If you think social media is a numbers game, you’ll lose

Win quality followers with amazing content      

Social media was never meant to be a numbers game – especially for a business.

Sure, you’ll have hot, smouldering, totally muscular humans like The Rock, and music sensations like Beyoncé topping the most followers on Instagram lists, but you DON’T have to compete with them.

Think about this. We are all going to follow our fair share of celebs that we love. That’s normal. But they’ll never look at their followers and think, ‘Oh, they have a business I’d love to work with’ – although we can dream about it…

That’s why rather than trying to reach a huge number of followers (that won’t happen naturally until you’re famous!), you should go for quality.

Follow businesses and people you’d like to form relationships with. Find where they’re hanging out and post your content there.

And the great news is – you don’t have to be on every social platform! Pick one or two and stay social on those.

Once you’ve got the right followers, nurture them.

The top 3 ways to nurture followers using content  

1.     Be someone’s inspiration:

Instagram is so hot right now! With 800 million users (that’s growing), you can bet you’ll find your ideal client here. So be an inspiration – that’s what people want from Instagram. Create posts that don’t show but tell. And use your tags so people looking for your services can find you (remember to use your location if you want to work with local businesses).

2.     Become an educator:

When you’re running a business, you become the expert on your service/product. Think about the most commonly asked questions your clients have and turn these into quality pieces of information. Chances are if one person asks, another has thought it. Add value (but don’t sell) by interacting with Facebook groups. Share your knowledge freely, and people will come to know and trust you.

3.     Tell stories to connect:

Storytelling has become a big thing in business. Why? Because we’re all humans and we want to connect with other humans. We’re always connecting human to human and sharing stories is a great way to do this. Like mum reading us bedtime stories, or friends sharing a laugh over a coffee catch up. Stories show our real, human side – and we love that! A great way to do this is to share a photo and tell the story in your caption.

Live your life by the 3 C’s of content: 

Consistency: Once you start being present on social media, you need to keep it up. The only way you’ll gain trust, and a loyal following is by being consistent and posting regularly. It’s a bit like how we encourage our kids to learn their spelling words – we sit down with them each night and consistently help them spell it out. Eventually the message sticks!

Connection: The best way to make a connection with your audience is to be real. We all want to connect with a human, not faceless businesses. Share posts of your business journey and personal life that your target market will relate to. Show people that even though you’re working hard and making money, that you’re not perfect and just like them, have bad days too.

Collaboration: A great way to get extra content is to collaborate with other businesses. If someone has a post you think your audience will love, don’t be scared to share it (with acknowledgement of course). When others see you’re sharing their content, they will, in turn, share yours (hopefully!).  

 At the end of the day, social media is all about reach and engagement, not followers

I’ve got no doubt you’ve heard about reach and engagement rates for social media. You should get a weekly check-in from Facebook telling you these stats. But if you don’t know what they mean, it’s useless!

In a nutshell, engagement always beats reach.

Reach tells you how many people may have seen your branded posts, and engagement rates show actions and response.

Always pay attention to the posts that are creating more engagement and replicate those types of post. These are ones that you’d see more click-throughs to your website, your blog, your shopping cart etc.

Need help planning content to engage?

I’ve been helping business owners create social media posts that boost their engagement rates for a while now. I’ve seen huge success with clients who follow the 3 C’s to get loyal followers and increased engagement. I’m happy to chat with you.

If you’ve got any other ways to engage on social media, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to share.