Organic Follower Increase Methods in Social Media
Social media is a great place to promote your company and business. In addition to being free, you can reach your target audience more easily and there is no limit to the number of people you can reach. It is very difficult to achieve such an impact with other marketing tools, but it is useful to know: If you do not have a follower base, producing and sharing content will not gain you anything.
Increasing your follower count should therefore be an important part of your social media strategies.
Why?
Because having a high number of followers will make your brand more known, customer loyalty will increase and you will be more likely to make sales.
Having a small number of followers makes it very easy to be outdone by your competitors.
If you are not satisfied with the number of likes and followers on your social media accounts, or if you want to do something about it, we offer you many useful suggestions below. In our article, we will also talk about ways to gain followers organically without producing content for social media.
Ways to Gain Organic Followers Without Creating Content Youself
How many followers do you have on average on your social media accounts?
Whether you care about it or not, people pay attention to the numbers.
They take a look at the number of followers you have, whether or not they follow you. If you have 179,000 followers they think you have something valuable and important, but if you have 455 followers they think you are not producing anything worthwhile. Unfortunately, that's how human psychology works.
By looking at the number of followers on the social media accounts of brands and companies, you are already making an opinion about these brands.
Even if high follower count is not synonymous with quality, follower count is still important.
So how can you increase the number of followers?
If you want to gain more you ve to produce more content. This is considered the law of digital marketing.
While producing content is a good strategy to become more known on social media, it is not a perfect strategy.
People are picky about content. If you don't produce exactly the content they want, they won't interact with you.
According to a study at Punjab University, there are 9 types of content you can produce:
- Knowledge sharing: 15 Free WordPress Themes
- Advertisement: I have uploaded 2 new posts to my blog. Click to read!
- Thought-idea: Illmatic = the best rap album ever!
- General statement of opinion: The weather is horrendously awful today.
- Snapshot: I'm tired, I can sleep for 20 hours
- Question to followers: Any dentists among us?
- Update: I'm back from vacation, hi!
- Anecdote: I won my debt in yesterday's Christmas lottery.
When we look at this research more carefully, you are left with 2 types of content.
Or you will talk about yourself.
Or you will provide information to other people and produce content that they can benefit from.
In other words, you should produce content focused on brand promotion or content focused on providing benefits to people. So can you guess which one is more effective?
Yes, content that provides information and benefits is more successful in the long run.
The reason for this is simple: People (especially young people) want to learn and achieve something from the brand and company accounts they follow.
The contents of a company that constantly praises itself, so to speak, "passes out.Let me highlight an important issue here:
It doesn't matter what typev of content you produce, but who you are as a brand.
You can increase your social media followers only with content that creates the perception of "Hey, we are a reliable brand".
Which means relying entirely on organic traffic.
Now we will talk about some unique strategies and examples to increase the number of social media followers.
1. Make Your Brand “Following”
People now want to get something from the accounts of the brands they follow.
Uploading thousands of ads or irrelevant content won't do you any good.
The younger generation follows brands that produce content that is “worth following”. Catching this generation is not as easy as it seems.
Young people between the ages of 21-34, which we can call Millennials, or those born roughly between 1980-2000, are more inclined to follow brands that have a social impact.
In a 2015 study by Nielson, 73% of the younger generation are willing to pay more for a trusted brand. In other words, if a product worth 100 dollars is sold for 115 dollars by a brand they trust, 15 dollars is not a problem for them.
81% of these people want their favorite brands to be socially responsible.
Sprout Social's report titled “Keeping Up with Change in the Age of Social Media” ("Championing Change in the Age of Social Media") reveals that people want their favorite brand to express political issues and their opinion on social.
So what does this mean?
If you want to make an impact with young people, you have to interact with them in some way. This can be possible with a sensitivity to social issues.
In other words, “We do not remain silent about what is going on in this country.” You need to improve the image.
2. Follow Other Brands, Phenomena, and People
To begin with, you can follow other socially sensitive accounts.
Of course, you should give up the "Follow / Unfollow" game. There is no need for an unnecessary game like unfollowing after the account you follow follows you back.
But such things happen.
