Be honest.
At some point in life, you’ve judged another business on their follower count.
And you’ve also said, “I wish I could have more followers.”
There’s always that need for self-validation by a follower count or the idea that more followers can equal more success.
This week, we’ll be looking at the 10 Reasons Your Competition Has More Social Media Followers, but before then, another question.
Does your follower count matter?
Like nearly every question in marketing, the answer often depends.
If you are a volume-based business, you’re going to need a larger audience to drive people through doors. For example, a restaurant that needs to do 250 covers a week to break even isn’t going to fill seats with 17 followers.
If you are a business that only works with a smaller number of clients, for example, a business coach who only works with 10 businesses a year, then numbers are less important.
We have around 100,000 followers across social media, and while that isn’t necessary for our social media marketing business, the sheer audience size allows us to support other local businesses in the area.
Ask yourself the question: what is your business or overarching objective?
1. Your Competition Has Been On Social Media Longer Than You
I mentioned before that we have over 100,000 followers across Social Media.
A major part of that is we’ve been on social media for close to 16 years.
The numbers work out at about 3 followers a day.
That’s manageable for your business, right?
2. Your Competition Has Invested In Paid Social Media
We’ve never really invested in any form of paid social media apart from about 3 adverts over 16 years to promote public workshops.
We’ve always preferred organic social media to build our audience.
But we do know other social media marketers who have spent hundreds of £££s a month on paid social media adverts.
Could the reason that one of your competitors has a larger audience than yours be that they’ve simply paid five-figure sums over the years on paid social media adverts?
3. Your Competition Has A Bigger Offline Presence
Offline and Social Media should be joined up.
Naturally, it makes sense if someone has a big offline footprint, they will have a large social media footprint.
You’ve read the stories about X joining a social media platform for the very first time and how they gained millions of followers in one day.
There are huge offline businesses that, if they sign up to social media, they will gain an audience overnight.
4. Your Competition Has Better Content
Has the business with 10 times more followers got 10 times better content?
Be honest.
If so, then maybe you have to look at your own content.
Are you just winging it?
Are you relatable to your ideal customers?
Is your content a bit stale?
Do you try out new ideas?
Are you doing the best you can?
Remember – be honest.
4. Your Competition Are Following More People
This isn’t a technique I’d advise as it’s not strategic.
But there are accounts out there that follow en masse in order to get the followers back.
Follow 10,000 accounts and chances are a percentage will follow you back.
They’re playing a numbers game.
We’ve always been of the mindset that we’ll follow an account if we have a genuine interest and they offer value in the content.
5. Your Competition Has Switched Account Names / Bought Another Account
“Why has that restaurant that’s not even opened and has only posted once got 23,000 followers?”
I found myself asking that one day as I never remembered following them.
It turns out the PR company had done a switch in accounts from one of their old clients to a new restaurant.
Smart or a con?
I’ll let you decide, but the chances are the numbers will drop and drop as people realize.
6. Your Competition Has Invested in Influencer Outreach
Influencers are people you should be working with if they’re relevant to your business and location.
Even though I’ve never called ourselves influencers, people consider us that for Altrincham business.
In our hometown, there are 3-4 accounts you should reach out to for coverage.
When we’ve worked with a business once, they’ve seen follower numbers double and triple overnight.
When we’ve worked long-term with a business, that can lead to thousands of extra followers.
7. Your Competition Has A Consistent Posting Schedule
Consistency, consistency, consistency.
Success on social media does not happen overnight, and almost anyone with a sizeable audience on social media has put the work in.
You can’t dabble with social media and expect to build an audience.
One post a week or every other week won’t cut it for a business looking to establish themselves.
8. Your Competition Invests Time In Consistent Engagement with Followers
We had a post recently on LinkedIn that reached over 55,000 people and generated nearly 200 comments.
And on Facebook, a post that had 87,000 views and nearly 200 comments.
Guess what?
We spent the time responding to as many of those comments as possible.
And also engaged with other accounts at the same time.
Exhausting, yes – but one of the reasons our audience grows continually.
9. Your Competition Runs Competitions
One of our clients 10x their followers through running regular competitions.
The key thing here, however, is as well as growing the audience, it’s grown their customer base.
It’s a big part of their social media strategy and keeps the audience engaged each week.
This means the business is at the forefront of people’s minds.
NEED HELP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Looking for authentic ways to grow your social media
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you
Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
We offer Social Media Training on
* LinkedIn
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* Blogging
We can do this
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* Face to Face or Via Zoom
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
