Engagement Tips: How to Build a Community on Social
5 tips to grow your online following
These days, it’s safe to say that nearly all businesses are on social media. You’ve been around to see the massive impact of these platforms on marketing. You’ve done your time scrolling through Instagram. And now, you’ve jumped online with social media profiles for your business, along with regular posts, videos, and stories. So what’s the missing piece? An audience to take it all in.
It’s no secret that building a strong social media community for a brand can be challenging. Many people are weary of being marketed to, meaning that companies have to work harder to get new people engaged, following, and possibly becoming a client in the future.
As social media pros, we’re constantly looking for new ways to help clients tackle the engagement hurdle and start growing their online presence organically. We’ve collected a few tips to help you take your following to the next level. But first, a few key social stats you need to know.
Social Media Engagement Stats to Know
There once was a time when social media was simply… simple. People followed their friends, a few celebrities, and perhaps the odd brand. We scrolled, we liked, and that was basically it. We never could have realized how off-the-rails earth-shattering these little apps could become, upending everything we thought we knew about marketing, branding, content, and more.
With such an ever-changing medium, it’s important to stay informed on some of the most up-to-date information—especially if you’re looking to use these platforms to your business’ advantage. Here are some key points:
As of 2023, there are 4.76 BILLION social media users worldwide—that’s almost 60% of the planet’s entire population
In 2022, marketers worldwide spent an estimated $65 billion on social media advertising
A survey found that Instagram is the #1 way people keep up with brands
But the average engagement rate on Instagram business posts is only ~0.54%
What does all this mean for you? Think of social media and its audiences as a vast ocean, and your profiles as a handful of fishing lines dotted throughout. Without enough lines, nets, and appealing little lures, you’re not likely to catch anything to write home about (while we certainly don’t think of users as fish, you have to admit this is a pretty apt analogy.)
So how do you cut through the noise online? How do you drum up attention when there are almost 3 billion posts per month on Instagram alone? BNL is here to share some of the engagement tips that have brought our clients success in the crazy competitive world of social media marketing. Let’s break it down.
5 Ways to Grow your Social Media Audience
Engage Your Followers Regularly
If you, for some reason, can only do one thing to grow your audience online, it’s this. You’ll never stand a chance of attracting new followers if you’re not providing something of value to your existing ones. This is vital for two reasons. Firstly, Instagram’s mysterious and all-knowing algorithm loves to highlight accounts that have solid engagement from followers and visitors. Secondly, people are more interested in organically following an account if there’s content to sink their teeth into. Examples of engagement include:
Likes and comments on posts
DMs and emoji reactions through Instagram stories
Users sharing your posts with one another
Users reposting your content to their story
Profile views and follows
Clicks on your link in bio
And more
When creating posts, videos, and stories for your social media, engagement should be at the top of your mind. How can you draw people in with your content? There are a few methods we often use, from asking questions in captions and posts, to giveaways encouraging comments and story shares, to offering special offers to those who hit that link in bio. However you choose to approach engagement, it’s important that you’re doing so consistently in order to benefit the most.
2. Engage Your Community and Niche with Hashtags
In addition to catering to your existing community, it’s essential that you’re finding ways to reach out to your niche, industry, and/or community at large. The best way to do this? #YouAlreadyKnow
With so much of, well, everything on social media, hashtags are an invaluable way to refine your search and identify key online communities that might be interested in what you have to offer. It takes time, research, and a little trial-and-error to find the hashtags that get interested eyes on your page. But one of the best ways to start is by taking a look at fellow companies in your industry—leading to our next point.
3. Take a Look at the Competition
All’s fair in love, war, and social media marketing, which is why we always recommend having a look at other companies in your niche that are seeing success on social media. What kind of engagement strategies are they using? What sort of posts pop up most often? Which hashtags do they choose? While we certainly don’t condone ripping off a competitor’s entire marketing strategy, making note of all of this information can help inform your own method and lead you to greater success.
4. Keep Up with Local Events
Since our specialty is in small business, this is one engagement strat that we’ve found to be especially successful. Sure, it would be nice to be such a legendary brand that your millions of followers come from far and wide, but it’s more realistic to get your start with your own local community.
If your page is catered towards local audiences, they’re more likely to drop you a follow. A strong local audience can quickly become your foundation for a larger following, so we recommend taking time to stay up-to-date on local happenings. Are there events coming up in town? Has there been important news updates for the community recently? Is there a new cafe, restaurant, or bar that you’ve been loving lately? Staying community-oriented (and resisting the urge to constantly be advertising) can do wonders for your growth, especially in the earlier stages.
5. Work with the Pros
All these tips are fantastic starting points for creating your own strategy, but a simple fact remains: nailing social media takes time, energy, and usually a few setbacks.
If you’ve been searching for a way to up your social game without the need for hours of research, constant posting, and the task of keeping engaged with seemingly endless users, we can help.
BNL’s social media marketing process takes our knowledge of the game and applies it to everything that makes your business special. We handle the research of your niche, develop a list of keywords, do regular community outreach, and we’ll even answer your DMs!
Combine all of this with our top-rate content creation and scheduling, expertly crafted graphics and captions, and dedicated social media experts assigned to your brand, and you’ll start to see how BNL has helped propel so many small businesses to big online success.
If you have more questions about driving engagement, growing your following, or working with the best group of unicorns in the biz, we’re just a few clicks away. Contact us to learn more!