The important thing in social media is to be followed by real people and to interact with these people.
Therefore, you can improve your tracking policy by:
People you know
People you are familiar with
People you should know
In many social media platforms, you are offered follow-up suggestions under the name of “people you may know”.
Twitter's algorithm is pretty good at detecting people who are likely to interact with you. So you must this feature.
Follow these accounts whenever you receive such follow and friend suggestions.
Send a short message to the accounts you follow, briefly stating why you're following and start developing a relationship with that person.
This will be in your favor while increasing your audience.
There is also a tool for Twitter called Tweepi. It suggests the most suitable people for you by looking at your social activities and the profiles of your followers.
By leveraging such resources and tools, you can gain a more meaningful audience.
3. Share Other Brands' Content
Do not steal content from other accounts. STEAL-DO-YIN.
After removing this friendly warning, take great care that your content is original.
We're talking about the post here, not the content. So how can you post without producing hours of content?
From time to time, share and re-tweet the content of influencers and other brands.
It's that easy to share other people's content without producing content and show your sympathy for that person.
Retweet is already one of the main elements of Twitter.
In the success of this method, there is the possibility of developing a mutual relationship with the person whose content you share.
When you retweet someone, that person will be notified and that person will be notified of you.
It is a long-term method and it is not guaranteed that every share will gain new followers.
But it's still an ideal way to interact with influencers, high-followers, and other brands.
And to put it simply, the more posts the more followers.
4. Share Content on Different Platforms
Share your content in different media. So share your content on Twitter on your Facebook page as well. Upload the photos you upload to Instagram to Twitter.
So when you upload a photo to Instagram, share it on your Facebook page as well.
When you link your social media accounts with each other, you create a synergy between different platforms and each platform contributes to the other. In other words, you don't need to rediscover America! You will channel your existing followers to other accounts. That's the whole point.
5. Join Groups
If you want to gain new followers, you can also use organic methods.
The best way to do this is to join groups on social media.
There are countless groups on LinkedIn, for example.
"Freelance Software"
“Mechanical Engineers Graduated from METU”
“Offset Printing House Owners”
“Social Media Marketing” etc. There are many groups available.
When you come to the groups section on LinkedIn and click on the "discover" section, new groups are suggested to you according to your LinkedIn profile.
Sending a request to join groups is also often sufficient.
The more active you are in these groups, the more content you share and answer questions, the easier it will be for people to follow you.
Twitter also has a feature similar to the group structure like Twitter Chat.
If you want to start a conversation, you can chat with other people around a certain hashtag using websites like Twubs.
You are more likely to gain followers in Twitter chats because you interact with people one-on-one. Instead of publicly advertising in such conversations, really chat with people, present them with new information. Making a small touch to a person's life can sometimes have a big impact.
6. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Another way to interact with people is to answer questions.
Platforms such as Quora, Reddit, Sour Announcement are ideal in this regard.
Identify questions that you can answer and are knowledgeable about in these and similar channels. And don't forget to add the link of your social media accounts to these answers!
Here you both benefit people and satisfy their curiosity; You can also announce your own social media account without paying any fee.
In addition, you can personally answer questions asked to different brands and individuals on Facebook. The goal here is not to steal your competitors' followers.
The main goal is to interact with potential followers and help them.
When you solve a problem for them, they have the idea that you are a helpful and knowledgeable person and they can follow you.
You can also do a Q&A activity on Twitter.
Of course, you should take care that the questions you choose will benefit the participants and give importance to the style you use.
7. Post Paid Advertising
You can advertise your social media accounts with money. There is no problem with that. Also, advertising for money is not the opposite of being authentic and original.
You can promote your brand and account without sacrificing the quality that followers want.
The important thing here is to develop an advertising strategy that prioritizes interaction.
Let's look at this example:
Sales ads work if you're selling a product. But if you want to promote your brand and increase your brand awareness, content-based ads and videos work better.
But if you want people to interact with you, you have to find a balance between the two.
To create an ad that balances both elements;
You should look at Facebook Audience Insights. (Here are your followers' age, gender, residence, hobbies, etc.)
Send them a survey and find out which topics they prefer content about.
