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What Are Top Social Media Hacks to Grow Your Business Online

The post COVID world has left us looking for quality leads in the colossal online space. To our relief, social media has offered a respite to many businesses. But social media marketing is not easy. With falling attention spans and businesses going online left, right, and center, we need to ensure we don’t commit the same mistakes as others. Because if we do, only a few will get the huge chunk of the “attention pie”. So, what you need are some great social media hacks that will help you grow your business online and get quality leads from your social accounts!

So, if you’re wondering how you can dominate social media, you are at the right place.

Top Social Media Hacks 

First of all, we will cover some social media hacks that can be applied to all the major social platforms.

1. Adopt Social Media Platforms That Best Suit Your Brand

Social media platforms provide you access to your target audience. And so, it doesn’t make sense for you to be on a platform where your audience isn’t.

If you are just starting out, it’s best to focus your attention on key social platforms like Facebook and Twitter before going ahead with platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and the likes.

Instagram is also a key social media platform you should focus on. Due to its visual nature and huge user base, it is crucial for businesses to have an Instagram page if they expect to grow rapidly. While gaining followers initially can be difficult,  this complete guide to getting Instagram followers might prove helpful.

A B2B company will find immense value in LinkedIn, while a B2C or a D2C company might find the same traction on Instagram. Hence, it is imperative to set the right objective and direction before jumping on the bandwagon.

2. Put Out Quality Content and Stay Consistent 

Once you are done choosing a platform, the next crucial step is to put up quality content. Now, who decides what is quality? Essentially, your content is of good quality if it is giving you the desired results. The time we spend blaming the algorithm for the falling metrics can be better utilized in creating posts and videos that your audience truly appreciates.

But the work doesn’t end at publishing one good post or video – it just begins there.

Consistency is the real trick of the trade. By just being consistent you will stay on the minds of your followers and that, folks, is a good place to start.

Even marketing guru Neil Patel vouches for this social media hack.

However, consistent publishing could be challenging, especially when managing multiple social media accounts. This is where you can use a free social media management tool to integrate and manage all your social profiles in one place.

social media hack

3. Use Interactive Content in Social Media Posts

When we speak of quality content, interactive content can never be too far behind. Interactive content types like quizzes, calculators, polls, giveaways, chatbots help you to stand out in the crowd. They are engaging, attractive, and act as a powerful lead magnet.

Did you know that interactive content creates twice the engagement as static content? Moreover, 88% of marketers are using interactive content to stand out. So, what’s stopping you from using them as a means to generate quality leads?

For example, if you are an automobile loan provider, sharing a quiz like this will help your prospects understand how you can help them better.

interactive content

Create a quiz today for free!

This social media hack will help you just like it has helped Buzzfeed quizzes all these years –

Buzzfeed post

The growth hack here is not just the use of interactive content but also the attractive image attached in the link that pushes people to test their knowledge on Disney movie villains in this case.

So, if you are wondering how you can make your social media more attractive? You should read on to find out.

4. Use Visual Content 

Did you know 88% of marketers now prefer using visuals in their published content?

While using visual content may seem like a social media hack that is predominantly focused on image-only platforms like Instagram, it can be super useful to transcend the limitations of platforms like Twitter.

Using visuals, you can counter the word limit imposed by Twitter. How? Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So, might as well add those extra words in your image and get going! Not just that – carousels on Facebook and LinkedIn offer a decent volume of information in just one post. Bonus: Visuals make these posts look attractive and fetch more clicks too!

visuals social media hack

Like what Cannes Lions does here? The same information just in the form of a written post wouldn’t have been as appealing as this image is.

While images are impactful, videos have the ability to generate an emotion. They can be tear-jerking; possessing the ability to make you laugh out of your wits or even give you goosebumps just thinking about them. That’s why statistics show that humans remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, but a whopping 70% when you combine the two.

visuals

Source: SAGipl

So, folks, it’s about time you start using visuals as part of your social media content strategy and see your social media metrics skyrocket!

