You’ve set up your business pages on Instagram and Facebook, invited your family and
friends and then, the excitement of followers dies off as you realise it’s gone quiet!

This can seem really disheartening and at times, soul destroying despite all your hard work,
but don’t worry, this happens to everyone!

It can be especially tough if you are at the beginning of your marketing journey because you
see others doing really well and you want the same too.

However, social media is a lot more complex than just posting and hoping everyone will
flock, no matter how great your content is.

Before I talk more about finding authentic followers for your business pages, let’s find out
more about what each platform has to offer to establish which one you should be on.

Is your audience on Facebook?

Facebook demographics currently aim at ages 25 -60+ so it’s quite broad but the fastest age
group to be on there are actually the over 60’s!

1.65 billion users are on the platform so it’s easy to think that your target audience are on
here because everyone is right?

However we need to narrow this down even more as marketing to everyone is going to do
you more harm than good, your message will get diluted and ultimately lost in a busy new
feed.

Facebook groups are key to growing your business page.

Your audience are waiting for you in Facebook groups because that’s where they are asking
questions, hanging out in groups that meet their interests and in groups that are really niche.

You can find these groups by tapping in your business subjects into the search bar, as well
as figuring out what it is your audience needs help with.

For instance, if your target market are Mum’s who have newborns, you will ultimately find
them in parenting groups.

You can narrow this down to specifics such as breastfeeding, sleeping tips, weaning, new
mum’s, etc as well as location based.

Add yourself to as many active groups that you feel would benefit what you have to offer and
hang out there for a while to get a feel of it.

That way you will know if it’s right for you.

Is your audience on Instagram?

There are 1 billion active users on this platform and average user age is under 35.
But if your audience are older than this you can still use it to your advantage.

With four ways to post on the platform, Grid, Stories, Live and IGTV it has never been easier
to get your content in front of your audience but just how exactly do you narrow it down to
your target market?

Hashtags act like Facebook groups.

You should be using all 30 hashtags available to you and researching each individual one to
fit in with who you’re trying to attract.

Once you have these, you can follow the hashtag to ‘hang out’ in.

A bit like Facebook groups, you can check out who else is using the same hashtag and
comment, follow and save the posts that are related to your business.

This is a way to communicate with your audience and gaining the right followers.

So again, if your audience are females in their 30’s who work in the city, you could research
the hashtag #femalecityworker and see if it fits with your avatar.

You can also research location based hashtags, business specific and various words that fit
with what your posts are about.

It’s important to research your hashtags to make sure they are appropriate, allowed (some
hashtags are banned) and used.

Once you have worked out which platform is right for you, you can then focus on one and
build and grow your following there.

However, you don’t just want to concentrate on gaining followers all the time.

It’s better to have 100 followers than 10K because the algorithm will only show your posts to
those that connect with you and it’s easier to connect with fewer than many.

In part two of finding authentic followers, I will talk about how to gain real followers over fake
ones and offer tips to grow your page after you have invited friends and family.

Want to get more clued up on social media followers?

My e-book, How To Gain Authentic Followers is available now!