In the world of digital marketing, it’s hard to ignore the importance of having a large following. Whether you are a brand, blogger or an individual user, more followers = more reach and impact. Maybe to you more followers simply means getting more likes on a photo, or maybe it means sale conversions and the livelihood of your business. No matter your motivation for growing your following, there are a few universal tips that will impact your account growth and help you get to the next level.
Have Good Content Consistently
I can’t say it enough, if you want to grow, you HAVE to have good content. More importantly, you have to have good content on a consistent basis.
What is good content? The short answer is that it depends on your brand & the audience that you are trying to target. But that doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. A lot of times in the social media marketing world, people want the easy out. They want to spend a few minutes taking and editing some photos, just to throw them up and call it a “strategy.” The truth is, it takes a lot of work and a lot of time. You need to do a deep dive into who you are as a brand, who your consumer is and how they want to be spoken to. Once you dissect the characteristics of your company & your consumer, you use that information to develop an overall aesthetic & create content that is unique to you.
If you aren’t a content creator or don’t have any content creators on your team, you may have to outsource to creative individuals or photographers in your area. This is also a great way to establish relationships within your community and learn from industry leaders.
Good content is high quality photography, video with good lighting & sound or photos that involve your brand message. Good content doesn’t have to be professional photography nor does it have to be trendy, edgy, bright or anything specific. Good content is what represents you/your company and what engages your target audience. Here are some accounts we love with great content.
How often is consistent? Absolute minimum 5 posts a week. Enough said. Need to stay on top of it? Check out some content calendar ideas.
Get reposted by other accounts
A great way to grow is to target other brands & companies that you want to work with or are a fan of and create content they can use on their own social channels. Look at the style of their product shots & create images in the same style for your own account. Target brands who regularly regram fan posts & spend your time focusing on creating content for those brands. Learn how to make content that speaks to your brand voice.
Collaborate with people in your same space
Use the power of relationships & reach out to a few key people who you’d love to work with. If you have similar audiences, you can use each other to grow your accounts. Get together to create content or collaborate on a project that will be beneficial to both of your followers. Promote the project on both of your channels to reach a wider audience. For some ideas on how to collaborate with other accounts, check out our article on Creative Social Media Giveaway Ideas.
Instagram videos
Video is the fastest growing form of content online right now. I predict that within one year it will be absolutely necessary for every brand to have regular video content going up online if they want to stay competitive in the social space. Also, Instagram currently highly favors video content and more regularly shares videos on the Discover page.
If it makes sense for you and your brand, Pinterest can be a great way to drive traffic to your website and social channels. The great thing about this platform is that content has a longer lifespan. What will be forgotten in 48 hours on Instagram can live for months or even years on Pinterest. This is a great way to drive continual traction to your website or sales database.
Having 10k followers isn’t just all about the numbers, it’s also about the features. Instagram rolls out new features and updates to select accounts at a time. First, they will test out new features, such as the link to swipe up or the “Click to buy,” with a few select accounts, then usually with verified accounts, then business accounts with 10k followers or more. If you want access to certain features that may better help your sales growth or corporate reach, having 10,000 followers is important.
Written by our VP of Operations, Marissa Stahl.
Did you hit 10K? What has contributed the most to your growth? We wanna know! Tweet us @somethingsocial or tag us on Instagram- @somethingsocial.
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