How to Build Engagement and Grow Your Audience on Social Media

The use of social media has gone beyond sharing stories and pictures with just family and friends. Many businesses now use social media to increase brand awareness, build engagement and grow their audience. Yet some are finding it difficult to grow their audience or build engagement. Here, we outline several actions you can take to build engagement and grow your social media audience:

MAKE FREQUENT POSTS

The major key to growing your audience on social media is posting daily and at a regular time. You do not need to have very long content rather you should focus on creating relevant content that can catch and retain your audience’s attention.

On Facebook, when you post daily, your page will show up more on your audience’s timelines which will build higher engagement.

On Twitter, tweeting daily leads to a direct increase in followers. This is also relevant on Instagram and Snapchat.

ENGAGE WITH YOUR FOLLOWERS

While it may be impossible to react or reply to every comment on your Facebook page especially when you have a large followership, you can respond intermittently with a general comment. This gives your page a personal feel which increases the level of connection and engagement.

You should not ignore mentions on Twitter or Instagram except they go against certain principles. Even when such mentions are malicious, responding in a guarded fashion can result into several retweets/reposts. This can in turn help in growing your audience and increase the level of engagement.

POST RELEVANT CONTENT

Creating and sharing relevant content regularly can help build engagement on your page. Sharing relevant content on Twitter or Facebook can get you many retweets and followers. Relevant content helps users achieve their goals.

When you understand your target audience’s needs, you’ll be able to create content that will attract them. This will also make your brand credible and reliable for people to follow and engage with.

BOOST YOUR POSTS

Although this isn’t a free tool, it can be amended to your budget. Boosting your posts via Facebook and Instagram adverts increases your reach.

On Twitter, You can choose a budget to create a followers campaign. This will not only get you more followers but through the audience insights, you can understand the interests of your audience better.

You can also create a Tweets engagement campaign which shows your sponsored posts to a select audience that are more likely to engage with your tweets.

INCORPORATE VARYING CONTENT

Due to the limited 140 character on Twitter, it already structures the style of your engagement with your audience. But you can utilize other content forms such as videos especially live videos to grow your audience.

Even on Facebook where you have access to unlimited characters, it can become boring if you only use one content form.

Sharing images are also a great way to grow your audience and engage with them. Memes are the most popular in this range across the social media platforms.

CATCH ON TRENDS

There are daily trends on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat which a lot of people engage with. Therefore, you should find a way to key into these trends and relate it to your personal or business goals.

By being part of these trends, more people are going to come across your profile, like and retweet/repost/regrann your posts. You can also start your own trends to create an effect.

GET ON THE BIG PAGES

Growing your audience may mean feeding off from brands with a large following. It can even be a brand within the same area as yours. After following these pages, you should engage actively with other followers by leaving strategic comments.

However, avoid spamming with links to follow your account. Rather, your strategy should be sustaining the interest factor around you with your comments which will motivate others to follow you.

LINK YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

The fastest way to grow your audience is through making use of your present contacts.

By connecting your address book to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat accounts, you can engage with your contacts on these social media platforms effectively.

You can also build on former relationships and engagements which may have declined beforehand.