Want more proof? Have a look at what the users want!

social media hack statistics

Source: HubSpot

5. Put Your Branding on All Visual Content

Simply using visual content is not enough. There are tonnes of profiles offering professionally made visual content. You need to differentiate yourself not only by using growth hacking tools like interactive content but also by using your branding across all your visual content.

Apart from differentiation, branding helps you in several ways – you save your visual content from being blatantly plagiarized. And if someone goes on to copy-paste your image despite the brand logo, at least the viewers know that it is yours. That way you can turn plagiarism to your advantage – by letting them promote you!

You can also consider putting multiple logos on such images.

logo growth hack

Source: Zapier’s Instagram

6. Use Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the greatest social media hacks to reach an audience beyond your following.

They are also a great way to create a repository of your content. You can not only use the trending hashtags in your niche but also your own hashtag that remains consistent across all your social media accounts.

Hashtags have been used in major marketing campaigns for the longest time. For example, have a look at Coca-Cola’s famous #ShareACoke campaign.

social media hashtag strategy

Source: Mention.com

7. Engage on Social Media 

Nothing trumps the importance of engaging with people on social media. This engagement can be in the form of commenting on posts that you like, replying to the comments that you see on your posts, encouraging small and medium business owners, and much more.

Some social media hacks you can consider are –

(a) Engage on your posts

Ask questions in your posts to drive interaction in your comments section thereby creating a cycle of engagement. Question posts get 100% more comments, so it’s time you try it yourself and see the results that follow!

(b) Engage on posts of industry experts

This is an incredible social media hack that has worked wonders for many. Engaging in your industry experts’ posts can be your gateway to new followers and new leads. It’s simple, if people are asking questions about your industry in these posts, answer their doubts consistently and with intent, and voila! You’ll soon have some wonderful followers in your kitty.

8. Conduct Giveaways and Contests

Giveaways and contests have intrinsic tendencies to go viral. They cater to the competitive tendencies in people. Besides, who doesn’t love free gifts!

Did you know an average of over 34% of new customers is acquired through contests?

Contests give you access to lead information and this data can be used to build your email list and target audience. It’s a win-win for both the participants and your company!

Liberty Express is a Venezuelan international shipping company that decided to host a giveaway. They used Outgrow interactive content to host a giveaway and used their social networking sites to promote the giveaway.

Outgrow case study

Source: Outgrow

The campaign helped the company gain almost 1000 leads through a single giveaway. Not only that, but it also delivered a conversion rate of almost 60%. Who wouldn’t want traction like that?

9. Try Influencer Campaigns 

Did you know that 67% of marketers are using influencer marketing to promote their product?

Influencer campaigns increase your brand authenticity and visibility, along with maintaining a better social media presence. Micro-influencers are increasingly replacing celebrities as they are more authentic and relatable. A lot of companies have, in fact, replaced ads with influencer campaigns.

Health-Ade is a health drink company that used influencer campaigns to generate 1.6m impressions at a meager cost of $7 per 1,000 impressions. Now that’s a social media “hack” in its truest sense!

social media hack

Source: Trend.io

Smartly executed influencer campaigns can be a great social media hack as they save huge sums spent on ads and other marketing tactics. For that, you need to be sure that the influencer analysis is done properly, so the influencer you are working with has a relevant audience and gets good engagement.

10. Monitor the Analytics 

While framing your social media strategy, you cannot blindly create content without understanding if it’s positively impacting your key metrics. This is where the role of social media analytics comes into play. Regularly monitoring your analytics dashboard can help you understand audience sentiment and the kind of content they would like to see.

For example, when you create interactive experiences on Outgrow’s builder, you get an analytics dashboard that gives you a comprehensive look at what worked well in your interactive content pieces and what didn’t. The report offered includes drop-out rates, issues that can be fixed to increase engagement, whether the experience is share-worthy, etc.

