8 Social Media Tips to Follow to Grow Your Startup Fanbase

Social media has connected people more than ever and is now responsible for helping so many startups succeed and gain popularity in such a short period of time. 

Every day, more and more people are using social media, and this is helping startups grow their fanbase and get noticed much more quickly than ever before. 

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into learning more about social media tips to grow your startup fanbase. 

1. Be consistent 

If there’s one thing social media wants from you, it’s to be consistent. Regardless of which social media channels you use for your startup, they all follow the same rules and that is to post regularly. 

First and foremost, you should plan your content ahead by figuring out how many times a week you’ll be posting. If you find it time consuming dealing with social media continuously, you can always use tools like Buffer that will automatically post the content for you. 

A general rule to follow is to make sure you are posting at least three times a week. Always remember that it’s best to be more active on social channels that your target audience is most active on. If you are following a regular schedule of posting, you are building credibility, and this makes it easier for your target audience to reach out to you about a specific topic. 

2. Engage directly with your audience 

Building a fanbase isn’t only about gaining as many followers as possible but making sure you are fostering a loyal community. Engaging directly with your audience is a perfect way to make this possible and you can do this by following these practices: 

1. Respond to comments and messages: Show appreciation to your followers by responding to their messages and comments promptly. 
2. Ask your fanbase questions: Create stories or posts that encourage your target audience to share their experiences, preferences, and opinions. 
3. Host giveaways: Reward your audience for all the giveaways and contests to increase your engagement and attract new followers. 
4. Collaborate with your followers: Start featuring user-generated content (UGC) or collaborate with your fans to show how much you value their support. 

Engaging directly with your audience is showing how much you care about them and what you can do for them. 

3. Collaborate with influencers 

It’s never a bad idea to collaborate with influencers and brands that can help you reach new audiences and build your credibility over time. Influencers are a great way to do so and when reaching out to them, you need to make sure you know which group they are part of.

Let’s take a minute to analyze the three groups of influencers that exist: 

1. Macro-influencers: These are usually celebrities or people that are widely known by the public. Macro-influencers will have more than 100,000 followers and charge large prices. They may have many followers, but their fanbase isn’t as active as it should be. 
2. Mid-tier influencers: Not as popular as macro-influencers, but mid-tier influencers will still have around 20,000-100,000 followers and a more niche-based fanbase. They are maybe not known by everyone, but still popular. They will offer cheaper prices than macro-influencers but still might be an expensive option for a startup. 
3. Micro-influencers: These guys are the ones that only “swim in their pond”. They won’t have more than 15,000 followers but will have a very active fanbase. They offer much cheaper prices and are an ideal choice for startups that are focused on growing a niche-based social media channel. 

Of course, it doesn’t always mean you need to pay influencers to work with you as there are compensation methods they offer as well. You can reach out to influencers in many different ways such as personally on social media channels, explaining why a collaboration would be mutually beneficial, cross-promote your content and expand your reach, or even participating in their campaigns. 

4. Use hashtags 

Platforms like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and even in many cases, Pinterest, are well-known for hashtags. They are essential for making your content more reachable and allows you to use it for reaching a broader audience. However, keep in mind that hashtags are most popular in these three social channels and might not have a large impact on others. 

As a general rule, it’s best to use 5-10 relevant hashtags per post to not look spammy. Try mixing popular and niche hashtags to maximize your reach. You can even try creating a unique hashtag for your brand to encourage followers to tag their posts. 

Hashtagify is also a great tool you can use if you are thinking about generating niche-specific hashtags. It’ll definitely save you time from having to brainstorm hashtags on your own. 

5. Take advantage of video content 

If there’s one thing that matters, it’s video marketing and is considered one of the most engaging forms of content on social media channels. This includes videos on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and even YouTube shorts that are easy to share and create short-form videos. 

Videos help communicate stories much better and allow you to share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your life or work. You can educate your audience by creating tutorials, tips, or how-to-videos that provide value. This is an excellent way to engage directly with your audience and keep them interested in your content. 

You can experiment with different approaches such as offering video challenges or trending audio to increase your chances of going viral, but it’s most important to make sure your videos are well-formatted for mobile viewing with clear captions and visuals. 

6. Create paid ads 

Paid ads are now playing an important role in major social media platforms. The good news is that they can give you excellent results even with a very small investment. Each social platform has its own way of creating a paid ad, but the general rules to put in practice are: 

1. Set your budget: What is the ideal amount you are comfortable investing in? 
2. Set your target audience: This includes the region you are targeting, age group, interests, and behaviors. 
3. Experiment with ad formats: Use video ads, sponsored posts, and even carousel ads to see which performs best for your website. 
4. Track your Return-on-investment (ROI): Always test paid ads out to see which works best for you. 

Some platforms like Instagram and Facebook are now encouraging paid ads more and when you hit the bingo, you’ll get great results and reach a wider audience very fast. 

7. Build a community 

Community marketing is a new way to build up your fanbase quickly and effectively on social media. This is more than building a two-way connection with your audience. Each niche on social media has a set up community and it’s a great way to discuss customer inquiries, what’s trending in the market, and discussing other niche-related topics. 

Keep in mind that not all social media channels will offer you the ability to build a community group, but the most popular ones for doing so are Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter). These social channels offer you the opportunity to connect with your audience on a much more personal level. 

8. Analyze your performance 

Tracking your performance is an important metric you should pay close attention to. This helps you know if you are heading the right direction or not. In order to successfully analyze your social channels performance, you should do the following:

1. Use analytical tools: Each social media channel has their own insights platform. For example, let’s look at Facebook, they have their own analytics platform that will show you important information on how your post-performance is, etc.
2. Monitor key metrics: This means to focus on key metrics such as engagement rate, reach, click-through rate, and how your follower growth is going. Of course, these metrics are important so analyze them every week to see if you need to make changes or not. 
3. Experiment and adjust: Use all of the insights you gathered to improve your content strategy and future performance. 

Monitoring and analyzing your performance will impact how you widen your startup fanbase. 

Growing your startup’s fanbase is all about being consistent 

Growing your startup’s fanbase on social media takes consistency, creativity, and engagement. By following these eight powerful tips, you can build a loyal audience, increase brand visibility, and drive meaningful interactions. 

From creating high-quality content and leveraging trends to engaging with your community and analyzing performance, each strategy plays an important role in expanding your social media reach. 

Always remember that nothing can happen overnight, but it requires patience, adaptability, and a deeper understanding of your audience. Always experiment with different formats, provide value to your audience, and this way, you’ll easily turn customers into loyal ones over time.