Twenty Ways to Attract More Social Media Followers

A survey discovered that 95% of adults who are between 18 and 34 years old are the demographic that is most likely to follow a brand on social media. 

If you are starting a new business, blog, or simply want to brand yourself as an influencer, social media is the perfect place to do that. 

It can be difficult to start out though. You might be looking at other social media accounts that you aspire to be, and wonder how they have hundreds of thousands of followers. 

A social media following can be difficult to build, but it’s not impossible. 

Want to increase your social media following without spending loads of time and money? Check out these twenty ways to attract more social media followers.

1. Follow Real Accounts

How many times have you followed an Instagram account, for example, and then ten other similar accounts followed you back?

Following other accounts not only gives you exposure to other people, but you can also see what works in their posts, and maybe even get inspiration from them.

A lot of platforms, like Instagram and Twitter, give you the option to have someone follow you, even if you’re not following them. However, if you’re just starting out building your profile, following people back is polite and will also help you keep followers to start boosting your numbers.

If you’re not sure who to follow, look at what common people the followers you already have are following. If you have a makeup account and everyone is following Kylie Jenner, you probably want to follow her as well.

You can’t just sit on the platform and wait for people to come to you without you having to do any work for it. You need to put yourself out there and make connections. 

2. Have Something Worth Posting

No one is going to want to follow you if you don’t have quality posts. There are a lot of people out there trying to do the same thing you’re doing, so that means you have to put in more work to make yourself stand out. 

If you are trying to start your own account to post about dogs, you’re going to have to figure out what content to post to make people want to choose to follow you versus another dog account. 

This may require some creative thinking and brainstorming. You can look at other accounts that have a lot of followers to see what they’re doing right. You may also have to do some own experimenting of your own. You might find that your users like funny dog videos versus cute dog photos. 

3. Let People Know Who You Are

To get people to follow you, you have to let them know who you are, and what your account is going to be about. That means you should fill out your name, your location (if applicable), a brief bio, and possibly a website and an email contact. 

When you’re filling out your bio, you want to make sure that you throw in some keywords so if people are browsing Google, your account could show up in the searches.

4. Be Active

If potential followers go to your page and find nothing posted for months, they probably will not want to follow you anymore. However, if they see that you could fill their feed with awesome content once a day, they are more likely to follow you longer, and even suggest you to other people. 

If you have an inactive account, someone who goes to check you out might think that it’s just spam or a bot, and this could be one reason why you feel like you can’t grow your social media following. 

5. Share Your Views

You want your page to stand out from all the others, and sharing your own personal views and opinions is one way that you can do that. 

On Twitter, if you see a news article, or some other post that you have an opinion on, you can retweet it and add a comment to make it your own and make it more unique to you. This is also a great way for the person who posted it to find your profile, and for others to make their way to your account.

Sometimes people will get into arguments with you, and this publicity will get your name out there. 

You might think that your opinions are weird or even strong, but sometimes this can attract the kind of followers that you are looking for. People might be interested in what you have to say and what your stand is on political and social issues. 

6. Do Interviews

One great way to get followers for your social media account is to get yourself out there. If you are on YouTube, see if you can collaborate with other people on their channel and do interviews with them. 

Their followers could potentially be interested in you, and you could direct them to your social media pages. 

Doing other interviews and meetups are good networking opportunities, even for real life. You never know who you’re going to meet. Sometimes you can bring business cards that have your social media usernames, and then these people can go and follow you afterward if they are interested. 

7. Appear as a Guest in a Blog or Post

One of the most important steps in getting social media followers is getting exposure, and guest appearances and posts are a great way to start this. 

If you are starting a blog, guest posting can be a great way to expand your audience and readership.

You can do a similar thing with social media. For example, you could take over some other popular account and let their followers follow you. Once you are done with the takeover, link back to your own social media accounts for those who want to keep up with you.

8. Realize Who Your Audience Is

Maybe the reason you can’t get any followers is because you’re not really sure who your audience is, and you’re catering to people who aren’t interested in you.

If you are starting a Twitter account that retweets cat videos, your followers would probably be really confused if you started posting about dogs. 

Make sure you know who your audience is, and make sure that you are catering to them. 

