With over 2.3 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms out there. Instagram has 500 million monthly active users, and Twitter has 328 million. Not to mention all the other platforms like Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
Educating yourself on how to create and grow your social media accounts can be rewarding for personal use, but it can also be a great marketing strategy for business owners. Whether you have a personal or business account, you need to know how to get the best ROI from your social media investment. In this beginner's guide, I'll show you how in five easy steps!
Create Your Account
If you're opening a personal account, take your time choosing your username. It should be easy to remember and unique to you.
If you're opening a business account, think about what your company does and come up with a fitting name or slogan. Make sure to include the industry and location to reach a local audience.
Don't forget to set up the right privacy settings before anyone sees your posts!
Consistency Is Key
One of the most important things to remember when it comes to social media is consistency. The more consistently you post meaningful, engaging content, the more likely your followers will continue scrolling through your feed. And that means they might not miss any of your posts!
Building a solid following on social media takes time and effort, but it can be done with just a few tricks. One of the best ways to ensure that you stay consistent is by planning. You should create a plan for how often you will post, what type of content you'll be posting (images, videos, links), and what days and times you will be posting.
Once your plan is in place, it's easy to stick to it because all the work has already been done for you. Plus, if something comes up and prevents you from sticking to your plan one day then it won't hurt as much because there are other days where you've posted content to make up for the lost time.
Create a Content Calendar
One of the first steps to create and grow your social media accounts is creating a content calendar. Your content calendar will help you organize your posts, so you aren't scrambling to find things to post on your accounts. An even more important step in creating a content calendar is thinking about how much time you'll need before posting each piece of content. For example, if you know that it takes five hours of work to create one blog post, then you should plan for at least five hours between blog posts.
Your content calendar should also include posts for cross-promotion; meaning use other social media platforms to promote your accounts. You can add captions or hashtags to give others an incentive to follow and like your profiles on those other platforms. You can also purchase sponsored posts on other popular platforms like Facebook or Instagram, which will give them the appearance of being organic posts and garner more likes!
Amplify Your Efforts
One of the best ways to grow your social media accounts is to amplify your efforts. Whether you're sharing content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other platform, you need to tell people what you're doing!
You can do this by sharing posts (that you've created) with the people that follow your account. Or share something interesting that someone else has done and have them tag you in it. This will increase the likelihood that these people will share it with their followers.
Another way to amplify your efforts is by following popular industry leaders who are tagged in similar content or are posting about related topics. These influencers can dramatically increase your reach as well as help you diversify your content and stay up-to-date on current trends.
Get Social With Influencers
Another important step to building your social media presence is to get social with influencers. Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and often have a lot of engagement with their posts.
Determine what type of influencer you want to connect with - personal, lifestyle, beauty, cooking, etc. Once you've found an influencer that aligns with your brand, reach out to them for a collaboration. Explain that you love their work and compliment them on the success they've had so far.
Suggest a partnership that both parties would enjoy and provide them with your marketing plan in case they are interested in working together.
If they don't respond right away, don't give up! It's always best to follow up after 1-2 weeks. If they still haven't responded to your email or DM, it might be time to move on to the next influencer on your list.