Now that we have looked at some general social media hacks that apply to all platforms, let’s deep dive into the specifics and look at what works on which platforms. Monitoring your analytics isn’t so much a social media hack as it is a necessity. Make sure you prioritize it no matter which social media hack you end up implementing!

analytics dashboard

Liking this Blog? Check Out Our 20-Min Growth Hacking Course for Beginners! 


20-min growth hacking course

Twitter Growth Hacks

Twitter has some limitations in terms of characters, and the kind of content that works well. Let’s look at how these limitations can be circumvented using some social media hacks.

1. Use Twitter Polls to Drive Conversations 

Twitter Polls can be your shot at garnering some quality engagement. Bumble does it right here in this Twitter Poll.

twitter growth hack

It isn’t that tough to ask a question that is most likely to create a buzz. Try to pick something that is relevant and trending. You can also ask for suggestions on tools, shows, and strategies, add some interesting responses, and voila! You have the perfect recipe for a Twitter Poll.

Outgrow social media hacks

2. Live Tweet During Live Events and Conferences 

Live-tweeting during events and conferences takes the engagement to new heights. We saw it first hand when we live-tweeted customized assessments and insights from the G2 2021 Consult!

We simply created assessments on the Outgrow builder and shared them in our tweets live during the event!

social media hack

Source: Twitter

3. Engage in Friendly Banter With Followers and Competitors

Everyone’s a fan of brands engaging in quips. Other than bringing them to the limelight, it’s an indication that some of the biggest names can also take a joke on themselves.

social media hack

Source: Marketing Dive

We can take a lesson or two on wit from these brands who have smartly turned the tables when competitors and fans took a dig at them. These are fun ways to trend on Twitter. And they aid in revisiting the brand’s identity!

4. Share Topical Content

Topical content is the best social media hack when we talk about platforms like Twitter where something is trending every minute. Head over to the ‘Explore’ section on Twitter and find out what’s trending to ride over the trend and get some likes, shares, and retweets!

Speaking of which, who can forget this!

twitter growth hack

Source: Buzzfeed

5. Engage With Industry Experts

Trying to get an industry expert on board for your next podcast episode but failing to get a response over emails and cold messages? Tweeting to them can be your best shot!

Responding to tweets of industry experts or just tagging them saying you’d love to have them on your show can be attention-grabbing and a great social media hack to get your favorite celebrities on board!

6. Use Twitter Fleets

Trying out the new features offered by a platform is always a good idea! Fleets is one such novel feature introduced by Twitter. Its use-case is almost the same as your Instagram stories. The capabilities of fleets are limited as of now compared to its peers but it’s still a great feature to use.

Interesting hacks you can try out with fleets –

Share your tweets on fleets, share contests and giveaways, share work-life insights or simply share the thoughts you do on Instagram and Facebook! There is no dearth of ideas on how you can use fleets!

So, get going.

Twitter Fleets

Source: Adespresso

LinkedIn Growth Hacks

LinkedIn drives more than 64% of social traffic to B2B sites and is considered a credible source of content. But, increasingly we are also seeing B2C businesses taking advantage of the growing audience on this professional network. After all, a CMO or a CTO is a consumer too!

1. Share Company Page Updates From a Personal Account

You can increase the visibility of your company page by sharing the updates through a personal account. HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah does this best. He has a huge following on his personal LinkedIn account and this following gets easily converted into HubSpot’s strong community of users.

Linkedin growth hack

2. Share Posts on LinkedIn Groups and Communities

LinkedIn groups and communities can be a goldmine when it comes to getting qualified leads. All you have to do is find groups that cater to your segment and consistently share informative blog posts and content on these platforms.

If people engage with these posts, your next logical step should be to reach out to them on personal chats and continue the conversation.To take everything a step further, you can utilize a captivating LinkedIn headline to enhance your profile visibility within these groups and communities, thereby increasing your chances of engagement and lead generation.

