21 Proven Ways To Build Your Social Media Presence

Did you know that over half the global population is now active on social media? It goes without saying, then, that social media is an essential marketing channel for all types of businesses.

But if you want to make the most of it, you’ve got to build a strong social media presence first—and that’s easier said than done.

It’s not enough to just create a brand account on the major platforms and post some run-of-the-mill content from time to time.

If you want to grow your following and boost brand awareness, you’ve got to really nail your social media marketing strategy.

With that in mind, we’re going to share 21 powerful and proven ways to build your social media presence in this post. We’ll cover a mix of essential tips that everyone should follow, plus some lesser-known strategies that you can use to get ahead of your competitors.

21 ways to build your social media presence

1. Be consistent

The first, and most important rule to live by when it comes to social media is to be consistent. If you want to grow your presence and increase your follower count, it’s absolutely essential that you post consistently on all of your chosen social media channels.

If you post inconsistently, or you go weeks without posting on a certain channel, your current followers may become disengaged with your brand, and you may struggle to gain any new followers.

Also, accounts that aren’t updated regularly are often a red flag for new customers that are looking to learn more about your brand.

It goes even further than that because the algorithms of social media sites like Instagram tend to favor those that publish more frequently.

The best way to stay on track is to create a strict posting schedule. You can use a tool like Pallyy to schedule posts for each platform in advance and view them easily in a neat and intuitive visual calendar.

This will help you to stay on top of your schedule and make sure that all of your accounts stay populated.

2. Establish a personable brand voice

Another great way to build your presence, and build a good relationship is to establish a consistent and personable brand voice.

Try your best to write your posts in a way that sounds human and real, as opposed to coming off like an uber-professional corporation. This will make new and existing followers more engaged with your brand, and help your presence to grow.

Don’t be afraid to make jokes, use social media slang, and engage with your followers on their level. Here are a couple of examples of brands with great tones of voice:

Also, try to ensure that your voice remains consistent. This can sometimes be difficult if you have multiple team members working on your written content.

However, you can try having one team member edit and sign off on written content before it is published to make sure that the tone of voice used is in keeping with your brand voice.

3. Interact with your audience

Building your social media presence is, at its core, about networking. It’s about communicating with your audience and building a relationship with them.

That’s why it’s just as important to actively engage with your followers as it is to create engaging content.

When you have conversations with your followers, it makes them feel like you really care. It helps you to build a community around your brand, boosts brand loyalty, and makes your existing followers more likely to stick around and continue engaging with your posts.

One easy way to interact with your audience is to reply or react to their comments on your posts, like this:

But if you want to take it to the next level, you might consider live streaming a Q&A where your audience can ask questions and get answers in real time. Here’s an example:

Not only do these kinds of interactions show your audience you care, but they can also help to generate word-of-mouth publicity that boosts your reach.

4. Make use of multiple platforms

There are lots of different social media networks out there: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok… I could go on.

And you can bet your target audience will be active on most of them—so you should be too.

It’s fine to focus the bulk of your efforts on just one or a couple of main platforms (those that drive the best results). But ideally, you’ll want to at least be somewhat active on all of them.

Now I know what you’re thinking: I don’t have time to post regularly on a bunch of different platforms.

That’s where social media schedulers come in. You can use a tool like SocialBee to quickly and easily schedule social media posts across multiple platforms from one calendar. And you can use it to repurpose the same post for different platforms to save time.

For example, you can take a post you’ve scheduled for Facebook, tweak the headline so it fits in with Twitter’s 140-character limit, and schedule it on Twitter in a couple of clicks.

Just bear in mind that each social media platform has its own personality and use cases. So the content you publish on TikTok probably won’t work on LinkedIn. But if you edit it a little, it might work on Instagram Reels or Stories, etc.

Also, don’t forget to cross-promote your social media profiles by adding links to your account/page.

5. Track your performance

It’s important to continuously track your social media performance so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

If your goal is to build your social media presence, some of the most important metrics to track are going to be follower count, engagement rates, average post reach, social share of voice, and brand mentions.

You may be able to track some of these metrics using the social media platform’s built-in analytics, but it’s best to use a dedicated social media analytics and reporting tool. These tools let you dig a lot deeper and extract more advanced insights to inform your campaigns.

For example, you can use the Sendible social listening feature to track mentions of your brand name or other relevant keywords across all social platforms.

If you find out more people are talking positively about your brand over time, it’s a sign you’re probably doing something right.

6. Set goals

Building your social media presence is a very broad goal. It’s not very specific, and it could mean different things to different people.

Try to really narrow it down and split it up into several more precise, actionable objectives that you can really focus on.

Ideally, you should apply the SMART structure. SMART goals must be Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timebound.

For example, building your social media presence could be split into separate SMART goals like:

Grow your follower count on Instagram to 10,000 in the next 12 months
Rack up 1 million views on TikTok by August 2023
Increase your social share of voice to over 5% by the end of the year
Achieve a 3% average engagement rate on social media content over a period of 1 month.

