Three Secrets to Growing Your Audience on Social Media
Want to know the #1 thing that made my online business finally take off?
Growing my audience.
When nobody knew who I was or what I had to offer, I couldn't make any sales, so my business wasn't generating any income.
And, of course, you can't support yourself running a zero-profit business.
I sure don't want you to be stuck like I was for so long, so in this article, I'm sharing three secrets for quickly growing your audience on social media.
There I was, working 20, 40, even 60 hour weeks, with VERY little to show for it.
Eventually, I figured out that the missing piece was visibility. People had to hear about what I had to offer before they could even consider buying it.
So, I set to work, trying to get the exposure I needed.
I tried Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as other visibility strategies, including PR, blogging, guest blogging, and all sorts of paid advertising.
Obviously, the reason I tried so many different strategies was because none of them were exactly “hitting it out of the park.” A lot like everything else I was doing to run my business, they seemed like a whole lot of work without a lot of payoff.
One of the most valuable things I learned through this whole process was the importance of focusing on ONE platform and truly mastering it. (That's secret #1.) Because, here's a dose of truth:
Every popular social media platform is very competitive.
Which means that, in order to really “get results” and quickly grow an engaged audience, you have to put in the work to create exceptional content and learn how to work with the platform's algorithm to maximize your results. (That's secret #2.)
Simply put, “just post consistently” isn't going to be enough to stand out from your competition and grow your following month-after-month.
And, finally, secret #3 is this: people visit different platforms for different reasons, and in order to create popular content (the kind that will attract new followers and earn you more visibility) you must be aware of — and cater to — these motivations.
Said another way: people go to different platforms because they want different things.
On Instagram, for example, people are looking for inspiration and to live vicariously through others. They're looking for hope for the future and a break from the mundane.
YouTube, on the other hand, is all about entertainment — not comedy, necessarily, but entertainment in general. People go to YouTube to escape boredom. However, there's also a big secondary use: to learn “how to” do things. It's like a movie theatre and online classroom rolled into one. ?
Over on Facebook, people are interested in relationships and conversation. They visit the platform because they're wondering what their friends are up to and because they want to engage.
Do you see what I mean? People have different reasons to visit different platforms.
Use yourself as a “test subject” to think about this more. What's your favorite social media platform? Why do you visit it? Are there any particular emotions that trigger you to visit it, such as boredom, loneliness, confusion, excitement, etc.?
The fact that different platforms have different purposes explains why “re-purposing” content doesn't always work. You can't always take a blog post you wrote, share a sentence from it on Twitter, a paragraph on IG, and read it for a podcast and YouTube video. It might be a great blog post… but it might not be nearly inspirational enough for IG, or entertaining enough for YouTube.
As you're working to grow your audience and increase your visibility, how can you apply these three secrets? Here are a few suggestions:
Secret #1
Pick one platform to focus most of your time/energy on for at least the next six months.
Secret #2
Because most platforms are so competitive, if you don't spend enough time working on them, then you're likely just wasting that time. So, in order to get the results you're looking for, block out at least 3 – 5 hours/week to devote to creating exceptional content for your platform of choice.
Secret #3
As I explained above, different platforms serve different purposes. Take some time to analyze the TOP content on your platform of choice. What are people really loving?
That's all for now, but I'll be in touch again soon! Until then, take care. 🙂
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