Social Media - Attracting new followers

Your Facebook page is up and running and being posted to regularly, but you don’t seem to be seeing many new followers. If this applies to you then we’ve got three top tips:

Like pages and join groups.

If you are an admin on your nursery’s page, ‘liking’ pages as your nursery will get your setting page seen by the page owner and can lead to some great collaborations. When you join a group you can sometimes do this as your page instead of personal account too. This means when you post or respond to a post you will give your business more exposure.

Find local groups with your ideal customers in them and be social.

Search Facebook for groups for parents in the area you are based. Join them and get chatty, but don’t be overly promotional – people can be put off by the hard sell. Answer questions when you can, give guidance and, of course, if someone asks for childcare recommendations then go for it.

Find local promotional groups.

There are some groups on Facebook that are there purely to help local businesses thrive. These are usually really supportive places to post, and most of the posts are promotional so it’s fine to sell yourself a bit on there. If you have a graphic or flyer you can use with the post, a special offer you want to share, a free trial day you want to push, then go for it. If you can’t find one locally then set one up!

All of the above are great ways to build relationships in your community. Does your local butcher deliver your meat? Could the local baby yoga class come in once a fortnight? Relationships and collaborations lead to word-of-mouth recommendations, and those are the best kind!

• Nicola Read is owner of social media management company Babbl, www.babbl.co.uk