Social media used to be a place for individuals' inter-attraction and communication across the globe. But now in today's digital world, it has evolved as a strong marketing tool for businesses. With billions of users vying for attention on various platforms, the importance of having a strong presence on social media is unnegotiable.

But the need of the moment is how can you increase your social media followers and stand out in the competition.

For busy business owners, it’s a daunting task to create a strong visual identity and engage with your audience. Managing your social media accounts has never been simpler since the rise of freelancers and virtual assistant services. But to stand out from the crowd and make an impact on social media you must be familiar with the techniques and ideas to enhance your presence and grow your fan base.

In this blog, you‘ll learn the importance of having more followers and explore the simple and tested strategies how to increase your social media following and expand your audience.

Importance of having more social media followers

Now social media is in our pockets. From kids to elders, everyone is scrolling on it. So having an identity on it is vital in this digital life.

But why more followers are important for businesses?

The answer is simple, having more followers means you can have more reach and can engage your content to more people, and reaching more people means you can generate more engagement, and sales and build authority among the audience.

Another benefit of having a larger social media audience is that you can easily analyze the interests, behaviors, and demographics of your followers which will be beneficial information for your brand. By monitoring social media conversations and engagements you will be able to serve your customers in a better way.

Social media followers are acting as a powerful tool for small businesses as they can boost their brand and build authority among the audience. A strong social media presence keeps your brand on top of mind with your followers. Also, having a large family of followers means you can act as an influencer in your industry by sharing your expertise and building relationships with other brands and influencers.

As of now, we fully understand the significance of having a strong social media following, so let’s dive into the techniques and strategies that help to uplift your social media audience and become outstanding in your industry.

Learn more: Benefits of social media marketing

How to increase your social media followers?

Understand your audience: Choosing the right platform

To increase social media followers, it is important to understand your audience and their social media habits. Before starting your strategy and setting up your profile you have to research your audience like Who are they? What are their interests and pain points? Which platforms they are using?

Once you answered these questions you are ready to set your profiles for your target audience.

For example, staying-at-home moms are usually active on Facebook rather than on other platforms( According to the Pew Research Centre). So if your target audience is mothers then setting up your profile on LinkedIn( a professional networking site) rather than on Facebook is all in vain.

Social media analytics tool is another method to know more about your followers. You can gather data on their behavior and liking. For instance, which type of content they engage with most and what times they are most active online. Performing a survey on your audience to gain insights and pain points is an effective way of understanding your social media followers.

However, as a busy entrepreneur, it can be overwhelming to do thorough research to inform your social media strategy. But with the rise of virtual assistant services, the research work for your business can be outsourced at very affordable rates.

Have a look at the virtual assistant outsourcing trends in 2024.

Crafting Compelling content.

Once you get all knowledge about your audience you can start engaging them by sharing content that directly speaks to your follower's needs. The key to building a strong social media following is to post compelling, engaging, and shareable content. To create effective social media content you have to analyze which type of content performed better with your target audience.

You can also use insight analytical tools to observe the performance of the contents. Use techniques like generating polls, Q&A sessions, and surveys to learn about the effective content that meets the interests of your social media followers. Indulge your audience by sharing the content generated by common people. Almost all big brands use this USG( user-generated content) technique because social media followers usually trust the content and reviews generated by real people rather than traditional marketing content.

Let's have a look at the types of content that perform well on different social media platforms. On Facebook visual content like videos and photos tend to perform well. So use high-quality photos and HD reels that exhibit your brand's personality.

Instagram is all about visuals and captions. So it's relevant to post high-quality images and videos that are eye-catching and visually appealing, and write persuasive captions that tell the story of your brand and grab the interest of the audience.

LinkedIn is the most professional networking site so content that is educational, informative and thought-provoking tends to perform better than photos and videos. Visuals that are professional high quality and relevant to your expertise can also accomplish the goal.

Moreover, with the rise of AI, social media is bombarded with AI-generated content that may lack the human touch and cannot connect with the audience in a personalized way. It is crucial to use AI tools effectively in this era to ensure content quality and human style.

Learn more: How to use AI in social media marketing?  

Optimize your profile

Profile optimization is the process of making your social accounts appear in the best manner to curious and interested users, also known as potential leads.

It's important to create the same type of content and information across all your social media profiles. Your profiles are the reflection of your brand so it is significant to use consistent data on all social media accounts. For example, using the same profile picture, header images, and color schemes. Also fill out the same contact info, bio descriptions, and relevant URL across all your social media profiles.

One of the biggest examples of a brand with optimized social media profiles is Nike. On Instagram and Facebook, they regularly feed their audience with stunning visuals, and features of their products and engage the audience with the athlete stories. While on LinkedIn they continuously share thought-provoking content like articles and blogs related to sports and business.

A must-read: How to increase your organic reach?
Relevant: How to increase your organic reach on Instagram?

Leveraging hashtags and keywords.

