
BUILDING THE RIGHT AUDIENCE FOR YOUR BUSINESS' SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE
Many brands now recognize how powerful a tool social media can be in promoting their businesses. This has resulted in a more validated craze for followers, likes and comments on social media, as opposed to a short while ago where the struggle was just to gratify vain wants. The war to be heard amidst the crowd has begun, with algorithms, ghost followers, and other brands your opponent.
The struggle to be heard and recognized has resulted in businesses buying followers, Facebook and Instagram likes, purchasing accounts and engaging follow trains. While this is not a wrong approach to gaining social influence, it is the wrong approach for gaining the kind of influence most businesses are looking for. Of what use is having an audience majorly based abroad when you products/services are only offered local. This is one of the many common mistakes made by businesses on social media.
You need to recognize that building the right kind of audience is not random but intentional. One must do an intensive analysis of one’s business and recognise the people likelier to patronise them. Then conscious attempts must be made towards building an audience that fulfils the criteria extracted from the previous analysis.
This can be done in the following ways:
DEVELOP QUALITY CONTENT
You might as well stop reading if you won’t follow this step because the rest cannot yield any result without this. There is no point having an audience when you don’t have a clear message to preach, quality content delivers your message with clarity! Before doing anything else take your time to setup your page (profile and posts) to be attractive to your intended audience. Make sure that your content are strategic and attractive, content without quality is just annoying noise that damages brand perception.
BRAND YOUR CONTENT
Branding your content after development helps you to identify with excellence (or mediocrity depending on the quality of your content). This helps you push your brand recognition beyond your organic reach because people will repost quality content on their social platforms hence improving your visibility. Don’t waste all of the effort you invested in building quality content, ensure that each content carries your brand name , logo, or/and social handles.
TRACK SIMILAR BRANDS
There is a lot you can learn from simply observing. If you cannot afford to hire professionals (which is always the best course of action) to help you reach your target audience and build your brand reputation, you can observe brands that can. Note the kind of content they build, the hashtags they use (Facebook and Twitter), the things they talk about, and how they relate with their audience. The limitation to this plan is that some of the techniques and operations executed by these brands may require tools to imitate.
FOLLOW THE “FOLLOWERS” AND “FOLLOWING” OF HOUSEHOLD NAMES IN YOUR NICHE
The reason why most people follow businesses is because they are either individuals interested in their services/products, or brands learning from their method of operation. The audience of household names in your niche will definitely fulfil some of the criteria for your target audience. Before following this step ensure that you first have enough quality content on your page to adequately represent your brand excellently and exhibit your products or services. People will naturally check the profile page of their new followers, and once your page has been prepared to appeal to them, they will most likely follow back.
MAKE GENUINE COMMENTS ON RELATED SOCIAL PAGES
Do not spam!!! That never works (the digital space is fast running out of oafs). Don’t go on other pages and advertise your business “directly”, learn to advertise without advertising. Make genuine comments on brands related to yours niche. Demonstrate your expertise on topics that have to do with services or products in your niche. If your contributions are sound enough their audience may be lured to visiting your page and eventually following you.
FOLLOW YOUR AUDIENCE
Following few people and having a whole truckload of followers is overrated and detrimental for growing brands. Following your audience ensures that you stay in the know about their interests and opinions on things related to your brand and other things. You can modify your content based on the trending interest among your audience. Having a reputation for following back also helps with audience interaction and gaining followers within and without your niche.
ORGANISE CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS
Well this is one way to gain recognition quickly in your niche. Holding contests and giveaways help your audience locate you and increases brand perception and engagement. There are few better ways to catch the attention of people asides offering them freebies. Having your audience compete for a prize makes it more lively and memorable. Having your product/services as the prize or gift is killing two birds with one stone. Not only do your audience run to you, but they also get to experience your brand first hand. Make sure that whatever products or services you’re giving away are of exceptional quality, cheap giveaways only damage brand perception.
HIRE A PROFESSIONAL
Content development, social media management, digital marketing, and social marketing; there are reasons why these services are being offered professionally. There is only so much that you can do to grow your brand on your own, eventually you will run out of ideas or skills. At some stage your growth tanks and there is need for better quality content and digital strategies to grow your brand and maintain your audience’s brand perception. Also the results that takes you three months achieve could take a professional three weeks to achieve. If you can afford it, the best way to execute these steps is to hire a professional. Always remember that it is easier to build a brand image than it is to repair one.