This week started off with a question that I hear frequently, "How do we grow our fans & followers", but this time the question came from a nationwide food manufacturer that is struggling to grow their social audience. The first question you have to ask yourself when you think about growth is who do you want your next fan/follower to be. In this case when I asked this question, the marketing team said we don't really know who our target market is... and that is when I asked, "Who do you want to influence? " This is a question that is very helpful when you think about social business & marketing in general!
It turns out that they wanted to influence the mom that cooks for the family or anyone that grocery shops for the household. To be honest, this is a very broad target, but at least we now know who they wanted to influence. Now as we get into the strategy, I have two simple approaches that will help any brand or business grow their social authentically and organically!
- Cross Promote - This word has always had value in marketing, but now more than ever I believe in cross promotions. Start with these areas and look at what you can do more of to drive more synergy with your audience.
- Packaging - Can customers find your social on your package?
- Website/Email - Do you send out email updates with a reason for people to like you on social?
- Coupons - Do you have social links on your coupons?
- Social Media - Do you cross promote between your different channels and platforms?
- Viral Content - We all want this kind of content, but honestly most brands will never get shares & tags which leads to your content going viral. Do you know why? It's because most social teams are posting about themselves too much, and not thinking about sharing content that their fans will find useful and share. So I'm going to breakdown content into a couple areas that you can focus on in your upcoming posts.
- Quotes/Memes - Find relatable, fun, and shareable quotes or memes and post 1x per week to the page. You can either create them using Canva or you can repurpose eCards, etc.
- Telling the Story - Take time to breakdown your story, and tell it to your social customers! This is something that people are passionate about and they will share with friends.
- Videos/Podcasts - Produce high quality content that is consistent each week, develop a short video series/podcast to talk about a topic with your audience, and watch them respond. The key with this content is that it's all about consistency!
These two types of strategies will lead to authentically growing your social networks without having to pay a dollar on social advertising. However I also believe in the power of social ads, so after you get your cross promotions and content down, then I would suggest testing social advertising to help take it to the next level with a little paid advertising to help each piece of content resonate with your target audience. The key is action, and acting today to implement these two simple strategies to social GROWTH!!
Photo Credit - (sylviabrowder.com, explorecreateinspire.com)