In the world of social media marketing, there’s an all-too-common misconception that success can be measured by your follower count and that quantity prevails. While we understand the appeal of a hitting a milestone number of followers to showcase your brand’s popularity, we’d hate for you to waste efforts chasing vanity over value. The real success of your social media marketing relies on the quality of the audience you attract. Building a highly engaged follower base, that will develop into a thriving community, takes time and a strategic approach.
Let’s look at why an effective social media strategy is much more than just a numbers game. We’ll share some expert tips from our team to help you focus on value over vanity and cultivate an authentic community that genuinely cares about your brand, mission and what you have to say. As always, we’ll also cover a few pitfalls to avoid.
Why numbers alone don’t add up
At Patch, we pride ourselves on truth and transparency, it’s the backbone of all our relationships. You can always trust us to tell it like it is, so here goes… a massive following means nothing if those followers aren’t meaningfully connected with your brand. Imagine trying to maintain a relationship with 10,000 people – it’s not just impossible, it’s counterproductive.
Instead of focusing purely on arbitrary numbers, your social media strategy should be linked to your business goals to drive key outcomes and meaningful metrics for measuring success.
7 strategic steps to building a valuable social media community
1. Start with your goals and strategy
Define what you’re aiming to achieve with your social media marketing. Example goals include:
- Increasing awareness of your brand and offering
- Driving traffic to your website
- Focusing on lead generation to boost sales
- Fostering meaningful relationships based on interaction and support within your community
Having clear goals is essential to devising an effective strategy. You can use your social media as a shopfront, customer service channel or brand community, regardless of how many followers you have.
It’s also important to think about how your target audience will find you online. If most people will typically come via Google, you should also consider developing an SEO strategy, as this will likely prove more beneficial than relying on social media alone.
Having a smaller audience that is actively engaged with your brand is still valuable for advocacy. It can also provide a touchpoint for potential customers who find you via search engines. To learn more about getting started with SEO, check out our guide to A simple SEO content strategy for any business.
2. Identify and understand your niche
Knowing what makes your target audience tick and playing to your niche are both key to any social media strategy. Rather than broadly trying to appeal to everyone, double down on your specific market segment. Many of the most successful social media accounts thrive because they are heavily focused on their niche.
Effectively targeting your audience relies on understanding what is most important to them, as well as what challenges they face. With this knowledge, you’ll know how best to create compelling and effective content – that entertains or educates, solves problems or adds real value.
The more specific and relevant your content, the easier it will be to connect your brand with an engaged community and build on this over time.
3. Use hashtags and keywords strategically
Once you understand who you’re targeting, you can identify the best hashtags and keywords to increase your visibility. Hashtags make your content discoverable to new followers, while keywords strengthen the searchability – especially on platforms like YouTube and Instagram.
The best way to start is by researching industry-specific hashtags that are most relevant to your niche. By combining popular hashtags with some that are less competitive, you’ll achieve the perfect balance of reach and visibility.
Top Tip: avoid using the most over-used hashtags (such as #love or #fitness) as your posts are likely to get lost in the feed. Always look for a sweet spot where your content can really capture attention!
4. Engage with your community
Successful social media is all about engagement and being active in your community. By joining and regularly monitoring relevant lists, groups and conversations through social channels, you can maximise opportunities to build a strong follower base.
Start by joining Meta or LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your industry. Then, you can actively participate by sharing insights and opinions, answering questions based on your skills and knowledge, and forming connections with potential customers.
On X, you can create user lists to track accounts that are important to your niche. By having separate X Lists for clients, influencers, suppliers and industry peers or partners, you can quickly access and engage with their content.
Always respond quickly to any comments and direct messages you receive, showing people that you value their interaction. This two-way street approach is the key to building meaningful relationships and encouraging authentic engagement.
This might all sound very time consuming, but we promise, it doesn’t have to be. Take a look at our time saving social media tips to help improve your online efficiency.
5. Build genuine relationships
One of the most effective ways to elevate your social media community is to develop authentic relationships with existing and prospective followers – this can even extend to your competitors. Social media success often comes from making sure these relationships are reciprocal. If you scratch someone’s back, they’ll more than likely want to return the favour.
It’s equally important to remember that social media isn’t all about talking to your audience. Listening is just as valuable, as it promotes genuine interaction, builds trust and often leads to long-lasting relationships.
6. Avoid the ‘hard sell’ and offer value
Filling your feed with promotional, sales-driven posts is often the quickest way to lose followers. Instead, take the time to think about messaging that will stand out on the strength of its value.
Create content that is entertaining, educational, inspirational, or that helps people find solutions to their problems. Remember value over vanity! This is the best way to foster trust and convert followers into customers over time.
7. Be patient and consistent
Strategically building a social media community can’t just happen overnight. Patience, consistent effort and quality content are all essential ingredients to driving the right results.
Don’t be disheartened if this is a slow process in the early days. If you invest enough time and effort in getting this right – focusing on engaging with the right people and producing content that provides value over vanity – you’ll be rewarded in the long run.
Ready to transform your social media approach? At Patch, we specialise in helping brands build meaningful, impactful online communities. Get in touch with our expert team today and let’s create a social media strategy that delivers real results.