Linkedin growth hack Source: LinkedIn

3. Use Storytelling in Your Posts

Stories tend to hook viewers. They are a sure-shot social media hack that you can start using today! Since time immemorial humans have evolved listening to stories. That’s fundamentally what moves us. Stories are engaging and provide scope for a lot of conversation in the comments section. And the more the comments, the more your reach. See this post for example –

social media hack

Source: RevenueZen

Also, note the spaces left by the writer. You need to make your social media posts visually attractive, readable, and skimmable (after all, you already know about our short-lived attention spans!).

4. Use LinkedIn Polls to Engage Your Audience

LinkedIn polls are a great social media hack to get to know your audience better. For example, polls like – “How is your productivity when you work from home?” are a great poll to gauge audience sentiment. And based on what they like from the options you’ve provided – you can create your next post. You can also consider giving an option that says – “Others, please mention in the comments”. This is a brilliant social media hack to get more people to comment on your posts.

Outgrow experience

5. Warm-up Potential Leads on Personal Messages

LinkedIn is a B2B marketer’s sweet dream come alive. You can build an entire marketing funnel if you do things right. Consider this –

You post an intriguing calculator on LinkedIn that caters to your niche, for example – “How much should you spend on paid advertising?

Outgrow calculator

Since calculators make for a superb lead magnet (people get real-time valuable solutions in exchange for providing their information), you’ll see a huge number of leads generated through interactive content like these.

Once you generate the leads, you can add them to your mailing list. But, a better way is reaching out to them on LinkedIn direct message and writing a personal note while sending a connection request.

Maybe something like this? –

social media hack

Facebook Growth Hacks

Although the engagement rate on Facebook is a little under 0.20%, it is still leading the social media industry. And ignoring it would mean losing out on a crucial set of audiences. But don’t worry as we bring to you some crazy growth hacking strategies for Facebook – to skyrocket your lead generation.

1. Embed Conversational Chatbots on Business Pages

Conversational chatbots today are not just limited to your improving your website’s experience but can also be used on social media platforms like Facebook. Facebook business pages can be the first point of contact for a lot of your prospects. Therefore, it becomes important to answer their queries even when you’re not available. Chatbots do exactly that.

Moreover, upwards of 10,000 bots are being used on Facebook Messenger already. That’s too much potential to be left untapped.

See how Kayak uses the messenger chatbot to get clients!

chatbot case study

Source: Adespresso

2. Share Interactive Quizzes, Calculators, and Assessments to Engage the Audience

Your Facebook audience may be passively viewing your posts without interacting. And, that doesn’t serve our objective!  So, we have the perfect social media hack to help you counter that.

Interactive quizzes, calculators, and assessments shared on your FB page will help you get quality leads by attracting users to engage.

Just create an amazing recommendation quiz like this one done by Sephora –

interactive content

This is just one of the examples of how you can use interactive content on your Facebook posts. You can also consider adding quizzes like this one as part of your Facebook ad campaigns.

interactive ad

Source: Instapages

3. Conduct Facebook Lives

It’s no news that ‘lives’ are the biggest social media hack of the season. In fact, Facebook live streams generate 10x more engagement than regular videos!  So what’s stopping you from tapping into this powerhouse of leads?

In fact, we will let you in on a kick-ass social media hack. For streaming on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, if video quality, unedited content, and other such issues with going live worry you, we can help you out.

Facebook lives don’t necessarily have to be “live”. We know that sounds surprising. But yes, tools like Restream allow you to share pre-recorded videos as live videos! You can edit your videos and stream them as you need. So, are you ready to live stream now?

4. Use the Boost Post Feature

Boosted posts essentially show up as Facebook ads to the target demographic and audience you have chosen for your product. The ‘Boost Post’ feature can be super useful when done carefully.

Some tips you can keep in mind when deciding on which post to boost –

  • Don’t boost a post immediately after publishing it. Wait to see some natural engagement. If it sees more engagement than your usual posts – consider boosting it.
  • Set a goal for boosting the post. Is it signups? Or product awareness? Be very specific.
  • Based on the goal, choose a metric. Don’t get swayed by the “vanity metrics”.
  • Be deliberate while deciding the audience for the post.
  • And finally, set a suitable duration for the boosted post based on your budget.

