Trying to figure out why your social media accounts aren't growing can be difficult to pinpoint, especially when you're first starting out. Truth is, there is no magical right or wrong answer. Many variables tend to impact the rate at which your account grows, from topics, posting frequency, platforms you're posting on, as well as size and audience, all play a big factor when determining your social media growth. Let's look into the five most common factors why you might not be growing as much as you'd like, and how to attain growth.
- Not Posting Consistently
To best optimize your growth, you need to make sure you are posting consistently. Not only will this help you algorithm-wise, but also help you look more reputable and reliable as a business. Every platform needs content and those who post regularly tend to perform better. However, there's a fine line between posting too much and not posting enough. The key isn’t how much you post, but rather how regularly can you post without diluting the quality of your content. Not only should your posting be consistent but your content should be as well. For example, if you are someone who is posting news updates or weather updates, posting an inspirational quote might not do well with the typical audience you've created. Take a look at your top-performing posts, or hire a professional to keep track of your analytics, and use this data to help decide which content to keep creating.
2. You Don't Have a Call-to-Action
If you have a certain action you want your audience to take, such as following your socials or visiting your website, you might be missing a huge component in your content. A Call-to-action is telling your audience what you want them to do in regards to your posts. It can be as simple as asking them to press the like or follow button for your page, or you can use this as an opportunity to give them an easy way to access your website or blog, by proving a link in the caption. Call-to-actions are a great way to communicate with your audience what you are trying to accomplish and how they can see more by following your lead.
3. Not Engaging With Others
A great reason why your account might not be growing is you aren't engaging with others. The algorithm will typically favor accounts that are interactive with other accounts like commenting, liking, and sharing. for smaller accounts, you can go to other brands and creators and comment under their posts to help make your account more visible. For larger accounts, replying to comments more frequently can really benefit your brand and offer things such as competitions like giveaways to give your followers an opportunity to engage more with your content. An added benefit of that is the new followers that you gain are more likely to be engaging with your account and help you organically grow.
4. You're Not Looking at the Whole Picture
While followers are a good metric to track, other metrics can show account growth. You might see that your follower count is staying the same, but your impressions reached or engagement is showing signs of growth. This is a good sign and typically means you just need to give it some more time. There are endless amounts of data you can track besides just followers like click-through rate, video views, reach, and engagement. Once you get a better understanding of how to track those properly, you can get a good idea of how your social media is growing in different ways.
5. Your Content Is Too Niche or Too Broad
Your growth might be impacted by the type of content you post and to what platform. While any topic can more than likely find an audience online, you might have a harder time if your content is too specific or too niche. Try to find ways to connect your brand or niche to a broader audience. Also, keep in mind which platforms are best to utilize for your specific content. For example, if you are trying to advertise your IT company, Instagram won't be as useful to you as a platform specifically for business such as LinkedIn. So keep that in mind when deciding which platform will be most effective for your niche.
Also, you could have the opposite problem and your content is too broad and not as specific as it should be. There is a chance that you cast too wide of a net and never landed on any particular focus to curate to your audience. At this point, it may be best to phase out certain types of content to help focus on your best performers and goals.
Growing an account is never easy. It can tend to get discouraging, especially in the beginning when you spend so much time and see so little results. Keep in mind these things take time and these tips may not get you a million followers overnight, but utilizing the advice given and doing proper branding and content creation, you will help your brand in the long run and gain a steady amount of followers.
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