The 5 Essentials to Successfully Build an Audience on Social Media

Social media gives you a direct marketing channel straight to your target audience. You can use it to spread awareness of your brand, interact personally with your followers, and learn more about the tastes and attitudes of your potential buyers. Are you ready to start growing your social media audience? Here are the five essentials you need to know first.

The Appropriate Social Media Mindset

There’s a certain mindset you need to have if you want to grow your audience on social media. Most of the platforms are fun, relaxed, and friendly. You have to be ready to interact in a positive way, not promoting or expecting anything in return. 

If you can be a positive, helpful presence, you’ll see much better results from your efforts. So, get in the right state of mind before you log on and start building your audience. 

Identify Your Goals

What are your goals for growing your audience on social media? “Because everybody’s doing it” isn’t good enough. Decide what you want to do with this audience and how it fits into your overall business plan. 

For example, you may want to build a large, engaged community so that you can drive them to your blog. Or you may want to build your expertise so you can pitch information products. Maybe you just want to increase awareness for your brand.

Your specific goal will direct every decision you make, so define this goal clearly and keep it in mind when you get on the platform.

Know Your Audience

You should have a good idea of what type of audience you want to grow. Define your target market in terms of demographics as well as behaviors and attitudes. Learn as much as you can about this target group so that you can offer solutions to their problems and value that will help them. 

This is what will help you gain more followers on social media. You also need to understand your followers’ tastes so you can create and share content that will engage them.

Take Consistent Action

Social media is a long game. You won’t see immediate results. What gets results is regular, consistent action. You have to log in each day and post content, answer comments, reply to messages, consume content, and perform various other tasks. 

Decide how much time you’re going to spend each day and what tasks you’re going to perform during that time. As your audience grows, they’ll expect you to be there every day interacting with them. 

Engage Your Audience

The key to success on social media is to engage your audience. That’s what it’s designed to do. This means sharing content that your followers not only want to consume but also interact with. It should be content that gets them commenting, liking, and sharing. It can be delivered by text, infographics, video, podcast, livestream, or a mix.

There are ways you can increase engagement such as asking questions, presenting challenges, conducting surveys, and so on. As people interact with you, this gives other users more chances to see you.