Increasing your audience

I’m often asked to help businesses wanting to increase their following so here are some things I have learned.

Though I must preface this by saying that you can have a small but genuine following who are far more valuable than a larger following who aren’t interested in your business so it should always be the focus to grow using the right methods.

Some ways to do this are:

1.       Follow and interact with your ideal customers. You can find these people by searching businesses similar to yours or in complimentary businesses to yours. If they’re following these accounts, chances are they’ll be interested in what you’re offering to.

2.       Run a giveaway. Whether it’s on your own, with an influencer or a collab giveaway, these are great ways of increasing your audience. Collab giveaways are also perfect for sharing followers especially when teaming up with businesses that share a common type of customer.

3.       If you’re working with a micro-influencer, a fellow business account or similar where they’re sharing your business or content, having a discount code or a sale mention is a good way to draw people in.

4.       Make sure your bio stands out, is appealing and will draw in potential followers that click on your account.

5.       Use hashtags. When these accompany good quality and appealing photos, you’ll pop up on the feed of those following particular hashtags and you can draw followers in this way.

Don’t:

1.       Mass follow a bunch of people then unfollow them once they follow your business. No one appreciates this. . .

2.       Spam people with generic comments or DMs.

3.       Use hashtags that aren’t relevant to your posts or your business.

4.       Pay for followers.

5.       Focus more on increasing your followers than looking after the followers you have, with engaging content and interaction.