Effective Social Media Growth

Do you want to grow on social media? In short, it doesn’t have to be a competition, but there’s nothing wrong with feeling a competitive drive. Setting ambitious goals for yourself and then consistently pursuing and achieving them, or even exceeding them, can boost both your motivation and long-term growth. Follow the CEEPIT formula (Communicate – Experiment – Engage – Promote – Influence – Track) if you want to be at the forefront of social media marketing to achieve rapid growth.

Online Communication

Tell your brand’s story through compelling words and images.

The word “communication” ultimately traces back to the Latin verb “communicare,” which means “to share,” and sharing is embedded in the DNA of social media. The heart of communication is storytelling. This means taking your audience on a journey that unfolds from post to post, with a narrative arc that captivates users and leaves them eagerly awaiting the next episode. When preparing content for social media, always ask yourself: Is there more to this content than meets the eye? In other words, is it a piece of the puzzle that solves your brand’s current strategy?

Do this, and your audience will keep coming back to learn more about your company.

Digital Experiments

Define your niche and find your audience.

One of the most rewarding aspects of social networks is the immediacy of the direct feedback you receive. Often, you know within minutes or even seconds whether a post resonates with your audience. Once you’ve established your voice on social media, use your audience to test new ideas and approaches! If the experiment fails, simply stop pursuing it. So, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain! By reinterpreting your brand, you can expand your audience and enter new markets.

The key to successful experimentation in your social media account is as follows: Take it slow! Don’t change your brand voice overnight. Make small leaps in new directions and see what resonates. If your audience responds positively, you’ll know your idea has potential. And your followers will love you for not boring them. Variety is truly the spice of life (after chocolate 🍫).

Engagement and Interaction

Interact and give back to build lasting connections on social networks and expand your following.

Remember the comment from someone named “Believe_2_Success” under your last Instagram post – how did it go again… “wow luv ur content. follow me!” Not only did this not lead to a lifelong friendship, but you also blocked the account. Needless to say, this is not effective communication. The hype around marketing automation and bots overlooks the fact that social media works best when it’s social – and that means authentically interacting with your followers and other social media accounts for long-term success.

When someone interacts with your content, they invite you to engage in a conversation with them. And even the most trivial interactions can lead to a long-term relationship when taken seriously.

Online Promotion

Run targeted campaigns to increase brand awareness, boost website traffic, and generate additional sales.

Organic reach is no longer what it used to be. To reach more people with your social media content, you need to invest in paid social networks. On Facebook, you can also use the “Boost Post” feature and for more control over your targeting options, create your campaigns directly in the Facebook Ads Manager. You can also boost Instagram content directly from your business account and create Instagram ads directly on Facebook.

But Facebook and Instagram are not the only social networks that offer companies the opportunity to sponsor content to increase reach. You can also advertise on Twitter and Pinterest. LinkedIn ads, when used correctly, are also a very effective tool that is no longer relevant only to B2B companies.

Of course, online promotion can mean more than just running ads. Promotion, in a broader sense, also includes, but is not limited to, shameless self-promotion, such as adding sentences to your blog articles like: Follow us on Instagram for weekly marketing tips and valuable advice for rapid business growth 😅‍

Influencing

Connect with other customers and leaders in your niche on social media to achieve rapid, exponential growth.

Remember the saying, “It takes a village”? In the world of social media, this saying certainly holds true because going it alone won’t get you anywhere (otherwise, Facebook and the like wouldn’t be called social networks). Here, as well as everywhere else, you are stronger together.

That’s why it’s helpful to team up with other people who can help you deliver your messages to the desired target audiences. Some call this influencer or blogger marketing, others call it “leveraging relationships.” What’s important is that you harness the power of people.

One way to do this is through influencer campaigns. A more cost-effective and often more effective method is to use micro-influencers, whose reach may be slightly lower but often have higher engagement and therefore greater credibility or trust within their respective audiences.

If you’re new to influencer marketing and don’t have the time or resources to manage every aspect of your campaigns yourself, don’t worry! There are many useful tools for influencer relationship management that can help you, including tools like Traackr and Inbassador, which provide effective micro-influencer targeting options.

Tracking

Regularly measure and optimize your campaigns to build on successes.
If you don’t measure your social media performance, you won’t know what’s working and what needs improvement.
Here are some key ways to track and monitor your social media activities:

• Monitor your website traffic from social media channels in Google Analytics.
• Use social media monitoring tools like Brandwatch, Sprout Social, and HootSuite.
• Track your traffic from social media using UTM parameters – see our blog post on this with a practical guide on how to make the most of your UTM parameters
• Use a Google Sheet to better visualize the results. And while you’re at it, use lots of them.💥

Buffer offers a lot of free marketing templates, including some that can help you keep an eye on your social media performance. Here’s a handy overview of some of these great freebies‍.

Conclusion

If you build your social media marketing strategy around the 6 basic principles of social media just described, you’re on the path to success!

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