Table of Contents
Social media, as we know it today, is the most easily accessible way of passing around information and sharing contents, which is why it has become important to grow social media following.
It is for this reason that it has become very important to be on these platforms, depending on which one you are most comfortable with.
It is on record that billions of people around the world visit one social media site or another daily, be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok, YouTube, or others.
This clearly shows that there is a growing trend where, for any message that you want to reach a vast majority of people, the best place to go is on one or several of these social media platforms.
But for your message to reach a lot of people on these platforms, you also need to have a good number of followers that will see your message and, in turn, share it with other people, or you can simply hire a Social media marketing agency.
This is why it has become necessary to build a good number of followers on your account so as to give you leverage in the future.
Please note that by having a message, it can be in the form of ads, promotions, shout-outs, or acting as a brand ambassador or a general influencer for products.
In the last few years, we have seen how, many people now make a healthy living off of social media by acting as influencers for different products and companies, and all this is because of the number of followers that they have.
So, without further ado, let’s break down how you too can easily grow your social media following.
Post frequently
Posting frequently is one of the easiest and fastest ways to grow your social media following.
This may sound very simplistic, but it is a very important strategy when you want to grow your social media because you must understand that most people also want to grow theirs.
Furthermore, social media apps mainly have a single feed on which everyone’s post has to fit, and users get just one chance to appear on the feed.
So, if you really want many people to see your post, you will need to post regularly so that your pictures or videos will probably show up on the feeds of other users at some point in time.
Remember, whenever you make a post, other people are also posting (actually, millions of people), so it is very easy for your own post to get lost in the midst of others, so the only way to ensure that you get a chance is to post frequently.
Maintain a theme
By maintaining a theme, I mean that you have to try to stick to a particular design and content strategy.
Adopting a particular theme really helps people know what to expect from you any time you post.
Just like if you model your posts around business and entrepreneurial ideas, you will attract people who have such an interest and are looking to get tips and learn from you. It will quickly turn them off if you deviate from that theme and start posting random memes just because they are trending.
When you do such, visitors to your page will hesitate to follow you, and those already following will begin to think that you don’t really care about them, and some of them might even leave once you start posting low value content.
In other words, it is advisable to structure you post to fit a particular narrative, whether business, comedy, fitness, cars, etc.
Focus on a Niche
Niche has become such a common term when it comes to business advice that some people just don’t want to hear it because they feel it limits them.
Even though, on the surface, focusing on a niche might look like it is going to limit your ability to explore other things, in reality, it is very helpful.
Building your social media page to focus on a particular niche is actually going to do better than harm the growth of your page, because at least people know what to expect from you.
And because visitors to your page understand what you are all about from their first encounter, it makes it easy for them to decide if they should follow you or not.
If they have interest, they will definitely follow, and more importantly, they will also end up sharing your contents with their other friends, who they believe will also like them and might also follow you.
Furthermore, focusing on a niche makes it easy for you to talk to your followers and promote something to them because you are sure that they already have an interest in the content, or else they would not have followed (in most cases).
Post video contents
Video is now considered one of the best types of content that elicits high engagement.
Although video content is much harder, more time-consuming, and more expensive (for professional video) to produce, it has the capability of passing more information to the viewers than an ordinary picture.
Video gives you more time to further explain your message and express emotions, something that a picture cannot achieve.
In order to grow your social media following, it is advisable to post as much video content as you can, because it will help your page get discovered and visited by many people.
This will happen because the algorithm will notice that your content has a longer retention time from people watching your videos, and so it will further show it to other people of similar interests in the hope that they will also find it interesting.
Engage with other users
Engaging with other users has a very uncanny way of increasing followership online, This is because when you engage with others (strangers), it opens up a world of new opportunities whereby you let people know more about your ideology and experiences.
When people get to know more about you through a reply or comment on a post, there is every chance that if they like your comment, they will click on your name to check out your profile, and if they like the contents that you talk about, they may end up following you.
To use this strategy, all you have to do is follow other big accounts that have large numbers of followers and that post contents that you like, and most importantly, turn on post notification on their page.
