Author: Chloe Steward

One of the most important advice on social media that every expert will vouch for is not to get hung up on the size of the audience, rather, put effort into keeping them. It is true; a large follower base will be automatically created if consistency is maintained.

The trick is to know how to engage people on social media in a friendly and fun manner. Here are a few strategies to maintain a loyal fan base.

• Create memorable, easy to understand posts

Creating something memorable is not easy, especially with people’s short attention span; it became harder even to get the message through.

One quick and easy way is using visual. According to Ekaterina Walter, co-founder and CMO of Branderati, rather than texts, images and videos are easily understood by everyone. They act as shortcuts to our brain and capture attention much faster.

And they are easy to create too. A picture with a catchy caption or with little description can replace a whole paragraph.

• Consistency

The habit of posting regularly means the followers know something is coming every other day also creates anticipation for the next post. A common rule is to post 2 or 3 times, daily. Even one post a day will work, but erratic posting is a strict no-no.

A consistent posting habit also helps in SEO. It helps a user stay on top of the search results.

• Inspire, and gain attention

Inspiring the followers to do something is important. No one likes a constant sales pitch in their daily feed. Entertaining, offering resources to the fans will make sure they see the value of following.

• Giving them importance

A courteous reply, offering a quick Q&A session, all these are something that can be offered to a dedicated fan base. Such a gesture represents the importance of the followers, and a polite ‘thank you’ for their time.

A more material approach will also work. A Facebook promotion for a prize, some downloadable content; things like this excites and engages existing fans and spread one’s presence.

• Solving problems

People turn to social media for various reasons, and looking for some solution is one of them. People often look at other people to gain some insight, maybe to get inspired by something. Being helpful, inspirational and insightful is one of the important aspects to maintain a fan base.

Sharing inspirational quotes, blog posts, eBooks helps people to understand the point of view and solve a problem.

• Providing an incentive

Everyone likes to win gifts. Small contests, giveaways strengthen the bond between a social media success and a follower. Asking the audience to post their favourite experience, posting winners pictures in the feed shows love and care. A must have to maintain a follower base.

Showing them that they are valued is very important. The only way to keep the social media followers engaged is to keep nurturing their needs, listening to their interests and problems. This will prove to be a successful path to gain a rock steady group of social media followers.

Social media is more popular than ever right now. With an expected growth of 2.5 billion people worldwide, approximately 71% of internet users are on social media, and that number is expected to increase.

So many people on social media are creating great opportunities to employ marketing tactics to grow a business’s visibility. Social media has become a cornerstone of marketing strategy. Companies are using it as a tool to reach to their customers instantly.

Marketing strategies of social media changes depending on the customer base. There are many platforms where a company can advertise, but all of them have their demographics.

Here are 3 best platforms to advertise on social media.

Facebook:

For 14 years, Facebook has revolutionised the definition of social media. Today they are the undisputed leader in the market. With over 1.19 billion active users Facebook offers the largest audience.

Advertising on Facebook is probably the best choice for any business. There are certain advantages while using it as an advertisement platform. Facebook allows someone to create multiple variations of an advert and use the best performing one of those variations.

Also, they offer targeted audience option. Target viewers can be selected depending on 6 different categories: gender, education, interests, relationship status, location and workplace. This allows creating a customisable reach.

Other than all the advantages mentioned above, Facebook obviously offers the most reach. And it is also cost-effective, with as little as a dollar a day per ad, it allows smaller businesses to post advertisements and not break the bank.

Google+:

Google is famous for the search engine giant that they have become. Most of the internet traffic goes through Google every day, and it’s no surprise that their social media platform gets equal attention.

Google has included SEO benefits in Google+, any activity on a company page results into a better result in future. Also, people on Google+ are often more tech-savvy than people on Facebook or Twitter. So it can prove to be an ideal platform for just the right audience.

Google+ also features “+Post ads”, this posts ads on Google’s display network. It increases the reach of an advertisement considerably.

Another unique aspect is that advertiser doesn’t have to pay for an advertisement if someone doesn’t click on it. This saves money and can prove important for a small business.

Twitter:

The microblogging site is famous for its massive reach and users who are famous in real life. It is also a potent advertisement platform. It allows targeting people based on their current interests. Just like Google’s keyword targeting, each tweet can be distinct with the hashtag attached.

Another way to advertise is to find a particular user and to target the followers. As an example, a sportswear company will look for the people who are following a famous sportsman to advertise themselves effectively.

Twitter has the potential to become a great advertising platform, although to target a particular brand using only hashtags makes it slightly difficult. It makes marketing on twitter complicated.

Social media advertising can bring in a new makeover to any business. However, there is no 1 particular platform to advertise on. Internet users are using every other social media. The best practice will be to study the target audience and act accordingly.

Coming in at 4th place would be Instagram but we’ll leave that for another post – which we’re bringing to you under a partnership with Buzzoid – the #1 supplier for instagram likes and followers.