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Guaranteed Ways To Get More Local Social Followers


Your potential customers spend almost two and a half hours daily on social media, scrolling through news feeds and your business's ads and posts. This tempts companies like yours to leverage the opportunity and gets quality leads and conversions.

Data tells us that a business’s social media posts impact the purchase decision of approximately 78% of consumers.

The challenge here is to get relevant followers on your business account. Everything seems pretty favorable until you think about getting followers who eventually become the advocates of your business (provided they have had a great experience with you!)

Here, I will address this concern and tell you some of the most effective ways to earn local social followers.

11 Guaranteed Ways To Get More Local Social Followers 


1. Use Local Hashtags

Hashtags are the words or phrases written after this symbol '#' without any space or special characters. These, when put in any post, make it more relevant for the audience it is meant for.

Here, using the phrases or words for hashtags that are more in sync with the local community will improve the reach of your post. This will result in increasing your chances of gaining more local social followers. 

Hashtags label and categorize the social content to increase the outreach.

Pro-Tip

Quality is more important than quantity. Use only relevant hashtags for your posts to make them visible to the desired audience.

Relevant Tools

  • Hashtagify finds the most trending hashtags and tracks the results your brand's hashtags are showing.
  • Twitter Advanced Search looks up and tracks the performance of the exact phrase that you are looking for as a hashtag, thus saving a lot of time.
  • Ritetag lets you find, manage, and monitor the relevant hashtags based on their real-time performance and engagement.

Here’s a screenshot from Ritetag that you can use to find the most relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts 

Use-Local-Hashtags

Read: How to Promote Your Business Locally Using Instagram

2. Collaborate With Local Influencers

Associating with local influencers is one of the best ways to increase your brand's awareness, especially among the local audience. This happens because influencers have a loyal fan following consisting of people who take their recommendations seriously.

So, if any of the local influencers are promoting your brand, chances are their followers will likely follow you, in fact, purchase from you! This saves your time and effort, otherwise invested in creating a huge local fan base.

Pro-Tip

Make sure that your influencer's ideology matches with your brand's values for people to establish a better and deeper connection.

Relevant Tools

  • Klear provides extremely convenient solutions to find influencers based on your business's location and niche.
  • Heepsy allows you to find influencers for your business and track the results you get from their effort.
  • Awario is another brilliant tool that lets you find influencers where language is no barrier and allows you to monitor the performance.

Have a look at how Heepsy lets you find influencers on different platforms for your social campaigns 

Collaborate-With-Local-Influencers

3. Engage Personally With Local Accounts

Identify your local market and narrow down your search. Then, find specific social accounts on different platforms and send them messages about your brand and business. You can also engage with them on their posts to make them feel noticed.

Let them know that you appreciate what they are doing. 

This behavior will most likely develop a connection, and ultimately, these people will follow you back. This will give you a chance to get yourself exposed in front of their followers and friends, thus expanding your visibility.

Pro-Tip

Once you have identified the relevant accounts, send a personalized message to them and sound more humane than talking only about your business.

Relevant Tools

  • Talkwalker is a Hootsuite tool that listens to the conversations relevant to your industry across the web. This gives you an idea of who is talking about your products and services and how you can tap them.
  • Nexalogy is another tool of Hootsuite that provides data about the relevant and most active social accounts within a specified area. It is represented in an easy-to-understand and engaging manner for your convenience.
  • Mention is a tool that lets you know what various people are talking about your brand across different social platforms. This will tell you all the accounts interested in engaging in meaningful conversation.

You can use Mention to monitor and respond to your social mentions, as shown below. 

Engage-Personally-With-Local-Accounts

4. Mention Location And Geotags

Data shows that tagging locations in your posts result in approximately 79% more engagement than those without them. This gives a feeling of belonging to any native person coming across your post, and they will likely follow you.

Moreover, they can see other images of the same place in just one click, thus giving your account better exposure.

You can add to your local audience's interest in your business by showing that it has been creating an impact in their area. This will pique their curiosity in your business, thus ultimately benefiting you.

Pro-Tip

You can tag locations even when you are not physically there. But make sure that your business functions in that location. And it is on the map!

Relevant Tools

  • MarketMeSuite is a software that allows you to geotag your posts and use relevant hashtags. This becomes very useful when your target audience searches for something on social media using locations.
  • WeLink is a software that lets you listen to what your community is talking about your brand within your area of interest to better plan your social strategy. Also, you can tag suitable locations in your posts.
  • Sysomos is a tool that makes you identify the topics about which influential people are talking in a specific area. This gives you an understanding of the market, and you can also create similar posts to increase your follower base.

5. Run Local Ads

Local ads are the ads that are specifically created for the local audience by targeting the topics that they can connect with. Running local ads on social media platforms allows you to target specific people by increasing your brand's exposure in front of the relevant audience.

This contributes to building your reputation and registering your brand in your target audience's long-term memory. This is a budget-friendly way of increasing your brand awareness among relevant people. This ultimately leads to better SEO and more local social followers.

