get the most attention for each platform.
12. Don’t try to be everywhere for everyone. Instead of posting infrequently across several networks, focus on being active and engaged on fewer social networks. This will get you more followers in the long run.
13. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Don’t try to reach out to as many people as possible. It can be more valuable to focus on a smaller community that is more likely to convert into customers.
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