It seems like these days that the only way to successfully reach your digital audience is to input all kinds of money into promoted posts. With all of the fantastic content that you spend all of your time creating, there’s got to be a better way to utilize that content and garner a larger reach, right? Well, if you think about it, you can really capitalize on your content if you just stick to the basics. Of course, if you pay a little extra money, you will see better results and get a larger reach. However, you may be just starting out, or you may have given up because you aren’t spending the money to boost the posts and don’t see the point, or you are just getting frustrated with the ever-changing algorithms. I stumbled upon a blog from our fellow Mobilians over at Mighty Advertising (they are really awesome by the way) on the same topic and it is such a good post, I was inspired to do something of my own. So here are my 4 tips to reach your social media audience on a budget. If you can do these, you will begin to relieve the stress on yourself as well as your wallet.
1) Consistently post to your audience
People are constantly on their phones on a day to day basis and more times than not, they are browsing one of their social media feeds. Now, it is very legitimate to experience fatigue from posting your brand every single day, but that is because you see it every single day and live and breathe that brand all the time. You’ve got to realize that your audience will miss a post here and there, and sometimes they will never see it. That is why it is so crucial to consistently post at least once daily. The moral of the story, it’s FREE.
2) Cross-reference your content
Calling back to another piece of content via a new piece of content can work wonders for your reach. Say you post to Instagram last week that had a call to action for a giveaway, but you did not receive quite the level of response that you would like to see. You can now utilize a new post the week of and can reference the old giveaway post too. This will basically re-post the old post since you will be telling people to return back to your profile.
3) Utilize a local influencer
Don’t be afraid to take advantage of a relationship you may have with a local influencer. An “influencer” is one who may already have a large following with active listeners and watchers basically throughout the entire day. If you have a product that you can afford to send a few samples to that influencer, you would be surprised how often they are willing to promote your product on their accounts for free, just because they received some free samples. If you don’t know the person, just reach out to them and send them something! Never know if you don’t try.
4) Start an email list
One final way to reach your audience with little to no money at all is to start sending your audience emails. Almost every email service out there has a free version of their services. The most popular these days is MailChimp. They have a free version and it is very user friendly with a great support system. Now you just have to start building your email list. Promote giveaways and other prizes on your existing feeds for signups on your new newsletter. If you have a website, simply input a newsletter signup field right at the top of the page for your visitors to see every time they visit your page.
Remember, if you want crazy results out of nowhere, then you’re going to have to shed some money for Google Ads or Facebook Ads. If you are ready to go down that road, check out my latest blog comparing Google Ads and Facebook Ads. For the beginners out there, if you can practice and implement these 4 ways to reach your audiences on a budget then you will be on the right track to a rapidly growing audience that is loyal and engages consistently and your wallet will thank you!