Reach new audiences: how to grow your brand

Growing a brand on social is not what it was in 2023. People now search on social. Google can now show your Instagram posts. And a reply can do more work than a post.

Here is the catch-22 that never goes away: you need content to build an audience, but you need an audience to justify creating content. What has changed is everything around it.

Discovery no longer lives on Google alone. In Sprout Social’s 2025 research across the US, UK and Australia, 37% of consumers said they go to social first when searching for product reviews and recommendations.

Still running the 2021 playbook? Here are four moves that work now. 

Your social profile is a search result

Start here, because it costs nothing.

Since July 2025, public posts from Instagram professional accounts can appear in Google search results, so your posts, Reels and captions are now search results too. TikTok has been indexed for longer. LinkedIn posts regularly turn up in Google results. Social media is no longer separate from your search strategy. For most businesses, it has become the front line of it.

The numbers bear it out. Among Gen Z, 41% turn to social platforms first when searching for information, ahead of the 32% who start with a search engine.

What that means practically:

• Your captions need keywords, not just vibes. Write them the way your audience searches.
• Your alt text matters for both accessibility and discoverability.
• Your bio should describe what you do in plain language someone would type into a search bar.
• Say your keywords out loud in your Reels and TikToks, and put them in your on-screen text, so captions and search can pick them up.
• Location-specific content is a fast-growing search category, especially for tourism, hospitality and experience brands.

This is not about gaming an algorithm. It is about being found by people who are actively looking for what you do.

Collaborate with intention, not just volume

Brand collaboration still works. But the approach has shifted considerably.

The old playbook was: find a brand with a similar audience, run a joint giveaway, collect followers. It had a time and a place. In 2026, the smarter move is building ongoing partnerships with creators and brands whose audiences genuinely overlap with your future customer. Not a one-off post. Not a barter arrangement. A considered, sustained relationship.

Smaller is often smarter. Micro-influencers, those with audiences between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, tend to have more focused communities that trust them, and that trust is what you are borrowing.

Brands are shifting from one-off creator posts to ongoing partnerships. Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2026 report puts it bluntly: follower count and engagement rate are no longer reliable indicators of impact. Storytelling quality and audience alignment are what count now.

When evaluating potential collaborators, ask: does this person or brand speak to my future customer, not just my current one?

Do not skip the simple stuff either. A takeover, a shared series or a joint campaign with the winery down the road still punches above its weight when the fit is right.

Engage first, post second

You have spent time planning, briefing, shooting, editing and captioning. The post goes live. That is not where the job ends. That is where it begins.

Buffer’s analysis of nearly two million posts found accounts that replied to comments saw higher engagement on all six platforms it studied, including around 21% more on Instagram and around 30% more on LinkedIn. Replies generate more comments. More comments send stronger quality signals to the algorithm. Those signals extend your post’s shelf life in the feed. It is a compounding loop, and most brands opt out of it entirely.

The commercial case is just as clear: 73% of consumers say they will buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond on social. That is not a soft metric. That is a direct commercial risk.

Engagement does not stop at your own page. Show up in the comments of the accounts your audience already follows. One useful comment in the right place can reach more new people than a paid post.

Community-led formats are also gaining ground: live Q&A sessions, behind-the-scenes series, broadcast channels for your most engaged followers. These build the kind of trust that a beautifully produced grid post rarely achieves on its own.

One final note: 93% of consumers believe it is important for brands to keep up with online culture. Cultural relevance is not about chasing every trend. It is about demonstrating that you understand the world your audience is living in.

Make content worth keeping

Shareable content has always mattered. What has changed is the bar.

Consumers told Sprout Social that brands should make human-generated content their number one priority. People are not looking for polished brand ads. They are looking for content that feels real, answers a question, tells them something they did not already know, or makes them feel seen.

The classic test still applies: is your content relatable, educational or entertaining? If it does not clearly answer yes to at least one of those, go back and rework it. If it manages all three? That is the content that travels.

User-generated content has crossed from social proof into performance driver territory. People believe people: in Nielsen’s global study, 88% trusted recommendations from people they know more than any other channel. Encouraging your community to create content about you is not a nice-to-have. It is part of your acquisition strategy.

On format: HubSpot’s video marketing research puts short-form at the top for ROI among video formats. Reels and TikToks still dominate for reach and discovery. Carousels drive saves and returns. Long-form series build loyalty over time. The brands winning pick a few formats, post them consistently and change course when the numbers say so.

Last thing: a post built on real search terms, a useful how-to and a place name keeps earning long after you post it. Build to last, not just to reach.