When you’re first starting up, social media can seem like a daunting task because it takes a lot of time, resources, and above all else, is a big line item in your budget. But that’s not always true. By taking just one hour per day for 21 days, you can improve your follower count, up engagement, and effectively reach your target audience without wasting your most precious resources: time and money.
STEP 1: Pick Your Platforms and Content Types
It’s important to pick the social media platforms that will work the hardest for you. To make a difference in just three weeks, you’ll need to keep things simplified and focused, so try to choose no more than three platforms. If you think your target audience is most active on Instagram and Facebook, for example, focus your time and efforts on those two platforms to see the biggest return on your time investment.
When it comes to content types it’s simple: what do you have the resources to create well? If you are terrible at producing video - don’t even think about it. If you’re a great writer, start there. Be reasonable and save the ambitious goals for your product/service.
Need more help? Read more about choosing your platforms and content at The Digital Marketing Institute.
STEP 2: Engage With Your Audience
Knowing your audience is a crucial step for every business. You should have a detailed idea of who your target customer is, what’s important to them, and how to best communicate with them effectively. If you know all of these things, it’ll make it easier to engage directly with them through your social media channels.
PRO TIP: Forgot about the importance of knowing your audience? Go back to basics here.
First, start by following members of your target audience from your accounts. Your ultimate goal is to have them follow you back so you can not only up your follower count, but hopefully engage with potential leads. Along with following members of your audience, it’s also important to follow brands that attract similar audiences—like your competitors. Even though it might be counterintuitive, engaging with your competitors will help you increase your reach through their audience, which in turn can help expand your own.
Be sure to also follow accounts whose content resonates and reflects your brand values and style. That way, if they share a post you love, you’ll be able to easily reshare it if you think it’s something that will hit home with your target audience. FYI - this is what we call “Curated Content”.
Step 4: Partner with Liked-Minded Brands
Partnerships with other brands are an easy way to expand your reach, free of charge. You can partner with other companies in a lot of different ways. You could author posts for each other’s blogs, co-create content, share a photo and tag your partner brand, or create a promotion or giveaway—the options are endless. Just be sure you’re teaming up with another brand that has a similar target audience as your own so the content you create is something they’ll want to engage with.
Another way to create a more behind-the-scenes partnership is to create an engagement pod. Create a group or chat with a group of brands, and share with the group when you post on your platform. By getting engagement quickly from members of your pod, it will help expand your post’s reach and encourage engagement from the rest of your audience.
Remember: Engagement is Key!
Though social media can seem intimidating, it all really comes down to one thing: consistency. You shouldn’t gauge your success based on your number of followers, but instead on the level of engagement from your audience.
STEP 5: Utilize the Algorithm Hacks
Here are some recent algorithm hacks that can help you on different platforms:
LinkedIn: Relevance is key. Be sure to use good hashtags, tag other people or companies, and ask open-ended questions to spur conversation.
Instagram: Frequency is important to Instagram’s algorithm. Be sure to post at least three times per week, and try to boost your comments and likes with an engagement pod.
Twitter: Timing is key on Twitter. Share rich media and engage with other accounts to try and increase the retweets and likes on your own content.
Facebook: Engaging content matters on Facebook. Try using the Facebook Live Video functionality to share videos longer than three minutes or create a group for more discussion and conversation.
By committing to dedicate the time—even it’s only an hour a day—busy founders can find success on social. Hack the algorithms, reach your audience, and communicate clearly what your brand is all about.
Want more marketing tips?
Check out our webinar about the best free marketing hacks for start-ups.