You get the idea!

7. Engage with online communities

One powerful strategy you can use to boost your social media presence is to promote your social media accounts in other online communities that are relevant to your niche.

For example, if you’re a fitness influencer or fitness-related brand trying to grow your presence on Instagram, you could publish short fitness tips on your account, then share the same tips in other fitness community spaces, like the r/fitness subreddit.

Just bear in mind that you probably won’t be able to directly promote your social media accounts on Reddit or similar community spaces as Redditors don’t like it when you ‘advertise’.

Focus on building relationships in the community first and then consider subtly promoting your social accounts when it feels natural to do so—but be tactful about it.

8. Make sure your profiles are SEO optimized

If you want to grow your following and reach new audiences on social, you’ve got to make sure your account is easily discoverable.

That means ensuring your posts, bio, and profile are all optimized for search. Here are some tips on how to do just that:

Use popular and trending hashtags that your target audiences might search for in your posts and bio
Include the most important keywords to your business in your bio (i.e. your brand name, niche, etc.)
Cross-link between all your social channels and brand website
Use the same profile image and name/handle on every social media platform you’re active on

9. Run social media giveaways

This is another underutilized but powerful marketing strategy that you can use to boost your social media following.

The idea is to create a contest on social media and offer some sort of giveaway as a prize, like a product freebie. If you’re a retail brand, you can offer your own products. But if you’re an influencer, you could partner with an external brand and offer one of their products instead.

Then, share the contest on your social media accounts and invite your followers to enter. In order to enter, you can require users to like and share the post.

That way, every time someone enters, they promote the contest to all their friends, thus getting it in front of even more people. This can have a ‘snowball effect’, and before you know it, your contest might go viral and rack up thousands or even millions of views.

To run a social media giveaway, you’ll want to use a social media giveaway platform. We’d recommend SweepWidget.

It’s our favorite giveaway tool and includes all the features you need. It also supports tons of entry methods and social media platforms.

10. Jump on trends

Social media is where trends take off.

Every once in a while, a new craze or fad will sweep across social media and garner a ton of attention.

Remember the Gangnam Style video trend? Or the Ice Bucket challenge? Or how about the Mannequin challenge?

All of the above had millions of people making videos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

This represents a unique opportunity for brands. You can tap into these trends and to help generate bursts of traffic by making and sharing your own viral videos.

But be cautious here. Before you jump on a trend, make sure it aligns with your overall brand identity. If it doesn’t, sit it out.

You can even try starting your own trend on social media. For example, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association did that back in 2014 when they launched the Ice Bucket Challenge, which ended up being one of the most successful viral campaigns of all time.

Shortly after they launched their campaign, it was picked up by celebrities including Justin Bieber, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey, who took on the challenge to raise funds for ALS Research.

This pushed the challenge into mainstream culture and before long, everyone was doing it. By the time the campaign had run its course, it had raised over $220 million for ALS organizations.

11. Make the most of user-generated content

Leveraging the power of user-generated content is a great way to give your social media presence a much-needed boost. User-generated content refers to any content that has been created by your followers, and you can reshare this content to gain more exposure and increase your reach.

You can encourage your users to generate content by asking them to share pictures and products using a specific hashtag relating to your business. Here is an example of a National Geographic UGC campaign:

Users will not only share their own content, which will increase your account’s reach, but you can also reshare any posts that your users create to help populate your socials, increase engagement with your followers, and more.

12. Build relationships with influencers in your niche

Social media is all about being social. Well, the clue is in the name, right?

But seriously, one of the best ways to improve your social media presence is to interact and build relationships with key influencers in your niche. To do this you need to identify who your audience is most engaged with within your niche.

Then you can reach out to them via comments and DM’s and start a conversation. Like their posts and interact with their followers.

You don’t have to run full-paid influencer marketing campaigns to leverage the exposure from key influencers. Simply engaging with their community can help you to boost your social media presence and improve the credibility of your own accounts.

13. Run influencer marketing campaigns

Building relationships is a key first step in the influencer marketing process, but once you have established relationships with influencers, you can also take things one step further and run paid influencer marketing campaigns.

Influencer marketing is extremely effective when it comes to building a social media presence, so it’s well worth considering if you’re looking for a quick boost in followers and exposure.

Paid influencer marketing campaigns can take many forms from simply gifting products to influencers for them to mention online, to paying for sponsored posts, collaborations, and takeovers.

If you’re considering running an influencer marketing campaign, be sure to do your research. Make sure you’ve chosen the right influencer for your niche, and double-check that they have a good reputation when it comes to collaborating with businesses and brands.

You can use influencer marketing tools like Awario and BuzzStream to learn more about influencers in your niche

14. Monitor your brand mentions

Another great way to improve your social media presence is by keeping an eye on what people are saying about you online and responding accordingly. Social media monitoring software like Sendible and Brand24 help you to find out exactly what people are saying about your brand on different platforms.

