How to increase followers and engagement on Instagram or Facebook

You don’t have to be famous to get a massive amount of followers on your social media channels.

For the average person or business, growing your social media following takes time and requires constant work. One needs to optimize their profile continuously, curate valuable content, write insightful content, use the right hashtags, and work with influencers to incentivize engagement.

However, this can become easier and more effective if you know where to invest your time and efforts.

We put together a few tips you can use to increase your followers, leads, likes and online conversations:

Keep an eye on trends

Participate in massively popular conversations. Following hashtags is a great way to engage with other people talking about your brand and develop better relationships with them.

Hyper specific hashtags are like long-tail keywords; they show more intent and can help you find the right people. On the other hand trending hashtags like #instagood, #tbt, #photooftheday or even plain old #fun get you in front of more people in general.

An easy way to generate hashtag ideas is to make a list of your followers and competitors and research what they’re hashtagging on their photos.

Tip: Use RiteTag to get #tags suggestions and uncover new #tag opportunities.

Build two-way conversations

The best way to boost engagement is to simply interact with the people who like and comment on your posts.

A two-conversation is a dialogue, where brands speak and listen to their audience, responding directly to their questions needs.

Try to dedicate some time daily to comment on your posts and interact with your audience.

When you are posting on social media, remember that 80% of your posts should be adding value, in other words, not promoting your product or service, but helping.

The remaining 20% of your posts, however, can be about what you are offering to your audience and encourage them to take your desired actions.

Find accounts similar to yours. Engage their followers, the ones they follow and the users that frequently comment on their posts.

Consistency is key

The amount of posts should depend on the amount of followers you have. If you have a smaller following, post at least once a day. Bigger accounts and influencers should post more than 3 a day:

• Between 7:30AM – 9:00AM weekdays (Instagram users usually wake up and check Instagram first thing in the morning while they are still laying in bed or getting ready for work.
• Around 12PM weekdays – This is when Instagram users might be going out for lunch where they typically scan their newsfeed quickly.
• Around 10PM weekdays – After dinner when Instagram users are relaxing on their sofas or getting ready for bed.
• Between 10AM – 11:30AM weekends – Weekends tend to be slightly slower, more relaxed. People usually sleep slightly longer and check Instagram before breakfast/brunch.

Brands are taking customers behind the scenes with stories

Pulling back the curtain on brands, products, and celebrities is a powerful method of bonding with consumers and building loyalty and trust.

Initially dismissed as the playground of Millennials, social media stories have grown to become a viable media format in their own right.

Not bad for a format that mostly consists of photos, pithy text overlays, and short videos that disappear within 24 hours of being posted.

Stories allow fans to see brands in a less polished format, more spontaneous, more experimental, less planned and scripted. Stories can reveal the humanity, humour, and values behind a brand.

Stories matter.

They are the first thing that your customers see when they log onto their profile. This means Stories are great for grabbing attention.

The Stories section even follows your customers as they scroll through their news feed.

Stories provide an organic way to connect with your customers. You can see exactly who is tuning into your Facebook stories. This means that targeting the most interested leads is easy.

Once you know who is watching your stories, you can adapt your targeting efforts and watch your results grow.

• So, how do you make the most of them?
• Create exciting time-sensitive content
• Be unique, users expect to see fresh content
• Use colours and text styles consistent with your brand image
• Focus on enhancing your customer experiences
• Celebrate business milestones and new announcements
• Share video clips of events you attend
• Share essential tips related to your niche
• Snap selfies with your team
• Post “collaborative” stories from your customers and influencers

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