By using specific and targeted hashtags and keywords you can reach a larger audience. But use this technique strategically to increase social media followers. It’s not like adding a list of hashtags in your posts.

Always do research on the relevant hashtags to your niche. To research the hashtags you can use tools like Hashtagify to find the specific hashtags for your industry. After searching, use them in your posts. Remember don’t use the excess amount of tags as this converts your posts into spam.

Incorporating the right keywords in your captions and descriptions is also important to increase your social media following. It can help you to rank on the search engines and make your profiles optimized to reach a larger audience. To search the relevant keywords do research on the topics that your audience is interested in and then use those keywords in your descriptions and write about them. There are also many free tools to find the right keywords like Google Adwords keyword.

Relevant: How to build a brand on Instagram in 2024?

Paid vs Organic techniques

In the world of digital marketing, organic and paid techniques both are beneficial. Let's delve into both types.

Organic marketing

Social media following can be increased from Organic marketing, also addressed as earned media, and is free or natural. So the traffic or audience that comes naturally to your website without using paid ad space is called organic marketing. It is like creating valuable content regularly to attract the audience.

Examples of Organic techniques are SEO, Unpaid Facebook and Instagram ads, unpaid tweets, guest posts, user-generated content, blog posts, Online PR, and Email newsletters.

As opposed to sponsored advertisements, organic tactics take longer to produce results, therefore they require patience and consistency. However, the effects are long-lasting, and this can result in 1,000+ users. Organic marketing also has a significant impact on paid advertisements because, after gaining more followers organically, you can also attract their attention using paid advertisements.

Organic marketing is not completely free because you must invest your time as well as the time of social media pros and virtual assistants who conduct this activity for you. You can delegate your organic marketing to virtual assistants so that you can focus on your major business goals and responsibilities while your company grows.

Learn more: Why should you outsource social media marketing to virtual assistants?
Learn more: Top 7 trends of virtual assistant in 2024.

Paid Advertising

Another tactic for increasing social media followers is paid marketing. It is something that you pay a fee to social media platforms to display your ads. Advertisements on social media cover the demographic and psychographic criteria. Paid techniques generate results and increase social media followers rapidly and are suitable for brands that want to launch sales or any new products. Sponsored ads, YouTube ads, and Facebook and Instagram ads are included in this technique.

Social media paid ads also help you to reach specific customers or audiences and are focused on marketing. Many advertising agencies are now paired with virtual assistant agencies to work effectively for the success of your businesses as by adding the expertise of both, you can kickstart your business.

In the long run, both organic and paid marketing techniques are beneficial to increase social media followers, so businesses must leverage both tactics. Paid ads reach a larger audience while organic techniques create a loyal family of followers.

Learn more: How social media has changed the marketing?

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is gaining popularity nowadays. By creating a working partnership with influencers that have a large number of followers already, a brand can build authenticity and have a great impact on its social media following. But the most crucial part is to identify the right partner and influencer for your brand.

Always research the influencers that have a large fan base and whose content is aligned with your brand's personality. After identifying the right partner for your brand, approach him/her professionally. Both of you must be clear about the goals and values of the partnership and you must clear the incentives the influencer will get in return. For example, by agreeing on the partnership the influencer may get free products and any free services from your brand.

Influencer marketing is also a kind of paid advertising. Several successful influencer campaigns have been carried out on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. One such collaboration is between fashion brand Daniel Wellington and influencer Kendall Jenner. Jenner posted an Instagram snapshot of herself wearing a Daniel Wellington watch, as well as a discount coupon for her followers to utilize when purchasing the watch. The tweet earned millions of likes, contributing to Daniel Wellington's social media following and sales growth.

The “In It Together” campaign on LinkedIn was designed to enhance engagement on the platform and increase conversation on topics related to career development. Linkdeln collaborates with various influencers like Arianna Huffington and Bill Gates, to develop and distribute content that encourages users to bring in their own stories and thoughts.

Conclusion

Increasing followers on social media is a continuous and effortful task. By following the tips and techniques that you learned in this blog post you can achieve your goal. However social media is not a constant place their algorithms are continuously evolving. So to know about the algorithms of different platforms you have to stay up to date to know about the new trends.

Also, it's necessary to conduct an audit of your social media profiles to know about the performance and stats. Because what works today may not work tomorrow.

The most important point to keep in mind is to stay at the top of social media, you have to post regularly on every platform according to their type of audience. It's like different platforms have different types of followers. They are not of one size to fit you all the time. The content that works on one platform may not work on another platform. So stay up to date and keep sharing high-quality content according to your audience to increase your social media followers.

With evolving trends of social platforms, it's difficult for business owners to stay alert all the time and stay up to date on the new trends. So by hiring a virtual assistant agency, you can free up your precious time to invest in the core responsibilities of the business while virtual assistants can be your right hand in the success of your business. Contact us if you want to grow your followers and outsource your social media tasks to a virtual assistant.