Pro-Tip

While creating a brilliant ad for your local audience, do not forget to provide a call to action button not to leave them in the middle of nowhere.

Relevant Tools

  • Facebook Ads Manager is a tool that allows you to create ads on Facebook and Instagram. Afterward, it lets you view and monitor their performance and even edit them as and when required. 
  • LinkedIn Ads Manager is also a tool that is limited to LinkedIn. It allows you to create and manage your ad campaigns to tap your audience better. Although it is limited to one social platform, it can be a brilliant tool for B2B businesses.
  • Sixads is a Shopify extension that lets businesses like yours manage all their ads in one place. This saves a lot of time and effort. Moreover, it is user-friendly and convenient even when you do not have prior experience.

Here are a couple of screenshots from LinkedIn and Facebook Ads manager that you can use to run, track, and monitor ads on these social media platforms 

Run-Local-Ads Social-Proof-What-Is-It,-and-Why-Is-It-Important-for-SEO

Read: Social Proof: What Is It, and Why Is It Important for SEO?

6. Update Your Bios And Profiles

People have a short attention span of 8 seconds or even less! This makes it essential for your social media accounts to be on point to capture the interest of your local audience. Here the trick is to keep your social media bios complete and updated.

Using relevant keywords here especially, location-specific will also add to the results. But do not overuse, or they will drain out the human element. Add links to your products or website to keep the visitor engaged, thus increasing the chances of them following you.

Pro-Tip

Do not be modest in your approach here, as people are looking for something extraordinary and different. Be individualistic!

Relevant Tools

  • Rytr is an AI-based social media bio generator that helps you create engaging bios. It is based on just a few basic questions about your product and brand. The best part is that it provides results based on different creativity levels.
  • Copy AI is a great software that is convenient to use. It generates brilliant social media bios based on the information that you provide. This is usually on point and covers all the factors you want to include.
  • Fancy Fonts is a brilliant app that has different fonts for you to choose for your social media bio. This gives a fancy appearance to your account and will also add to the personality of your business.

You can use Rytr to create personal bios for your social media platforms, as shown below 

Update-Your-Bios-And-Profiles Update-Your-Bios-And-Profiles Update-Your-Bios-And-Profiles

Read: Social Media SEO

7. Organize Contests And Local Giveaways

Giveaways are the competitions that the businesses organize to receive engagement on their social profiles. It is considered the easiest way to increase the social media following as one of the first conditions of participating in the contact remains this.

Giveaways also increase your brand's awareness among relevant audiences and gain popularity. When carried out with a proper strategy, these giveaways build a positive and strong relationship between you and your customers, thus creating a community.

Pro-Tip

When you are planning a giveaway, intending to improve your followers’ base, make sure to pick the rewards that interest your target audience.

Relevant Tools

  • Rafflepress is a giveaway tool that lets you plan, create, and manage any online and social media contest. It is very convenient to use with the existing templates and the drag and drop functionality.
  • Optinmonster is a lead generation tool that does not create contests directly. It promotes them amongst the website visitors, thus increasing the engagement and improving the chances of adding to the social fanbase.
  • Short Stack is a contest generator tool that does not even require a beginner's experience. It also offers customizable fonts and styles to create a giveaway that matches your brand personality and tone.

Here’s how you can use Rafflepress to plan all your giveaway campaigns with ease 

Organize-Contests-And-Local-Giveaways Organize-Contests-And-Local-Giveaways

8. Tag Local People With Similar Interests

Social media posts that have people linked to them perform better. They also have a better reach among the relevant audience. 

Tagging people also motivate them to share your social content and tag you in their future posts. This happens because getting a mention in a brand's post gives people a feeling of exclusivity.

Here, it is essential to provide value through your tags. 

Do not just mention people without any relevance. It is one of the best ways to capture other's audiences without putting in much effort and resources. This holds the potential to create a significant fan base.

Pro-Tip

Ensure that the people you tag in your posts have something in common with your business to ignite their interest. Otherwise, it may create a wrong impression.

Relevant Tools

  • SEMrush provides the facility to identify relevant media topics and the people following them. This eventually helps find the right people and businesses to tag in your posts.
  • Social Searcher is a free social media search engine that lets you search for relevant users and topics. It also analyzes the trends and results across all social media platforms, all in one single place.
  • Talkwalker is a tool having the maximum features and allows you to analyze the demographics of your potential audience. This ultimately gives you an idea of who may be interested in your posts.

Here’s a screenshot from Social Searcher that you can use to find trends around local topics relevant to your business

Tag-Local-People-With-Similar-Interests

9. Optimize Captions For Local Audience

Although visual content plays a significant role in gaining your visitor's attention, captions enhance it by adding context. It also mentions the details that otherwise would have been missed.

Here, you can leverage this opportunity to show the impact that your business is creating in the local area and connect with your audience on an emotional level. 

