Finding overnight success is every marketer’s dream. Publishing one post that gives them immense reach, that one tweet that can make them go viral.
While it is impractical to hope for a marketing strategy that will churn out viral post after viral post and bring your overnight fame (and sustain it), some social media growth hacks for your business can help you kick-start your online success and build your social presence slowly but surely.
In this article, we are sharing some practical and proven tactics that you can integrate into your social strategy to give it a much-needed boost.
Read on till the end to find the hack that can boost your social media ROI!
Social media growth hacks you can start using today!
The best thing about social media is that it doesn’t differentiate between the rich and the… well, the not so rich.
It brings equal opportunities for businesses regardless of their scale, size, and marketing budget.
Even if you don’t have millions of dollars to allocate to your social marketing, here are a few low-cost, high-impact hacks that can help you grow on social media:
Get creative
93% of marketers use social media. From this statistic alone, we think it is safe to say that the social media scene is crowded with people trying to fish for attention.
What makes the situation muddier is that there are an estimated 147,000 photos posted on Facebook, 347,000 stories uploaded on Instagram, and 555 hours of video posted on YouTube every minute.
So, the social media content arena is saturated. Adding another similar piece of content to the large content pool will not help you stand out.
So, you need to get creative!
Social media rewards creativity, sometimes more than you can imagine.
One creative, out-of-the-box video can earn you millions of views. A single, fun Tweet can help you get the spotlight not even hundreds of pieces of regular content can bring.
See what we mean?
Therefore, the first social media growth hack is to get creative.
Easier said than done? Not really.
Creativity cannot be bought with money. It can only be brewed with inspiration. So, put your creative hat on and start looking for inspirations to create a killer Instagram post, an engaging LinkedIn post, or a viral YouTube video, like Dove did for their “You Are More Beautiful Than You Think” campaign.
Dove, a massive advocate for promoting positive body image, launched this campaign eight years ago with a highly engaging YouTube video.
Because of how out-of-the-box, intriguing, and insanely creative the video was, it got the brand featured in New York Times, Huffington Post and several other publications, earning it 4 billion PR and blogger impressions.
But what’s more interesting is that today, this video has mounted a whopping 10 Million views on YouTube.
We know what you’re thinking.
You don’t have a budget as huge as Dove’s.
But all you need for a creative and engaging piece of content is a bunch of creative brains.
Here’s how a relatively small business, a subscription-based photo service, Chatbooks, won on social media with creativity.
Chatbooks created a YouTube video perfectly aligned with their buyer persona and communicated profoundly with their target audience, acknowledging their pain points.
The video launched two years ago acquired 200,000 Facebook likes, and at the time of writing, it has 7.8 Million views.
When comparing with Dove, Chatbook results seem to be better, no? Did they have a marketing budget similar to Dove? Not likely. They still won with creativity, and you can too!
Hire influencers
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective social media hacks for small businesses. Why? Because it is incredibly affordable and supremely effective.
And the best part is, the affordability is inversely proportional to efficacy. As the follower count drops, the influencers’ services become more affordable, and their impact increases.
The lower the follower count is, the higher is the bond with their followers and the more influential the message they deliver. That’s probably why influencers with 1000 followers generate 85% higher engagement than those with 10,000 followers.
Society6, an e-commerce store, collaborates with artists to create and sell fun products. They wanted to drive brand awareness, for which they hired 21 influencers.
These influencers created 24 content pieces for their influencer marketing campaign, with an average engagement rate of 5.68%. Moreover, the campaign videos generated one million cumulative views, which is significant, especially when the goal was to drive brand awareness.
However, influencer marketing can unlock your social success only when you hire the right people. And given that 39% of brands struggle with it, finding influencers must be hard.
If you fear struggling with finding the right influencers, these tips here will help you out!
Boost your Facebook post
If you have ever posted on Facebook from your business profile, you must have seen the Boost Post button.
With organic reach dropping day after day, your posts reach only 2% of your followers organically.
Facebook Boost Post is the best choice for you if you want your posts to reach more people but do not have the budget or time to build and monitor an advertisement campaign.
The Boost Post option converts your regular Facebook post into a sponsored post and takes it to more people. In this way, it enhances your reach significantly and earns your post the impressions it needs.
Moreover, since Boosting Post comes with demographic-targeting, it also enables you to reach not just your followers but more people who may be interested in your offering but are not yet following you.
Therefore, it drives engagement and brand awareness while being insanely affordable. You can boost your post for as low as 1 USD/day.
Boosting a Facebook post is super easy as well. All you have to do is go to the post you would like to boost. You’ll see the Boost Post button over there. Tap on it. Facebook will help you with the rest.
Deploy proven engagement tactics
An engaged audience drives your social media growth.
There are many things you can do to develop an engaged community. But for that, you first need a community.