Make adjustments to your content strategy by analyzing the most engaged content.
With such data, you can learn the most engaged content and show your potential followers ads in the context of such content.
In summary, advertising for money is not the opposite of gaining organic followers. Just don't get involved in things like buying 500 followers for 50 dollars ...
8. Control Your Traffic
You have to look at the statistical status of your social media accounts in order to develop ads and gain organic followers.
Knowing where followers come from and how they interact with you allows you to develop the right strategy.
Google Analytics is perfect for this.
Each platform has its own unique kind of statistics panel.
For example, if you are getting heavy traffic from Twitter, you should develop a strategy for Twitter and stop being active in LinkedIn groups, for example.
Or you can use free tools like Followerwonk.
Followerwonk;
This site shows you where your Twitter followers come from and how they are active on your account.
You can find out the number of tweets of these people, the number of followers, the hours they are active, etc. You can find out on Followerwonk.
Such a tool gives you solid data on how to catch trends and what to do when.
Similarly, you can use tools like Keyhole to follow popular trends and hashtags.
Keyhole;
Keyhole shows you popular topics, popular tweets, keywords and accounts.
You can also see the performance of your competitors with this tool.
In summary, the purpose of learning the metrics and statistics on your social media accounts is to apply the right strategies at the right time.
If you know where people hang out, you know how to get noticed by them.
B. Methods to Increase Followers on Social Media
In this part of our article, let's look at the more well-known, proven, in other words, traditional methods of increasing followers.
1. Know Your Followers
First of all, you should know who your target customer (follower) audience is. Creating a customer profile gives you a roadmap to reach more people.
- How old are your customers (followers)?
- What are their genders?
- How are the income levels?
- What kinds of tastes and interests do they have?
- What are they sensitive to?
- what are the fields of activity of these companies?
- How many people work in these companies?
- What city do these people live in?
In order to reach your dream audience, you need to have an idea about these people.
- Are they more active on Facebook or Instagram?
- What kinds of things are they looking for on the Internet?
- What do they do when they are not online?
- What are these people's buying habits like?
- Can they suddenly shop? Or do they shop meticulously?
- Do they read reviews online when buying something?
- Are they more willing to shop when there is a special sale?
As for existing customers:
- How did they find your company and social media account?
- Why did they choose you?
- Why did they choose to stick with you?
In addition, it is important to examine the activities of competing companies on social media.
- Who is following them?
- What type of content do they share?
- What types of content get higher likes, comments, and shares?
- What types of content don't work?
You must seek answers to all these questions.
2. Produce Good Content
Last year, 77% of adults shopped online. 46% of them state that they read the comments on the internet and social media before purchasing. This means that if you produce interesting and compelling content, you will enter a huge market.
Customer profiling helps a lot at this point because you know what your followers (and therefore leads) like, so you can market to them what they will like to buy.
When posting on social media, you should focus on visual content because you only have a few seconds to grab people's attention. You can try these content formats for your social media accounts:
Infographic : Infographics allow to visually describe a topic in a wonderful way. This is one of the most shared types of content on the Internet field.
Interactive content: Interactive content , especially gifs, videos, animations, games, provides an experience for customers to notice you.
Image : Statistics show that tweets with images are clicked 18% more, get likes by 89%, and retweeted by 150%.
Photos on Facebook, on the other hand, receive 53% more likes than written content and attract 104% more people's attention.
3. Interact
Building connections and developing relationships on social media accounts is one of the best ways to gain more followers.
In other words, when someone comments on your photo, you respond to it. When a follower DM you, reply to it because that person may want to know more about your products.
4. Use Hashtags
Just like how you use keywords to drive traffic to your website and produce content around this word, use hashtags in your social media content.
Hashtags, especially on Twitter and Instagram, make it easier for people who are interested in your content and products and services to find you.
For example, if you're a florist and selling flowers is your main goal, you don't have to use every trending hashtag. So when you share the photo of the new daisies in the shop , a hashtag like #gameofthrones or #Kaeducator won't give you much.
On the other hand, hashtags related to topics such as nature, spring, flowers are more ideal for your page.
In other words, when used correctly, hashtag is an effective tool that can bring you pinpoint customers (followers).
