How to grow your social accounts from zero

So! You’ve created your business, your brand, and now you need to put it on social media. Eeeeeek.

TERRIFYING right?

Starting from zero followers and growing your account from the ground up seems impossible. Where do you even begin? And then how do you drive traffic?

I know this is such a common question amongst our readers. But with my mere 2,600 followers, I thought it best to bring you some advice from someone who's got a more impressive track record than I do.

Enter our founder, Stanley Henry. Since starting The Attention Seeker 5 years ago, he's helped dozens of brands start their social accounts from zero.

So today, I sat down and asked him to spill all his secrets so I can share them with you.

Here's what I found out about how to successfully build your brand on social media from Day 1…

Starting from scratch like Nara Smith.

First things first, you have to go through the full process of creating a new branding campaign. Even if this social media account is for an already established brand, the account itself is a new one. Think of it as a brand inside of a larger brand.

An example Stan often uses is Nike.

'They run over 300 social media accounts. You’ve got Nike Skateboarding, Nike Run Club, Nike Swim. Localised audience ones. All sorts.'

So when starting this new account, you’ve got to think about how it sits under your main one (if you have one!).

The best way to figure this out is with your brand positioning.

Your brand positioning will answer the questions:

• Who am I talking to?

• What am I trying to say to them?

• Why does the account exist?

• What is it here to achieve?

Once you've figured out this positioning, it's fixed. It’s an integral part of your brand and should never change all that much. It includes things like your purpose, vision, and mission. The unique value that you bring to the market.

Your brand positioning also informs your campaign.

Which is the big idea you’re taking to the world with this account. It's the message that underlies all of your content for a period of time.

When you're coming up with your big idea, Stan says, 'You should look at it for the next 90 days. Maybe it’s 12 months, but 90 days is fine, too.'

Duolingo is a great example of this.

Their brand personality? Making learning an entertaining experience.

Their big idea? Language education without taking yourself too seriously.

This manifests as Duo, who is 'just an owl tryna vibe,' jumping on trendy reels and fun memes.

The result? Over 16.2 million downloads in January of this year alone, 2.4 million followers on Instagram, and 10.3 million on TikTok.

When creating your campaign, you’ll know the 'big idea,' or message, is right when you’re able to get lots of content ideas from it. They should flow easily. And if they don’t, you may have to refine your campaign.

Now, you have to decide how often you’re going to post.

There are two options when it comes to your cadence on social media—quality or quantity. Which one you go for should depend on your capabilities.

Or in the words of Stan, 'If you’re doing two or three bits of content a day, you’re not making feature films.' If you're only doing two or three pieces of content a week, and you can put a little more effort into each one.

There’s no real right or wrong answer. Only you can decide what you believe your actual skill level is and what you’re capable of. The better you are at making content, the less you have to do.

Okay, so to review, the three things you need to decide before you even think about creating your account are: positioning, campaign, cadence.

Now you want to know how to drive traffic to your page —arguably the harder part of the equation.

On this topic, Stan says, 'Not a lot of people understand that reach comes from one thing—putting out great content.'

He's firm on the idea that if you put out the right content, it will find its way to the right people. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got 0 followers or 1 million. Your average viewership might be higher if you have more followers, but that’s not how you drive traffic or increase reach.

'Followership is more about clout than anything. The only reason we [at TAS] go for followers is because it’s all about building brand. But you don’t get more reach by getting more followers. You get more by making the right content.'

The other thing with social media platforms is that they really love consistency. 

If you’re pretty positive you’ve got the campaign, messaging, and engagement right, but maybe not the viewership, just stick with it. With a little bit of consistency, it will reach the right people.

Here's a good rule of thumb: If you are getting over 1% engagement, you can confidently keep posting until you start to see results. Anything under that, you need to revise and tweak.

Utilise your data here. Look at the analytics. Understand them, then continue to make your revisions. But don’t stop posting. Nothing beats consistency and quantity. You just have to stick it out.

Finally, keep it simple, stupid.

When thinking about creating content, strip your story back to the simplest version. Complicated storylines become convoluted messes, making it harder for your content to make it to the right audience. Or any audience at all.

There’s no official guidebook for creating your social media brand and growing your following. It takes work and it takes consistency.

But if there’s one person I would trust to tell me all about it, it’d be Stan.

Having grown his personal brand to the point where he was able to turn it into a fully-fledged business, then turn that business viral, he may just know a thing or two.

-Sophie, Writer