6 Tricks to Increase Your Number of Social Media Followers
It’s no secret how much social media plays a massive role in our society nowadays.
Posting real-time photos on Instagram, updating Facebook statuses every five minutes, and tweeting about every single “shareable” moment of every day—many of us are infected with the ‘social media virus’.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about that. Mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn are all designed for better and faster interaction.
But first, you need to acquire your own horde of followers. Here are our 6 Tricks to Increase Your Number of Social Media Followers:
- REALLY interact with your audience
Having a Facebook Fan Page or setting up your own blog just won’t do, as that will only create a one-way flow of conversation. The main point of social media is interaction, so make sure you are receptive to replies, comments, retweets, mentions, re-pins, and reposts from your audience.
- Try to be humorous, but not sarcastic or hurtful.
Remember that there is a fine line between humour and sarcasm. Some posts may be funny to you, but hurtful or inconsiderate for others. This is the main reason you should be careful with what you say, especially when posting on social media. Once you click “tweet”, “post”, or “publish”, you can’t take it back. You may post a retraction later on, but the damage has been done.
Most importantly, do NOT trash talk your rivals or competitors. Lashing out in public could end up badly for you, with repercussions like a negative reputation and a lawsuit.
- Avoid too much “fluff”
For your social media updates, it would be better to stick to things that are relevant to your audience. Posting things that are cute or funny (like cute baby animals) may be okay once in a while if it is relevant to your business, but frequent posting of “fluff” may result in your audience losing interest, and forgetting why they’re following you in the first place.
- Know your audience and hone in on them
Social media is saturated with influencers from almost every industry; the key to breaking the mould is to really understand your audience and find a new way to appeal to them.
One of the most popular ways to be found by your target audience on social media is to help them with a problem they have. If you do not understand the issues they are having, and you’re only pandering to existing issues that have been covered countless times before by more established personalities online, you will have a hard time attracting an audience.
By finding your niche, and a truthful angle, you’re more likely to garner followers this way. There’s a tribe out there for everyone – it’s just a matter of finding them.
- Learn to reward loyalty
If you’ve been blogging for quite some time now, you may be aware of the fact that blog contests are a great way to expand your audience. Well, social media works the same way. If you want more followers, you need to keep your Internet community excited by running some competitions. Not only is this an awesome way to reward followers, but this is also a way to encourage engagement from your audience.
Posting polls, surveys, or pieces of trivia are unique ways to create as submission entries. And of course, make sure the prize is worth the effort!
- Be consistent with your image
The one downside to having multiple social media platforms that many businesses fall prey to inconsistency. While each platform is used in different ways, your tone and message should remain the same across each channel.
Make sure that your username is the same across all platforms too so that your audience can be sure to find and follow the correct profiles.
6 Tricks to Increase Your Number of Social Media Followers
Final Thoughts
Social media is a tricky beast, but as long as you are going in with the right intentions – that is, to build genuine relationships and to foster two-way conversations, then you will have no problem attracting followers. Building a solid following will take some time, as you want to attract the right audience – the people who really like your content and regularly interact with you, rather than thousands of accounts who passively see your content and ignore it.
Put the “social” back into social media.
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About the Author:
Jonny Lis is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Smart Traffic, a private company based in Bristol offering SEO services in the UK and other countries. He oversees SEO strategies for Smart Traffic’s 300+ campaigns.
