How to build your audience using social media marketing

The primary aim of a social media page is to raise awareness of a brand, a product or an event. The larger the audience the more effective and efficient the campaign. 

Many of the big brands have huge social media audiences, many are in the millions of active watchers and followers. These audiences have been built up over the past years and the business gives them news on recent changes, updates and offers.

There are 4 factors worth thinking about when building an online audience for your business page; 1) Who do you want to follow you? 2) Which is the best platform to use? 3) How can you persuade people to follow you? 4) What content should be uploaded?

It’s worth spending some time thinking about who you need to connect and engage with on social media. Who is interested in your product or service? Is there something which you can offer them unique to your business? Ensuring that the right audience is following your business is essential, the users don't just need to be customers or potential customers, they can be friends of current/potential customers, journalists and editors, Bloggers, suppliers, affiliate businesses or thought leaders and trend setters (MarketingDonut, 2014).

Thinking about who the trend setters are is important, for example if you sell cars; would it be beneficial if a celebrity was to be associated with a vehicle? E-WoM is an important factor for social media, the more re-tweets, shares and comments you receive the more people view a post. Finding the influencers of your target market will result in an increase in post interest and page followers.

Selecting the right platform is also important, you don't need a presence on every platform, according to Stephanie Walden from Mashable (2013) Certain businesses will flourish on visually rich sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, while others may have more success with Twitter's 140-character format.

A popular way to promote your business page is to host competitions, give-aways and sweepstakes. Hosting a sweepstakes or contest can generate valuable buzz about your business, create brand affinity and entice potential customers — who might otherwise have never heard of your company — to check out your site, Mashable (2013).

Posting the right content about your promotion will result in the attitude the followers have about you. Understanding what connection the fans have and want with you is very important. For example Red Bull, their Facebook page consists mainly of short videos about extreme sports, very little about their main product. Dell enjoy posting engaging questions and topics, whilst Audi post their recent innovations. Finding what your audience wants is important, then establishing an audience around this. 

Overtime however your audience may change, as the brand diversifies and develops new products and services your target market and those who a drawn to your business will differ. Acknowledging these potential changes is important as business will need to adapt the methods they use to attract users. This may involve incorporating new social platforms, types of content and methods of promotion.