For most business's, the obvious goal of social media is to increase sales. However, with the recent decline in organic social media traffic, marketers, business owners, and users alone are left wondering, how do I increase my social media reach? 

Before getting ahead of ourselves, your first task in order to leverage your social media outlets is to gain followers! Of course right? No follows = no fun! We're not just talking Facebook here. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many other social channels are losing organic traffic as well! Heres a few of our suggested ways to increase both followers and organic traffic! 

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The greater amount of follows and friends you have on your social media outlets, the larger reach you will achieve. Before getting upset about the recent influx of advertisments, it's important to know that these outlets are very much still in a trial period. After recently reading an article from Reddit user Brian Cristiano , i've come to understand the concept. Zuckerberg and other social media outlets are pushing more and more for an engaged user experience, very closlely mimicking the algorythm of Google. The content you want to see, tailored to the user.Now, back to the focus! Here's some #ImageWorksLLC tips for increasing your social media reach. 

Step 1: Create Your Profiles 

Well, if you haven't yet gotten to this step, welcome! The world of social media is constantly involving and moving in many directions, so choosing the proper channels to engage with your audience on can be a little confusing. Start by creating profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. These are your go-to daily outlets. While plenty of other social media sites do exist, these heavy hitters are a safe bet for anyone looking to increase social media reach. While you may feel you only need one specific social platform for customers to contact you, it's important to remember that everyone does things their own individual way. Additional outlets allow brands to reach users in potentially untapped market places. 

Whether working on exisiting social media pages or constructing new with the goal of increasing social media reach, it is important to always remember to optimize. Very similar to SEO for blogs or webpages, social media pages can be optimized using a number of small tricks to help users with similar or shared interests find your page. Use an easily identifiable username (name or company name), update your profile photo with a recent picture or company logo, provide links to send as many people back to your website as possibe, and don't forget to include a clear and conside snipit of who you/your company are and what you/company do. 

Step 3: Share Useful and Relevant Content

When focusing in on growing your social media reach, it is important to remember that the majority of people begin online trying to solve a puzzle or problem. Where to eat, what events are going on, who'se doing what, how do I fix this? Sharing useful and relevant content such as a trending story, video, or meme will make you much more visible to a larger audience tied to anyone who is looking at or seeking similar or relevant content. Posting your own thoughts and ideas is wonderful, but never be scared to hit the "share" button! One of my personal favorite pieces of inbound knowledge from the team over at HubSpot, is the 80/20 rule. 80% of the content you post to social media should be helpful and valuable to your audience, and 20% can be self-promotional. This helps assure you are engaging with your audience on a personal level, while still allowing times for self promotion. 

Step 4: Connect With Your Followers 

When making efforts to increase your social media reach, it's important to remember that social media is a community. Individuals from all over the world are frequently posting content, and chances are, there's an exact niche of people & brands out there who will also find your content extremely relevant and useful! Approach things with a light-hearted manner, follow new people, engage with others content, and share your own content to a targeted list of people.  Growing your account organically is best! For additonal help organizing your Twitter account give Twitter Lits a try! When following new handles, be sure to seach for social media influencers in both your phsycial area as well as your industry or marketplace. Becoming a well known and trusted online contributor can have major impact on your brand in the near and distant future. 

ImageWorks, LLC | Increase My Social Media Reach

By focusing on where your personas hang out, we'll help you identify opportunities for gaining even more traction from your content. Our team also executes social media marketing and email marketing campaigns to support these promotion strategies. Social media is the way modern brands connect with consumers, offer value, and build lasting relationships. Your market views their Facebook newsfeed and Twitter stream as valuable sources for current events, trends, and brands. Making social media a valuable part of your inbound marketing strategy can impact your business in big ways. Our CT Inbound Marketing agents are social media geeks off the clock, too. We blend our personal experience and expertise with the latest data and constant research on best practices.