Opus Creative

HOW I GREW A 5k FOLLOWING ON FACEBOOK

So, I recently hit a nice milestone with my side art project Ray Hurley. In less than two and half years I have grown my audience on Facebook from 0 to over 5,000 followers.

What started off as a hobby has slowly become its own business entity alongside my work at Opus Creative.

HOW I GREW MY AUDIENCE?


1. CONSISTENCY

If you want to achieve growth then show up for your audience. Even when I had a handful of followers I treated the page as if there were millions of people. I held myself accountable and found time to plan my posts.

2. TESTING

I regularly look at my analytics. It teaches me what content works with the algorithm, engagement and times to post. By studying the data I was able to tailor my content to be as effective as possible.

3. COMMUNITY

I respond to every comment, request and message. I even respond to bots!!! I think it’s very important to build a connection with your audience. I found my followers to be the funniest, most sincere, and engaging people. Being nice to people doesn’t cost you cent and the feeling you get from genuinely helping a customer, contemporary or a stranger is hugely rewarding.

4. BE YOURSELF

To quote the great Oscar Wilde, “be yourself, everyone else is already taken”. Take the word ‘media’ out of ‘social media’ and you’re left with ‘social’. How would you greet a stranger, talk to old friends or engage people in conversations is the exact route to follow.

5. FACEBOOK ADS

Organic reach on most platforms except Tik Tok’s brilliant algorithm is tough starting out. I used ads at the start as an exercise to build an audience and convert sales. Ads force you to identify your buyer persona and attract like-minded people. Facebook ads are still relatively cheap and Facebook still has the most active users out of all the social channels!

6. REELS

All social channels push video the most with their algorithms. They do so because reels keep people on their platform for longer and make more advertising revenue for social media companies. This is one area that I have to improve on and by testing, I’ve found each reel I’ve made has a superior audience reach than even my most popular static posts.

7. PLANNING

The biggest challenge for most companies I work with through is planning. If you want to shape a narrative or remain in a sphere of awareness, you need to have a structure. Posting daily for the sake of it is redundant. If you can post carefully thought out content that engages your audience twice a week, it’s better than posting content that bores people seven days a week!

I hope the above can inspire you to fire up your social channels and think of social media differently. It can be very rewarding if you think of social media as an exercise that you want to do as opposed to something you need to do.

I’m happy to offer any help in the comments. Don’t be shy… it’s SOCIAL media 😉😀

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Love seeing our branding and packaging work on the shelves in SuperValu Ireland. Both the Chocolate and vanilla flavours are delicious 🤤

Delighted to see Céin and Padraig of playing a blinder with their line of vegan and protein packed m*ilk 💪🏻👏🏻

Try them both… my favourite is the vanilla, but my family are partial to the chocolate 😀

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