This will improve your chances of gaining local followers who eventually will hold the potential to become the advocates of your business.

Pro-Tip

Always try to include a CTA in your captions to make your posts more than just entertaining. It will also help you increase the chances of converting the visitors.

Relevant Tools

  • Cliché Finder is a tool that helps keep your captions unique and engaging by finding Clichés and overused expressions that may appear to be boring. This lets you keep your audience's curiosity piqued.
  • Coschedule provides a tool for social media caption optimization. It analyzes your caption based on different parameters for different social media platforms. This will allow you to capture your audience right where they are hanging out.
  • Influencer Marketing Hub is another software available in the market that again scores your social media caption to tell you how it will perform. But it also considers the posting time, which is a significant factor while analyzing the results.

Have a look at how you can use Cliché Finder to come up with unique captions that improve audience engagement

Optimize-Captions-For-Local-Audience

10. Listen To The Local Community Online

Social media listening refers to the practice of identifying what people are talking about your brand and the industry as a whole and then designing your strategy based on the insights obtained. 

Here it will be relevant to limit your analysis to the local people.

This helps you create relevant posts for your target audience and bring better engagement. It will also improve your chances of gaining more local social followers. Social listening, when done right, allows you to leverage the opportunity of learning from your competitors.

Pro-Tip

Listen to the right words and phrases that are most relevant to your business, rather than going wide in your approach. Just maintain your focus.

Relevant Tools

  • Hootsuite is the tool that keeps you connected with your audience by providing all the information regarding your company's mentions and tags. This allows you to be directly involved in a conversation with them.
  • Hubspot provides the facility of social listening through its social media management software. This does not let you miss even a single significant conversation about your brand within your target audience.
  • Sprout Social is a social media listening tool that lets you analyze the engagement of your posts across various social platforms. This also uncovers the trends that are prevailing in the industry.

11. Share Engaging Local Content

While preparing your social media calendar, block strategic slots for posting local content. Here, you can post blogs or even cover some newsworthy stories that happened in your local area.

You can consider altering the content for your target audience to grab their attention and encourage them to engage with your posts. And, when your audience remains entertained, your chances of getting more social following increase. 

Sharing local content also keeps your existing followers coming back.

Pro-Tip

Do not try to cover everything in your area to get the attention. Instead, select the topics relevant at least to your industry, if not particularly to your brand.

Relevant Tools

  • Claritas is a software that provides the details about the demographics of a particular place as you enter the zip code. This helps develop the potential buyer's persona that can guide you towards creating brilliant local social content.
  • Buzzsumo Trends is a tool for brainstorming local content ideas. It provides the list of trending topics, and then you can choose the most relevant ones for your business and the format you want to post that in.
  • Text Optimizer is the software that identifies relevant topics for your local market. You can use these topics to create some of your best-performing social media posts.

Have a look at these Buzzsumo results for the local search term “tattoo artists San Antonio.”

Share-Engaging-Local-Content

Ways To Get More Local Social Followers - FAQs



Q1. How Can I Gain Local Social Followers?

The best thing you can do to gain more local social followers is to identify your market and put maximum effort into capturing that without distraction. A dedicated and consistent effort with pre-defined success metrics will make you achieve what you desire.

Q2. Does Influencer Marketing Help In Attaining More Local Followers On Social Media?

Yes, it works in favor of improving your fan base. Here, the thing that may impact the result is which influencer you are collaborating with. It is recommended to get an influencer with whom people personally and emotionally connect while tapping the local market.

Q3. What Is A Local Social Media Follower?

A local social media follower is someone who has subscribed to or followed your social accounts to receive updates about your brand. The only condition here is this person must live in the same area as the operations of your business.

Q4. How Can Local Followers Help My Business?

When you tap the local market through social media, it builds a huge follower base consisting of people living just a short drive away from your business. This improves the chances of conversion because of the approachability.

Key Takeaways To Get More Local Social Followers



  • Use local hashtags to improve the reach of your post.
  • Collaborate with local influencers to develop and maintain a loyal fan base.
  • Engage with relevant local accounts personally to make long-term connections.
  • Mention locations to show how you are creating an impact in a particular area.
  • Run local ads to establish a deeper bond with your audience.
  • Keep your bios and profile up to date to ensure a great first impression.
  • Organize local contests to receive a lot of relevant engagement.
  • Tag local people with similar interests to create a community around your brand.
  • Optimize captions for local audiences to add context to your posts.
  • Engage in social listening to identify who is interested in your business.
  • Strategize while planning to post local content and do it often.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Brice Decker

Brice has been handling marketing projects for more than 12 years and he is providing consulting services on SEO, Social Media and PPC. He has a huge expertise in working at large corporations including Accenture Interactive & PwC Digital Services.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brice Decker

Brice has been handling marketing projects for more than 12 years and he is providing consulting services on SEO, Social Media and PPC. He has a huge expertise in working at large corporations including Accenture Interactive & PwC Digital Services.