How to Get More Followers on Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Social media is undoubtedly one of the most influential marketing strategies. Businesses across the globe are looking to get more followers on top platforms:
- Facebook (www.facebook.com)
- LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
From influencer marketing to content strategy, here’s a list of tips on how to get more followers on social media for your business.
Focus on High-Quality Follows
Creating a large following has its perks.
For example, Instagram allows you to attach links to your stories once you hit 10k followers. This helps enable product links and direct-to-website visits.
A large following goes hand-in-hand with initial trustworthiness and legitimacy of an account.
However, it’s not all about the quantity. It’s really about the quality.
According to SproutSocial, “Pay for likes and follower sites are everywhere, but these shortcuts are never worth it, as [social media algorithms] regularly get updated to weed out paid, low quality accounts and interactions.”
Want to know how to spot a fake follower? SproutSocial offers insight on how a fake follower will:
- “Deceive new followers: If users come to an inactive … feed with tens of thousands of followers, it lowers the account’s credibility. Don’t trick people into following you. Build trust and long-lasting relationships for better engagement.
- Have no ROI: It might seem easier to buy followers, but your acquired bot or unmanned new followers won’t be purchasing anything. People follow brands … for a reason. They like what you’re posting or your company in general. These are actual spenders and bring monetary value to your business.
- Create little-to-no buzz: If you have 10,000 fake followers, how many are going to comment, like, and share your content? More than likely, these bot or fake accounts will be cleaned up by [the platform itself].” Once they’re deleted, it makes “your posts seem like engagement graveyards.”
Test Content
Each social media platform offers a different opportunity to showcase content.
For example, Instagram offers a visual presence, making it ideal for video and photo content. LinkedIn is made for professionals, so educational articles and infographics are great sources of content.
Facebook and Twitter offer a little bit of everything, but the overall user demographic for each platform is very different.
Because each social media platform has something different to offer your brand, it’s a great chance to test different content types. Here are a few more ways to optimize content on social:
- Track engagement to see what interests your current audience and attracts new followers. If you notice a specific piece of content is performing well, consider revamping it.
- Stay updated on trends and viral posts to see if your content can contribute. (Instagram Reels and TikTok are a great way to keep up.)
- Interact with followers by responding to and liking comments or following relevant accounts back.
Top Social Media Marketing Tip: Use geotags on posts to find a hyperlocal audience. For example, Instagram Locations have their own Stories and feed. Small businesses can make great use of this tip by engaging with posts in their area.
Post with Purpose
So, how do you get high-quality followers on social media?
High-quality content that’s posted with purpose, and timing is everything.
Here’s why:
- The lifespan of an Instagram post is 48 hours. (Same goes for a LinkedIn post.)
- The lifespan of a Snapchat or Instagram story is 24 hours.
- The lifespan of a Facebook post is 6 hours.
- The lifespan of a Tweet is 18 minutes.
That means you have only minutes to make an impression.
If you want to time it right, follow this social media posting schedule from Hootsuite and SproutSocial:
- Facebook: “For B2B brands, the best time is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. B2C brands will have better luck at 12 p.m. EST on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.”
- Twitter: “Between 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST on Monday or Thursday for B2B. 12 p.m. or 1 p.m. Monday to Wednesday for B2C.”
- Instagram: “Wednesday at 11 a.m. and Friday at 10 to 11 a.m. are the best times to post. The overall best day is Wednesday. The most consistent engagement happens Tuesday through Thursday from 10 am to 3 p.m.”
- LinkedIn: “The best time to post on LinkedIn for both B2B and B2C business owners [is] Wednesday at 9 a.m.”
Note that the best time to post on social media depends on your followers. Use platform-native analytics to see when your following is online and track when they’re most engaged.
