Social media is one of the most significant—and inexpensive—ways to cultivate a brand following. As a marketer, you should consistently be looking for ways to boost your social media following, but the turn of the season—in this case, the transition from summer to fall—is a good benchmark to make some extra effort.

While success on social media isn’t always about the number of people following your page, having a high number of qualified leads certainly does help. Take these ideas into consideration if you feel the need to give your pages a push in the right direction this fall.

• Get creative with Halloween on the horizon. Halloween will be here before you know it, which offers a plethora of opportunities to have some fun with your social media followers in an effort to attract a larger audience. For example, ask your followers to post their favorite scary movies, and then compile a list of the “top 10” later in the month. Or, when it’s closer to the holiday, ask your social media audience to post a picture of their Halloween costumes to be entered to win a prize.
• Host giveaways for seasonal items. Along the lines of winning, social media giveaways are always a powerful way to boost your social media following. Think seasonal items like grills, football tickets, cool weather attire, home decorations, or fall yard equipment, etc. for prizes. With your followers happy for the chance to win free stuff, and your social media account happy for exposure due to said free stuff, it’s a win-win situation.
• Don’t forget football. While we’re talking about football, remember that it’s a huge part of fall culture. Stay in tune with your local football schedules, and play off of big games in your social media posts. Celebrate the big game that week with a giveaway or special offer solely for social media followers. You can also ask social users to correctly predict the score of that week’s game in exchange for a prize.
• Use gift-giving holidays to your advantage. Fall into winter is typically the most lucrative time of the year for retail and service-based businesses as consumers snag holiday gifts for friends and loved ones. Plan strategically in anticipation of holidays like Hanukah and Christmas to better your social media content. Create holiday-themed social media specials—offers that can only be redeemed if you show the social media post in person. This gives social media users incentive to continue to follow your page. You can also use spins like “A Gift for Me, A Gift for You,”—a buy one get one free deal for consumers to get a little something for themselves as they do their holiday shopping.
• Change your decorations for the fall season. In terms of your social media page, by “decorations” we mean your cover photos and profile pictures. Regularly changing at least your cover imagery will benefit your social pages by maintaining followers’ interest with new and fresh content. Have a new product or store display? Post it as your cover photo. Want to incorporate some fall colors? Make the appearance of your social media pages reflect the season.
• Double check your links. This is one tip that isn’t necessarily unique to fall, but is something you should do on a consistent basis. Regularly checking to make sure that all links to your social media accounts are going to the right places is important to ensuring that you never interrupt traffic to your social pages. Check your website, email signature and any other places that you link to your social pages to make sure they are working correctly.
• Give your posts a literal boost. Despite your best abilities to push out appealing content, sometimes your social posts need a little financial backing. Boost your social media following by paying to sponsor posts, which will in turn show them to a higher number of social followers than if you let the post grow organically.

Take advantage of the change in seasons to incite positive change among your brand’s social efforts. Use these tips to boost your social media following to put more eyes on the shareworthy things your business is doing.

Need help pushing your social media pages in the right direction? The McNutt & Partners team can help. Give us a call at 334-521-1010, or visit our contact page.