So you’ve set up a social media account for your company but you’re struggling to get the followers. What to do? With millions of potential customers to reach on multiple platforms, social media is a big deal for a small business. But it doesn’t need to be as daunting as it sounds. By the end of this article, you’ll have the tools you need to easily boost your follower count and gain even more loyal customers in no time.

1. Complete and brand your social media profiles

The first thing you’ll need on your journey to social media stardom is a fully-functioning, well branded social media page. It might seem obvious, but it’s amazing how easy it is to forget that there are millions of companies in the world, some of which are likely to have similar names and brands to you. You need a page that clearly speaks for your business with plenty of logos and pictures so people know that they are in the right place. You can read more about branding your page here. Give your followers as much information as possible by filling in all the fields when creating your profile- one thing you don’t want to do is leave people with questions about who you are and what you do.

2. Get your existing customers behind you

Ready to attract some followers? Your best starting point is with the customers you already have. Catch their eyes with some colourful social icons linking your profiles to your business’s website and encourage them to connect with you. If you have a store, why not put up signs promoting your channels and asking customers to like your page? For online businesses, you could create a newsletter to send to your existing clients inviting them to follow you. Offer incentives such as being able to staying up-to-date with your business and receiving exclusive information about your latest products through your social media channels- and be sure to deliver these!

3. Get involved in relevant hashtags

Hashtags are absolutely everywhere. This is good for you, because they just happen to be one of the quickest ways to find out what questions people are asking and what topics they are talking about. You can find more information on using hashtags to your advantage here. You want your followers to see you as a mine of information, so always take the opportunity to help someone out, solve a problem for them or answer a question. People will be more likely to follow you if you are useful to them.

4. Create sharable content

Sharing, it’s the internet equivalent to word of mouth, and the more people you can get to share your content, the more people you will attract to your page. But people won’t just share anything-you need to research the kind of things that your followers are interested in and cater your content to that. Always stay in the loop and keep up-to-date with what people are talking about so you can keep your posts relevant. Create all content for your pages with the aim of it going viral and you never know- it just might. Need some more inspiration on sharable content? Read up on it here.

5. Promote your best stuff

Take every opportunity to get your best content out there, let people know whenever you have posted something you really want them to see. When you promote your top posts, you’re driving people to your page- and showcasing the best posts will make them want to explore more of what you have to say. Here’s a really informative post on promoting your content. Social media is one of the best forms of promotion because it can reach huge masses of people whilst being cost effective. Use it wisely! And remember, you can even pay to promote your posts on Twitter on Facebook. You can learn more about that in this guide to Twitter ads and this guide to Facebook advertising.

6. Build relationships and interact

Don’t use your social media pages as just an extra marketing tool. Visitors to your social page are more likely to be looking for interesting content than online shopping. Use your social media channels as a way for you to really communicate with your followers and show them that they are valued as customers. Polls and discussions where people can get involved and share their opinions are good ways to keep your followers engaged and learn more about them- meaning you can sell to them better. Quizzes and competitions are a fun incentive to visit your page and share it with others. Make your page as interactive as you can and people will want to keep visiting.

Getting the followers is one thing, but what about keeping them? You’ll want to monitor how your followers are interacting with your page so you can give them more of what they want and less of what they don’t. Take a look at this article, which will give you all the information you need on measuring your social media success.

Any questions? We’d be happy to answer them for you, so feel free to contact us via Facebook or Twitter and we’ll get back to you.