Optimize Your Profiles
An optimized profile is key to getting more followers on social platforms. Ensure you follow this checklist for profile basics:
- Your company’s name
- A short bio
- Link to your website (or product-specific landing page)
- Profile picture
Top Social Media Marketing Tip: Make your social media handle as searchable as possible. This often means sticking close to your company name, omitting special characters and numbers. It’s recognizable and keeps in line with the other profiles.
Connect with Influencers
According to Influencer Marketing Hub:
“When asked to rank their fastest-growing online customer-acquisition methods, 28% [of companies] named influencer marketing as No. 1. This is nearly double those who focused on organic search and nearly 10 times more important than those who concentrate on affiliate marketing.”
Following influencers, especially micro influencers, in your industry can help increase your follower count. Influencers hold power and credibility on these platforms, and they’re always looking for new opportunities.
Connect with them:
- Follow them on their highest-grossing platform.
- Share or engage with their content.
- Run a giveaway, as seen below.
- Promote a partnership using frequent posts with links to products.
Showcase Your Social Everywhere
People won’t find your accounts unless you promote them. It’s the second rule of content marketing (after knowing your audience).
A few tricks to promote your profiles:
- Add social media buttons to the footer of your website, emails, the Contact Us page, and landing pages. It’s easy to create a “Follow Us on Social Media” tagline.
- Put links to other social media profiles in your bio sections.
- Cross-promote profiles in posts and stories.
- Ask for a follow by offering platform-exclusive content and including the profile link in emails.
Find High-Converting Hashtags
Hashtags can help people find your content and add quality to your follower count.
Be careful, though. We give you two hashtag warnings:
- Too many unnecessary hashtags may have a negative effect on your brand image. Followers view your posts for real content, not an excess of hashtags.
- Your post will get lost if you use a generic hashtag. For example, the hashtag “#love” has over 2 billion posts on Instagram and 1.3 million posts on LinkedIn. Finding your content in a flood of pictures and videos is near impossible.
To find and use high-converting hashtags, consider your target audience. What are they likely to be interested in? Which events and trends are they following?
Top Social Media Marketing Tip: Look at what your competitors are tagging on social media. You likely have the same target audience and similar content. With this trick, you can compete in the hashtag arena.
Know Your Platforms
When it comes to optimizing your profiles and creating a large following on social media, Mirabel’s Marketing Manager offers platform-specific tips.
- Create a simple and informative bio that might include a keyword or two.
- Post frequently on your Instagram story, because it’s right above the follow button and easily clickable.
- Videos equate to more time spent on your post (compared to an image). If they enjoy the video, they may pop over to your profile for a follow.
- Keep the important part of your caption at the start. It’ll get cut off after a few lines.
- Tag any person or company involved in the picture to encourage engagement.
- Reply to or quote tweets. They will appreciate the effort going beyond a favorite or retweet. You might even get a retweet out of it!
- Follow local businesses to connect with your community. If they follow back and/or engage with your tweets, it showcases your account to their followers.
- Include trending hashtags in your tweets if relevant. With millions of users checking trending topics every day, this could equate to big exposure and engagement.
- Reach a hyper-targeted audience using Facebook Ads. Be as specific as possible with your parameters to ensure the highest ROI.
- Join relevant groups to talk to potential customers and your community. Building trust and communicating with your audience is mutually beneficial.
- Post pictures at events, so your followers can tag themselves. You can reach a larger, more relevant audience this way.
- Videos are more likely to go viral than pictures. Be sure to post both types of content and explore content marketing upgrades.
- Like Facebook, you can buy LinkedIn Ads to grow your page and target the right audience.
- Ask employees to add their positions and the company to their profiles. This will increase activity around your LinkedIn Page.
- When posting content, utilize popular hashtags. Anyone searching for job postings or industry trends can stumble upon your content with a great hashtag.
To get more followers on social media, you must fine-tune your profiles and content to represent the essence of your brand. These platforms are incredible places to show off creativity and authenticity. They’re avenues to increase interactions with the community and become a go-to account to follow.
Thomas McCormick contributed to this blog.
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