Sponsored Posts to gain followers?

For all the talk about social media reaching millions of viewers, these platforms are based on intimate conversation between individuals or among small groups. Most of those paying platforms to promote their posts to wider audiences note that they garner thousands of likes, but relatively few meaningful engagements.

This is particularly true when using social media for commercial purposes. Unless your company is named after a huge South American rainforest, few users will automatically click to buy on the first-viewing of a product posting. Like shoppers in a brick and mortar boutique, online customers want to build some sort of relationship with the seller before giving them their money.

Nevertheless, sponsored posts have their place -- if done with careful consideration and a thoughtful strategy. Instead of a week-long blitz pushing the post to potentially thousands of viewers, posts can be promoted in increments of a day at a time for the same outlay. This will attract the same number of viewers, but with a crucial difference.

With the likes coming in as a trickle instead of a flood, you will have the opportunity to reply to users and even initiate a conversation, especially if the user has a question or offers a comment. You can even pull up the social-media profile of a user, which can offer valuable information on their tastes and interests, and leave comments which might attract the interest of their own socmed friends.

However, it is important to remember that the platform will do none of this. The only value they offer is tweaking the algorithm to display your post on more news feeds. Anything else is up to you.

This kind of lengthy engagement with potential customers is time consuming and requires some finesse. Boilerplate “Thanks for the like” will not cut it: you must provide thoughtful and empathetic responses. Just as a boutique will hire charming and knowledgeable assistants so they don’t have to deal with every customer, in most cases user engagement is best handled by third-party experienced professionals.

To learn more about how you can get the most value from your paid-promotion Instagram and other social-media posts contact.us@wndsustainablemarketing.com.