Getting Followers On Social Platforms

Getting Followers On Social Platforms

Your First Followers

Once you have created a profile on social media and other social platforms, do you wait for followers to find you or do you actively seek out followers?


The common approach used is to start off by asking family, friends and anyone else you know to follow you, so your follower count doesn’t remain at zero for longer than it needs to.


This is a good way to start, however, it can also lead to false hope as those that are following you are doing so more out of obligation rather than because they are truly interested in what you are doing.


Say you have twenty people follow you and all those people are family and friends. You would hope they show their friends, who will then follow you. If they don’t, then you are stuck with those 20 for the foreseeable future.


Here are 3 things to bear in mind when searching for people to follow you:


  1. Are they your ideal customer?
  2. Are they the sort you will be able to engage with?
  3. Will they find your posts interesting enough to leave a comment, like and share?


Having each follower doing one or more of these things would be ideal.

Building A Following

Even though those you know would want to support you, it is best for them to follow you in addition to other activities you are doing to increase your followers.


So, by all means ask your friends and family to follow you, just don’t use it as your main method of getting followers.


A way to gain followers that are not family or friends is by only targeting those who fit the profile you have for your business.


You can also use this method to narrow down which family members and friends you ask to join your list.


You may get less people initially following you doing this, but at least those that follow you would be genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

Finding Followers

Where does one start, when looking for followers?


Start off by looking for those that have commented, liked and shared information about the same topic as you. Once found, follow them. Some will follow you back, increasing your follower count.


Doing this is made easier with the use of hashtags.


Using Twitter as an example, you can search using popular hashtags in:


  • The bio, comments, links and profiles
  • Google to search for people who have used hashtags outside of Twitter and have Twitter accounts.
  • Look for accounts who have just joined Twitter in your niche. From experience, I’ve found new accounts are more likely to follow you back as they are also trying to build up their followers.
  • Comment, like and share other peoples tweets, as often as you can in the time you have. Make this a job in itself. This not only helps you build relationships, it also gives you insight into what is trending, what competitors are doing, and potential gaps in the market. It also has the added benefit of giving you additional content to tweet about on your account.
  • Cross promote platforms. For instance, if you are on Instagram and want to build your Twitter following, invite your Instagram followers to follow you on Twitter.
  • Follow for follow’ can be good for building followers. The idea is you follow someone and they follow you back. You just have to be careful which ones you take part in as some can be quite spammy.
  • Participate in Twitter chats. Some large accounts host Twitter chats. If you find one in your niche, make a point of participating. You may be able to pick up a few followers.


Once You Start Getting Followers

When looking to increase your number of followers, set yourself a target of how many followers you want to get and keep working at it, refining your methods until you get to your target.


Once you achieve your target, keep the relationships going. You may not have to work as hard anymore to get more followers, you do however, need to keep the followers you do have.


So, keep liking and commenting on their posts and if they share something you think your followers would like, share it. 

Summary

Having people follow you based on the information you provide rather than as a sense of obligation is a good feeling.


Once these skills have been learnt, you would always be able to grow your following no matter what platform you use, as the skills are transferable.


When building your followers, remember building a following that sticks and is engaged in your content takes time. So, stay away from anyone who promises to ‘build followers fast.’ These type of offers that promise to get you thousands of followers in a short space of time on a brand new account, tend to use questionable tactics.

Instead, take your time, build genuine followers, build relationships, keep engaging with your followers and you’ll find those that follow you stay with you.


Slow and steady wins the race.

Links on this post may be affiliate links, which will provide me with a small commission if you make a purchase using my link.


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Images created using Visme.


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