Social Media

For your social media marketing efforts to be effective, you need an audience. But growing an audience is one of the most challenging tasks for businesses. You will be competing against other brands and all of the other posts on individuals’ feeds. 

So, how can you build your social media audience to facilitate your online presence and drive more people to your website? Let’s take a look at five different approaches:

1. Always begin with planning and strategising – don’t simply dive right in and start posting!

One of the biggest mistakes we see is people diving in with little research or consideration. Instead, careful planning and strategising is critical. Otherwise, you will fall into the trap of publishing content aimlessly. 

Define your target audience

Firstly, you need to define your target audience. This may sound a simpe task, but a lot of marketers find it challenging. Some of the steps you can take to determine your target audience are as follows:

  • Assess your current consumer base
  • Carry out market research and determine industry trends
  • Evaluate the competition
  • Create personas
  • Determine who your target audience isn’t

Which social networks does your target audience use?

Did you know that there are hundreds of social media websites? Furthermore, there are currently approximately 3.96 billion social media users

You cannot simply be a jack-of-all-trades and set up as many social media accounts as possible. You would not be able to post consistently and build a loyal audience if you followed this approach.

Instead, you need to figure out what social media platforms your target audience is using. This involves tapping into social media demographics to inform your brand strategy. 

For example, let’s take a look at Pinterest. Pinterest currently has over 400,000 million users. Females largely make up these users, accounting for 78 per cent of Pinterest’s audience. The largest age group is 30 to 49-years-old. Furthermore, the average time spent on Pinterest per day is 14.2 minutes. 

We then have TikTok, which is a platform that has really taken off in recent times. There are 100 million active users on TikTok per month, and they spend over 45 minutes on the app on average per day. The largest age group is 18 to 24-years-old, and the gender split is 59 per cent female and 41 per cent male. 

You can use statistics like this to figure out where your target consumer base is most likely to be, ensuring you are targeting the right places. 

Put together your content marketing strategy

Once you have done all of your research, you can then craft an effective content marketing strategy. After all, you are going to have trouble convincing people to follow you if you are not creating content people want to see. 

You need to identify your chief goals in order to create content that aligns with this. We would also recommend that you use a social media content calendar as well. This enables you to visualise ideas so you can then organise them in a manner that will make it easier for you to execute your strategy. If you’re running into problems organizing a strategy, reach out to affordable social media management teams that can help you devise the best ideas.

2. Consider investing in Facebook ads

The first platform we are going to zone in on is Facebook. Facebook will gather a lot of data about its users, including hobbies, interests, education level, demographics, and more. 

As a marketer, you can use this data to target your message to certain audiences. 

What makes Facebook Ads so good?

  • You have the ability to add a custom call to action button
  • You can get clicks and conversions for cheap if you target your ads correctly 
  • You can remarket to those who have interacted with your brand before
  • You will reach a greater number of people than you will with organic posts 
  • You are able to create ads that cater to a specific objective 
  • You can make the most of robust analytics 
  • You can micro-target your exact audience

The steps you should take to create a great Facebook advertising strategy

You need to have a strategy when it comes to making the most of Facebook ads. Here are some steps we recommend following:

  1. Define your target audience for Facebook advertising
  2. Pick the right types of Facebook ads by considering your goals, i.e. awareness, consideration, or conversions 
  3. Sort out your ad creatives and make sure you do not neglect entertainment value when doing so
  4. Test and track your campaigns to determine where you going wrong and what you are getting right
  5. Combine paid campaigns with organic activity, as adopting a hybrid social media strategy will give you the best of both worlds 

3. Master the art of hashtagging on Instagram

When it comes to building an Instagram following, mastering how to hashtag is critical. Hashtags are one of the most successful ways for you to boost the visibility of your Instagram posts.

Different types of hashtags you can use on Instagram

There are a number of different kinds of hashtags you should know about, including:

  • Campaign hashtags
  • Product hashtags
  • Brand hashtags
  • Themed hashtags
  • Location hashtags
  • Trending hashtags
  • Daily hashtags 
  • Commentary or ironic hashtags 
  • Banned hashtags (don’t use these!)

Some tips on using hashtags on Instagram

  • The optimal number is 1 to 3 hashtags within a caption
  • Follow hashtags (this is a feature offered by Instagram) so you can keep tabs on how industry hashtags are performing 
  • Look at the accounts and influencers you already follow to find the best hashtags for you
  • Encourage the use of branded hashtags
  • Maintain a hashtag list, dividing them up into topical categories so you can use different lists for each post
  • Add hashtags to your Instagram stories, as they show up in search results too and can help you to get more followers 

4. Focus on viral marketing 

Viral marketing can help you to grow your audience on social media. But, what actually is viral marketing?

Viral marketing is a type of promotion that depends on an audience to generate a message for a service or product. Marketing is deemed viral whereby it reaches a stage whereby the public at large is sharing the content, rather than just the target audience. 

While viral content differs considerably from company to company, there are some elements that are distinct and most campaigns have in common. You need to keep these in mind when determining whether or not your campaign has the potential to go viral. 

“We then have TikTok, which is a platform that has really taken off in recent times. There are 100 million active users on TikTok per month, and they spend over 45 minutes on the app on average per day. The largest age group is 18 to 24-years-old, and the gender split is 59 per cent female and 41 per cent male.

You can make good use of a TikTok stats tracker and use statistics like this to figure out where your target consumer base is most likely to be, ensuring you are targeting the right places.”

Viral campaigns are organic

You cannot force a viral campaign. This is what makes them so difficult. Content spreads in an organic manner. This is how viral marketing works

Having a pulse on social trends can help you to make content that is more shareable. 

Viral campaigns are bold 

You are only going to go viral if you capture the public’s attention. This does not happen by playing it safe, nor does it happen by accident. 

You do not have to be controversial, but a lot of campaigns are a bit out of the left field. 

At the same time, it is a balancing act, as you do not want to come across as trying too hard. 

Viral campaigns are timely 

Trends come and go. People tend to have pretty short attention spans when it comes to trends, hot topics, and memes. 

Brands need to be wary when trying to exhaust a popular trend or repeat another campaign that has gone viral.

5. Transcribe your YouTube videos 

The final piece of advice that we have for you is to transcribe your YouTube videos. You can read this guide on how to transcribe a YouTube video to text for further information. 

Having text on your videos will help you to enhance the experience that your social media followers have. 

A lot of social media users watch videos on mute

Plus, a lot of people watch videos on mute because they are in the office or on public transport. 

This is something that the Love Island account does well. They post a teaser clip for the evening’s show on their social media account every day, and it has subtitles at the bottom for those who listen without the volume on.

Make your videos more shareable with transcriptions

In addition to this, transcripts can also help to make your videos more shareable via the likes of click-to-tweet plug-ins, which will only help to further expand your social media reach. 

Develop a global presence

You also need to consider your global presence as well. Putting captions on your videos can help those who do not speak English as their first language. 

Transcripts can be translated with ease as well, meaning you will be able to reach a much bigger audience around the world.

Final words on increasing your social media audience

So there you have it: five of the best tips to follow in order to increase your social media audience. 

Do not underestimate just how critical the planning phase is. Part of the battle is making sure that your brand is present on the right platforms to begin with.