5. Engage on the Right Facebook Groups 

Facebook groups belonging to your niche are the best place to interact with like-minded people. And guess what? It’s also the best place to get the most qualified leads!

Sharing your posts on these groups will increase awareness of your product among your target audience. And that’s not all – you can eventually create your own private group, which will help you drive conversions.

Did you know that Facebook prioritizes groups based on how engaged the members are in them? So go on! Put quality content in those groups and see how this social media hack works for you!

Instagram Growth Hacks 

Looks like we have reached the most awaited set of social media hacks of this blog! Sit tight folks, as we bring to you some of our favorite Instagram growth hacks that will have you wanting for more!

1. Share Videos on Instagram Reels

Since the day Instagram introduced reels, influencers and marketers have been trying to leverage this tool like crazy. But now the big question is, how do you make your Instagram reels stand out?

Here are some steps you can take –

  • Use subtitles – that way if someone finds your reel in the explore section they get to know the context of your video on the first look and are motivated to click on it if it’s something they would be interested in
  • Add a relevant, attention-grabbing title
  • Be engaging – with falling attention spans you need to effectively communicate within the limited time frame.

2. Make Interactive Instagram Stories  

Instagram stories possess a huge potential for interactivity. By using polls and asking questions on your stories, you can engage with your community and gain useful insights!

For example, if you are a travel agent, you can run quizzes like these on your story to gauge audience preferences.

Interactive Instagram Stories

Remember to analyze these responses and use them in your future blog posts and social media posts to get more engagement and attract more followers.

3. Use Attractive Visuals

Since Instagram is a visual platform, nothing beats the importance of high-resolution pictures!

You can use stock images from platforms like Unsplash and spice things up by using Canva elements. This is a great social media hack to keep people coming back for more!

We will let you in on a bonus hack here –

Find an image from Unsplash. Type this on your search engine – “Canva color palette”

Open the first link and upload the image to find the perfect color palette to use on your next post!

social media hack

4. Instagram Live for the Win

Yes! Just like Facebook Live, Instagram Live should be on your marketing to-do list. In fact, according to Instagram stats for 2021, at least 80% of Instagram users rely on Instagram to decide whether or not to buy a product or service.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get those leads that can be converted to final sales. Schedule an Instagram live today!

5. Reach Out to Accounts/Followers Over DM

One of the most crucial social media hacks is to engage with your followers on the comments section of your post but you don’t have to limit yourselves to it. You can always share your new posts with some of your followers on direct message. Just don’t make it “salesy”. Be short, polite, and share only when you truly feel it’ll benefit them.

6. Optimize Your Profile for Search

The search tab plays a very crucial role on Instagram. And so, it is of utmost importance to optimize your profile for search. Just like you optimize your websites and blog posts, consider optimizing your profile by using the correct keywords you want to rank for in your bio and name.

Instagram growth hack

Source: Later

You can take inspiration from these influencers who changed their names to keywords they want to rank for.

Additionally, you can use appropriate hashtags from your niche to show up on the explore section of folks who might be interested in your product offering.

7. Account Takeovers 

A key aspect of influencer campaigns is account takeovers by famous influencers. This is a social media hack wherein influencers handle the social media accounts of the companies for a day. They put out Instagram stories and reels, giving a sneak-peak into their lives.

But it doesn’t have to be just influencers. Your employees and clients can also take over company social media handles for the day to show what it is like to work in and with your organization!

This offers a personal touch to company accounts that often look inorganic. Moreover, it gives you a break from your routine social media strategy and a whole load of new reach!

social media hack

Source: Buffer

Conclusion

Phew, folks, we have come to the end of this goldmine of social media hacks. Remember to stay consistent and closely monitor the impact of these social media hacks! In fact, we did a super detailed blog covering some amazing growth hacking strategies involving interactive content. You should definitely check it out and tell us what worked for you!

Now that you know how engaging interactive content types like quizzes and polls can be for your social media, how about creating them for free? Here’s your free trial, to begin with!

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