So, focus on building your social presence and community first. Once you have a substantial following, then you can apply these engagement tactics:
- Host AMA sessions by coming on live on your social feed.
- Post interesting polls and quizzes using social media widgets.
- Create and publish interesting and engaging content, as Starbucks does:
Check out the engagement on a really simple Starbuck’s tweet!
The three we have mentioned are not the only engagement tactics you can apply. Again, think out of the box and brainstorm ways you can keep your audience engaged.
Find what interests them, intrigues them or bothers them, and then create content that resonates with them.
Always remember, engagement and authenticity go hand-in-hand. So, create authentic content and don’t be afraid to show your human side.
Check out how Neil Patel takes us behind the scenes on his Instagram:
Talking about showing your human side, get casual with your followers in the comments section, always listen to what they have to say and be there to help them whenever they need you.
There is a specific time when most of your audience is online, called social timing. Researches indicate some “best” times to post on social media, but in reality, your social timing varies according to your audience.
So, experiment with different times to find out your “best” time to post on social media so that your post can get visibility-driving engagement while it is still young.
Increasing posting frequency and repurposing content also proven ways to increase audience engagement. And there is data backing their efficacy.
Post Planner, a social media tool, increased its organic reach by 65% simply by increasing posting frequency.
And MindStream Media Group, a social media marketing agency, drove high engagement rates for one of their clients by repurposing and reusing their content.
They noticed that the second and third posts on LinkedIn for the same blog generated 197% higher interactions, while tweets with repurposed content had a 214% higher engagement rate.
Experiment with any or all of these engagement tactics and see which one works better. Then continue doing what worked best.
Use Visuals
Our brain processes visuals 60,000 times quicker than textual information. That is probably why the brain needs 1/10th of a second to understand an image.
These numbers build a solid case for the involvement of visuals in a social media growth hacks list.
You see, using compelling branded visuals will grab attention. And if these visuals deliver a strong message, that too will be picked up quickly, garnering engagement.
Consistently creating and publishing compelling visual content will eventually build a strong community that shares your message and drives your growth.
So, make sure to include visually appealing content in whatever you post on your social media because Tweets with images get 18% higher clicks and 150% more retweets. Similarly, Facebook posts with photos get 3.2x higher engagement. And we all know the relation between engagement and visibility on Facebook. Higher engagement, more visibility.
The best thing is, you don’t even have to budget in hiring an illustrator or a graphic designer to create your social posts. With social media graphics tools like Canva, you can easily create stunning posts in no time.
Check out how this Instagram page has accumulated 1.5 million followers simply by creating quote posts that you can make in less than five minutes:
Use hashtags and mentions
Hashtags are like social media keywords. If used correctly, they can connect your content with the people who want to consume it.
For example, you have a travel business and post your newest travel deals with the hashtag “cheap travel packages.” Now, someone jumps on Instagram to find affordable travel deals and types #cheaptravelpackages. This person, who is already halfway through the conversion funnel, will come across your post and be likely to convert.
So, you see how using a hashtag can drive great results for your business simply by increasing your reach?
But to truly harness the potential of hashtags, you have to use the right ones.
Search the trending hashtags in your industry, brainstorm what your target audience could be searching with and then pick the right hashtags.
Check out how this small business uses hashtags:
Another way you can drive brand visibility, and experience resulting growth and exposure is by mentioning influential people in your Instagram stories.
When you mention someone in your story, they have an option of reposting your story on their account. And if someone with a substantial following reposts your story, your brand gets exposure to a significant number of new people.
Check out how Women’s Wear Daily mentioned Model and Entrepreneur Victoria Beckham in their story, which Victoria reposted:
The interesting thing to note here is that WWD has 1.5 million followers while Victoria Beckham has 29 million. Since WWD tagged VB, its story reached millions of more people who it might not have reached if VB had not reposted their story.
Never ignore data
Data is the modern world’s currency. Therefore, if you don’t use it smartly, you will end up poor.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But data, especially in social media marketing, is critical because it can tell you what to do, what is working and what isn’t and when to optimize your strategy to yield better results.
You can use Google trends and other such tools to find out what’s trending in your industry to create content that can enjoy excellent visibility and engagement associated with trends.
To track the ROI of your social efforts, factor in social media analytics in your social media campaign and track the performance of your content.
You can also use social analysis to learn more about your audience’s demographics and location and create content aligned with their interests.
For example, you can create content celebrating the 4th of July if you have seen that most of your audience comes from the US.
Conclusion
Hoping for overnight fame on social media is impractical. You need to work for growth that may take time but delivers consistent results.
The social media growth hacks we have discussed here are all tried and tested to deliver the results you want to see from your social media marketing efforts.
But remember, consistency and experimentation are key.
You cannot post visuals one day, see that it did not deliver the engagements you expected and give up.
Be consistent with the hacks you adopt and continue to test their performance to optimize your strategy and find what works best for you and your unique brand.
