If you recently started using social media for your business and seeing little to no engagements on your content, don’t be alarmed! Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm, in particular, now prioritize content from friends and family over business pages. However if your posts gather enough engagements, then your posts stand a higher chance of being shown without you needing to put some money behind it. Now if you do not have a big advertising budget to run ads all the time, you can use the following tactics to help you reach your fans organically.
1. Leveraging of popular/trending topics
There is always an event or a topic that captures the interest of a large number of people. Your business can integrate these trending topic into its content strategy by either forecasting an event that is more likely to trend like the #FIFAWorldCup, #RoyalWedding or including hashtags that have already garnered a large following like #Foodie #Entrepreneur #DIY. We must note that Hashtags have a higher engagement rate on Twitter and Instagram than other social media platforms. Instagram in particular now allows users to follow a particular hashtag which helps to create a community of fanatics who share a common interest.
2. Tagging Influencers
As you may or may not know, social media influencers are gaining much traction and are being used in a number of brands’ content strategies. You can find out more on social media influencers here. If you are feeling bold and brave, you can simply tag an influencer, who relates to your business, in your post and pose a question to them. The worst that can happen is being ignored or they may find your business interesting and can engage with your content. For instance, ordinary people asked Gordon Ramsey to rate their cooking skills and Gordon Ramsey (if you were lucky) would respond in a mocking or mean way.
If this approach is out of your business’s scope, you can contact the influencer in private and ask to collaborate with them. However, we can’t promise that they will do it for free.
3. Running Competition/Contests
Yes, it’s the oldest trick in the book but who doesn’t love free stuff? Offering a free product/service in exchange for page shares or likes is an easy way to increase brand awareness. Or why not run a poll, where the most popular answer can help you launch a new product or service.
4. Instagram/Facebook Story
You can upload a static image, a gif or a short video notifying your users that you have a new post up on your page. This feature can serve as a quick reminder for your fans to check out your content and the best part is that Instagram or Facebook does not prioritize any story. This is because the stories are on display for 24 hours and are shown in a chronological order of when the story was uploaded. Instagram and Facebook have various creative tools to help convey the tone and personality of your brand which helps in making your story fun to read!
5. Twitter Retweets/Quotes
Seeing that Twitter does not have a story feature – not that it should have one – you can make use of its retweet or quote tool to try reach a new audience who may have missed your tweet at the time it was posted. In the first set of images below, you’ll see the retweet symbol is the second one from the left. Simply select the retweet symbol and then select the Retweet button in blue to post the tweet at a later stage during the day/week/month. If you would like to add a little bit more information to the tweet, you can quote a tweet by selecting the retweet symbol then add a short and intriguing comment and select the quote button in blue once you’re ready.
How to Retweet
How to Quote a Tweet
Did you find these tips helpful or do you have a few tricks of your own? Let us know!
