Simple Ways to Grow Your Online Audience Now!

If you’re looking to increase your online audience and boost your community engagement, here are our simple go-to’s we recommend you put in place now!

Before we get there, there are a few elements you need to take into account:

The industry you belong to will have an impact on the type of customer you want to engage with and on what platforms to use i.e. Facebook, Instagram etc.
What’s currently ‘trending’. On any given day there are new things trending online. So keep your strategy open and allow for constant improvement to keep relevant.
Technology evolves. The way your audience engages with you will change as tech changes and evolves, so be open to using new tools.

Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar is your ticket to an organised workflow of content across all of your platforms, from blog posts and email newsletters to social media updates on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
A central place listing content topics/ideas, expected release dates, and assigned owners will give you and your team the comprehensive vision and long term strategy you need to make sure everyone involved is held accountable, and that the consistency in message and vision is maintained.

How does it help to increase your numbers?

Having an overall strategy will give you insight into what’s working
Your time will be better spent engaging with your online audience rather than rushing to posting last minute.
A plan will help measure the engagement of individual content and social media messages to understand what your audience likes and act quickly.

What does it look like?
It can be created on a spreadsheet or workflow platform. Make sure it includes, topic idea, deadline, Assign a task manager, date completed and any other notes relating to the content piece.

Now use a content scheduler app
We can’t stress this enough, you NEED to use a social media scheduling tool for all your social media content! Scheduling means your posts will automatically be shared at a particular time or date on your specified social media account/s; whether that be FB, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Why is this valuable?

it means you can be active online without being physically available
Allows you to be organised, creating space and time for producing better content.
You can post outside of business hours – meaning you don’t have to work 24/7.
It will save you hours upon hours as it allows you to manage multiple different accounts from one place.

Incorporate More Video Content
Its undeniable humans are visual creatures, so it should come as no surprise that video is the matriarch of content forms. To grow your audience, start adding video into your articles and social media content. Don’t get caught up in the aesthetics, just start today by testing out various kinds of video content and see which connects with your audience. Remember your audience wants authentic content not staged.

OITC Handy Tip:
If you’re looking for video content ideas, consider how-to’s, entertainment, behind-the-scenes, educating audiences on your services, host live events, promotional videos, demonstrations, interview industry professionals, and even customer testimonials.

Start a weekly or fortnightly newsletter
This is still one of our favs. If you want to grow your audience while building a strong rapport with your existing one, keep communicating with them regularly through a steady EDM – it could be weekly, fortnightly or monthly and rather of advertising and selling, try to use the newsletter to talk to and educate your audience with valuable tips and tricks that give them a direct benefit.

Newsletter to-do’s

Engage and deliver value to your subscribers.
Don’t be afraid to ask your audience to subscribe to your website and social media accounts. Make the request clear and simple.
Showcase your signup form or call to action.
The way to get an audience’s trust is to consistently deliver what you promise, show them you care about them, and provide them with legitimate value in your interactions.
Be sure that your newsletter’s content matches the core interests of your audience.

Conduct a Social Media Takeover
A takeover is when you engage an influencer or industry partner in your market to help promote your brand’s message by giving them full access to manage your brand social media accounts for some time.
The beauty is, this simple action, will mean the influencer shares your business or product across their social accounts before, during and after their take-over – securing you a bigger audience and can translate into engagements on your content.

Remember: Social media connects people! So tag your fans, friends, followers, and use your existing followers to help build an engaged community and grow your online audience.