5. Share Regular Content
The biggest mistake small businesses and companies make on social media is that they don't post regularly.
Your account must be active to gain followers. People aren't very keen on following an account that last posted content 9 months ago. You also need to post content regularly to “consolidate” your existing followers.
There are social media tools used for scheduling posts such as Buffer, TweetDeck, Hootsuite. If you don't have time to share content every day, schedule your weekly content through these tools and your content will be shared automatically when the time comes.
6. Organize Contests and Sweepstakes
Organizing contests on social media is a great way to gain followers. Tell people to follow your account, leave a comment and like the post; In return, they qualify for the draw to win a prize.
This is a great method because when someone interacts with your page (likes, comments, follows), that person's friends are more likely to see your page as well. Speaking of Instagram, we can say that this is absolutely true.
In other words, when you share a photo, it says, "The 5 people who find the most creative explanation for this photo will be awarded XXX prize. One of the people who write a comment will be given a 30% discount by drawing.” You can write, you can make such contests and sweepstakes.
7. Tag Other People and Accounts
Tag different accounts, people and locations in your posts. This allows more people to see your account. For example, you tagged a person with 50,000 followers in your Instagram story. If this person shares your story, you have a chance to reach 50,000 people at once.
8. Use Analysis Tools
To see how you're performing on your social media accounts, go to the analytics page of the platform you're using.
Here you can clearly see how many people see any of your posts, at what times of the day more followers are active and many other useful information.
9. Know Your Platforms Well
If you use different sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, understand the unique and important aspects of each platform. Develop an appropriate content strategy.
Let's take a brief look at what makes these platforms special:
The use of images is important on Facebook. All your posts don't have to be visual, but still, share visual-heavy content whenever possible.
One of the most effective ways to advertise on Facebook is to reach the followers of brands and businesses operating in the same field as you.
Find out what other types of pages people who like your page like. Your ads targeting other people who like these pages will yield more effective results. People who like a brand similar to yours will likely be interested in you as well.
Facebook groups are also a good way to reach potential customers. You can set up a sectoral group and get around, share content about your products or services.
Videos are now the most demanded content format on Facebook. For this reason, if you share viral videos on your page, it will be easy for you to reach millions in a few days.
On Twitter, you can reach local companies, news pages and popular people living in the same city as you. When you follow these people, they will follow you and create interaction in your favor.
If you write articles and reviews about different companies and brands, you will gain the sympathy of these companies and your tweet will be shared. But the brand or company you choose should not be your direct competitor. Pay attention to this.
Things such as establishing a mutual dialogue on Twitter, opening live broadcasts at special moments can also create a good wave of interaction for you.
You can also use Twitter to make a circle and connect with people in your industry.
Your employees are your brand ambassadors. Therefore, ask them to open a LinkedIn profile. Your company name appears directly on their profile, which leads to traffic for you.
Join an industry group and join the conversations here. When you gain the trust of people, these people start to trust your brand as well. It monitors your account.
If you have a budget for advertising, you can advertise on LinkedIn to reach your target audience. Thus, you will have the chance to reach people and companies with exactly the features you are looking for and to attract their attention.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that everything on Instagram, which is the most popular social media platform today, should be visual.
But give great importance to the description part of your content. Your account becomes even more popular if you write descriptions that will interest people and call them to action.
So, let's say you shared a photo and asked a question to your followers in the description section. Thanks to the Instagram algorithm, the friends of 150 people who answered this question will be able to discover your account more easily.
Of course, the Instagram Stories feature has also made a great contribution to Instagram. He almost doped Instagram. If we say that at least 1 of the 5 stories shared, we have sent a message about it, I think we will emphasize the importance of the Instagram Stories feature.
Conclusion
Managing multiple social media accounts at the same time can be difficult. It can be even harder to compete with big brands, companies that have a dedicated social media team and the budget for it.
However, you can compete with them on social media by applying the basic techniques listed above.
Don't forget the "viral" dimension of social media. When you wake up in the morning, you can see that a video you shared at night has been watched 880,000 times and you have gained 29,500 new followers. This kind of thing really happens. Why not you?