Whenever these people post new content, you want to be among the early commenters, this helps put your comment in the top position so that other visitors to the post will be able to easily see your comment and read it, and if they find it interesting, they will like it and most likely check you out.
Go live
This is a strategy that I don’t see a lot of people using most of the time, but it has been found to be very effective.
Once, in a while, or even frequently if you have the time, you should try to go live on your page and show your face.
What this does is that it helps people build a personal attachment to your page and feel like they know you on a personal level.
When people feel like you are really you and are able to have a conversation with you on a live stream, it solidifies their interest, and they will end up following you so that they can always interact with you whenever you go live.
This strategy works well, because there is always something about people wanting to know what other people doing, It’s a game of curiosity control, where you take advantage of the curiosity of the people to give them your attention and get they presence (followership)
However, you also know that during the livestream, people will want to ask you a lot of questions about yourself and what you do, so this will be a good avenue to tell them more about you.
Write a Captivating Bio
Having a great bio is a super tool that anyone can easily adopt to grow social media following.
Having a detailed bio that tells people your name and explains to them what your social media page is all about is a great way of marketing yourself.
This goes a long way toward attracting visitors to your page because they now know what to expect from you, even if they have yet to go through your content.
If you, for example, talk about business ideas on your page, or if you like traveling, just include this interest in your bio in short detail and also add a link to any of your personal or business websites.
Also, in your bio, make sure to add your handle on other social media platforms, especially if your handle is different on other platforms.
Post Stories/#shorts
Stories on social media are now a very popular feature that people are taking advantage of.
Why Stories? Because it’s a new feature that is interesting to use and that gets easy traffic because of the way it is positioned on the apps.
Because stories are positioned at the top of the apps like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and others, although for app YouTube it takes the form of YouTube #shorts.
When people open up their apps, they will immediately see the story icons for the different people they follow.
If you have posted a story and it shows up for someone who is already following you, if the content is interesting, informative, and engaging, they may likely share it with others (their own followers) who may likely follow you.
Tag other users
The use of tags is more like the use of hashtags, but in this case, you will be linking your post to someone specific.
When you tag someone on social media, it immediately shows up on the person’s notification, letting them know that they have been linked to the post, which is something that is very good, especially if the content is something that the person also has an interest in.
This strategy is usually applied effectively when you want to promote your content on a much larger blog page.
Why does this work?
This works well with a blog page that posts different contents and doesn’t mind posting other people’s content and referencing them with a return tag.
For example, if you have an interesting video or picture of an event that happened that you think people will like to see, all you need to do is post the media on your page and then tag any other page that posts similar content and also has a large following.
When you do this, it will show up in their notification, and if they like it, they will go on to repost it on their own page and tag you for reference, specifying the source. If people like the content, they are most likely to check out your own page and may end up following you.
Post carousels
Carousel is simply making use of the extra slots available to you when posting an image or video on social media.
Carousels are a great way of increasing the retention time of visitors on your page, and in turn, this will cause the algorithm to promote your content to others with the hope that many more people will like and get value from it.
A carousel is useful because it gives you a medium to tell more or promote more by posting more than one image or video at the same time.
When you make use of carousels, it makes it possible for visitors to get more value from a single post, and they most likely will engage with the post by sliding through all the images/videos, like it, and share it.
For someone who is not already a follower but gets immense value from your carousels, this can encourage and motivate them to follow you and also share it.
Ask people to engage with you and follow you.
Asking people to engage with your content and also follow you is a good way to grow social media following.
Although it may look like you are being pushy by asking people to follow you, the reality is that at some point you may have to actually tell people what you want them to do.
This is important because sometimes people may enjoy your content and still not remember to follow you, so when you encourage them to follow, it immediately prompts them to act right away.
In doing this, you also have to be strategic and make sure to post interesting content and then below the post, you can tag your own account and ask people to follow it, or if it’s a video in which you are involved, then just verbally encourage them to follow you for more similar content (this works very well on YouTube and when you Go Live)
Continue reading: How to Start a Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA)