When it comes to getting the initial likes and the followers you have to get them from your own sources. For example let's say I have a page on Facebook for which I need likes. I have to get the initial likes from my family and friends. And once you have those likes, you can go ahead and make more likes from viral posts.
1. Post interesting content. When I say interesting, it has multiple meanings. You can post humor, serious post or even something that is trending. Just make sure you are posting something unique. Avoid creating fake news and controversy though. As that hurts your page than it helps in any way at all.
2. Open your page wall for the user messages. This helps get more feedback on the page and you can improve the page accordingly. If you close this section then you are creating a closed loop where people find it harder to report things and even to reach you.
3. Add your website link to your social page profile. Be it twitter or facebook page. Make sure you have website linked to the page. And this helps in getting some viral traffic to the page.
4. Interact : Most of the page admins don't connect with their users. However you should comment on the user comments if it is required. I have found that interaction with the users is not that easy especially on controversial posts.
5. Use services such as Hootsuite, Coschedule, Edgar and Buffer. Those systems can save a lot of your time if you schedule your posts. And you can also measure social signals using those services.
6. Use better images. They attract attention of the users. The more attention you grab the more content will be shared or liked by users.
7. Use your own logo on the images and the videos. Just make sure that you are not using the logo on copyrighted images. Most of the companies like Shutterstock and the Corbis will shut you down if you take their images from google and watermark it.
8. Social media should be used for collecting email leads. So make sure that you are getting people to go to your email sign up page. This helps to get more traffic back to your site using the email marketing. You can also notify them of things that are changed on your website.
9. Use Facebook ads, twitter ads or Linkedin ads to redirect users to the webpage where they can buy your product. If not product you should send them to the email sign up list. Make sure to have moderate budget at first and then increase the cost.
10. Have better landing pages and website design. Don't use typical blog page to get people for mail sign up or to purchase product. Look at some of the landing pages that you can create using Leadpages or similar sites. That way you can make sure that there is less traffic leak. The more traffic you retain using landing page the better it is for you in terms of funding.
Except the ads, most of the methods explained here can be used free of cost. Only deciding factor here is the time. You have to use a bit of automation using tools like buffer and HootSuite and then automate most of the things. Once you start to get likes you can do the sentiment analysis and vary the posting accordingly.