This can help you not only to track brand sentiment, but it can also help you to stay engaged with your audiences on various social media platforms. By monitoring your brand mentions, you never miss an opportunity to engage with your followers.

Not only that, but you can ensure that any issues or complaints that would affect your social presence are handled in a timely and professional manner. Additionally, it can help you to gain key insights about which platforms your brand is mentioned on most.

15. Keep a close eye on your competition

If you want to know how to grow your social media presence, one of the best things to do is to take a look at what your competition is up to.

You can use competitor analysis tools like Semrush and SE Ranking to find information about your best-performing competitors and gain insight into their strategies. You can then use this to improve your own social media strategy and learn more about your target audience.

For example, if you find that one of your competitors produces a lot of video content and they are receiving tons of likes and engagement, it may be an indicator that people in your niche prefer video content over written content, and this could guide you to incorporate more video content into your own strategy.

Additionally, it’s always good to use your competitors as a benchmark for your own growth. If your follower count is growing steadily at the same rate as your competitors, then this is a good sign.

However, if you’re lagging behind, it may be worth taking a deep dive into the data to find out what is helping your competitors to grow.

16. Host online quizzes

One fun way to boost your social media presence is to create online quizzes for your followers. You can use quizzes for lead generation purposes or you can create quizzes that relate to topics that your followers will find shareable.

If you create an interesting quiz that captures the attention of your current followers, they may be keen to share it with their friends so that they can take the quiz too, which can give you a huge boost in new followers.

You can use online quiz builders like Woorise to create your quizzes and then share them on your socials. One of the most popular quiz types is personality quizzes and they are extremely shareable too!

17. Promote your social media accounts IRL

If you’re a business or creator looking to increase your social media presence, be sure to take advantage of key real-world opportunities to gain more followers.

For example, if you’re a business you can add your social media handles to your business cards and share them with customers and clients.

You can also try creating Instagram spots within your business premises to encourage people to take pictures and share your business’s hashtags on social media. Here are some examples of this:

If you’re an individual creator, another great way to increase your social media presence is by attending influencer events in person and connecting with other creators, and followers. You can use these events as opportunities to network, share your socials and meet with potential new followers.

18. Stay up to date with new features

If you really want to grow on social media, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse when it comes to platform updates and new features.

New features are super popular with users, and the algorithm often pushes content that’s created using new features which means your reach can rapidly increase.

For example, when Instagram introduced the Reels feature, the company put a lot of emphasis on creators using the new feature, and many creators saw a huge boost in engagement and reach.

You can stay up to date with the latest updates by following the social media accounts for the various platforms. If new features are introduced, try your best to make use of them and incorporate them into your ongoing social media strategy.

19. Strike a balance between promotional and value-rich content

When posting to your social media accounts, it can be tempting to make every single post a promotion for your products or an ad for your business.

However, this type of content isn’t great for engagement so it’s important that you spend some time creating posts that add value for your followers. Adding value can be anything from sharing important information with your followers to creating content that is purely for entertainment.

Although some of your posts will focus on promotion, try to strike a good balance, and intersperse value-adding posts with promotional ones.

This will give your followers more opportunities to engage with your brand, share and like your content, and it will ultimately help your social media presence to grow. It will also help to build trust and credibility with your followers.

20. Make your content accessible to everyone

When it comes to social media content, accessibility is really important. You want users to be able to view your content and interact with it no matter who they are, or where they are.

For example, if you create video content for TikTok or Instagram reels, it’s always a good idea to add captions to your videos like these creators do:

This helps people who are hearing impaired or people who simply don’t want to play sound out loud to be able to enjoy your content too.

In fact, most people actually watch video content on silent so by adding captions you’re increasing the number of users that can watch and interact with your content. This means more engagement and more opportunities to gain followers and grow your social presence.

Another great way to improve accessibility on platforms like YouTube is to add captions in different languages. If you don’t know multiple languages, you can pay native speakers to translate your videos or encourage your followers to submit captions for you.

21. Be patient

And last but not least, it’s super important to remember that you can’t have overnight success when it comes to social media.

It takes time to build your presence, and it can take a number of years to establish yourself on different platforms and grow your follower count. So, if you don’t seem to be having much luck in the first few months—keep at it.

Remember to create a consistent posting schedule and stick to it, and be sure not to give up if you don’t see results right away.

If you’re not seeing much growth, you may need to tweak your content marketing strategy. Try some new methods and new content ideas to see what works. If you’re willing to play the long game, you’re much more likely to be able to grow your presence on social media.

Final thoughts

There you have it—21 powerful ways to grow your social media presence.

Try incorporating these tips and strategies into your social strategy and hopefully, you’ll see your follower count and engagement rate start to climb.

But don’t expect miracles overnight. Building a social media presence takes time. It’s a long-term marketing strategy and you might not see dramatic results straight away. Just stick with it, be consistent, and your efforts will no doubt pay off eventually.

For more guidance, see our complete guide on how to build a social media strategy.

And for some further reading, I’d recommend checking out these articles:

Good luck!

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. If you click on certain links we may make a commission.

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