9. Have a Newsletter

Having a newsletter can be helpful no matter which platform you are trying to build. You can send out weekly or monthly emails to your followers or potential followers. 

In these newsletters, update them about your brand or what is going on in your life. You should include links to your social media accounts at the bottom of your email signature, and even sometimes throughout the letter. 

10. Link

Links are so important in the digital age, and they can help you get a lot of followers.

Wherever you can, link to your social media accounts. You could do this in the newsletter that you send out, but if you are appearing as a guest anywhere, make sure that your social media accounts are linked.

If you’re writing blog posts for your brand, make sure that you link to your social media accounts somewhere in the post. 

11. Host Giveaways

Everyone loves free stuff.

Giveaways are a great way to boost followers. Not only do you advertise your product, but in most giveaways, you make a rule that they have to be following you to participate.

Sometimes the person has to even tag a certain number of people in the post, exposing your account to an exponentially greater amount of people.

Just make sure that you actually go through with the giveaway, or you may start to lose followers rather quickly. 

12. Use Humor

People love sharing posts of different brands and companies roasting other companies, and sometimes even their customers. 

Sometimes they do it because they know it gets attention and can go viral, which is great for their brand.

Customers or followers want to know that you’re human, and humor is a great way to relate to other people.

You need to figure out what tone and how much humor is appropriate for whatever your profile is for, but it can make your account stand out from all the other ones.  

13. Share Similar Content

Sharing posts that others have posted can be a great way to get more social media followers. If you find an account that you love that is doing a similar thing to you, sharing their stuff on your account will help people find you, and will also help you build up content. 

Depending on what your content is, it can take a while to create. If you want to post consistently, maybe even every day, this can be a lot of work. However, simply reposting, sharing, or retweeting someone else’s content can help you. 

We’re not saying do this all the time, but do it every now and then, and your followers will appreciate it.  

14. Have an Easy and Consistent Username

If you use multiple platforms, you want to make sure that your username is fairly close to the same for everything.  When you’re telling someone what your username is for them to follow you, you want to make sure it’s easy as possible for them to find.

No one wants to have to remember a different name to look up for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, so you can save them and yourself time and energy.

If possible, sign up for the exact same username across all platforms.  

15. Post Often

You have to figure out the sweet spot for this one. 

You want to post enough that your followers know you’re active, and they can see and engage with your content, but not so much that you are annoying them and flooding their feed with just your posts.

On Instagram and Facebook, once or twice a day is probably a good limit. On Twitter, it’s a little bit more lenient. 

If you feel like you can’t keep up with posting this much, don’t worry. There are apps out there that can help you schedule posts ahead of time, so you don’t have to worry about posting every single day.  

16. Be Consistent

When you’re posting daily, make sure that you’re posting consistent content. This also kind of goes back to knowing who your audience is, but make sure that you have a vision in mind for what you want your account to feature.

If you’re trying to promote your business, you probably don’t want to start posting about the vacation you went on last week, unless it’s somehow relevant.

A lot of people will follow you just for the type of content you post. If you keep posting random stuff, they might get confused and possibly unfollow you. 

It also looks more professional if you post all of the same stuff and not just whatever you felt like that morning. 

17. Use Hashtags

Hashtags can be a great way to get your brand out there. Whenever you post something, make sure that you post hashtags with it. Do a little bit of research to see what hashtags seem to be popular, and start putting those on your posts.

People who follow those hashtags will then be able to see your post, and if they’re interested, they may even go to your profile and follow you. 

18. Appear on Live Feeds

Live feeds are one of the new features on apps like Facebook and Instagram.

You can announce that you’ll be doing a live feed at a certain time of the day, and then your followers can watch your video as you’re recording it. 

This can be a great way to release new products, make big announcements, or show something fun. 

Whatever you decide to do for your live feed, just make sure that it’s relevant to what your followers want to see. 

19. Post Photos and Videos

People are becoming more and more visual, and they are more likely to stop and look at your photo or video than to read an entire essay on your post.

You don’t have to go out and immediately buy a professional camera though. These days phones have a pretty good camera, and that should be enough just starting out. If you’re a photographer, that’s a different story.

The fact still remains, photos and videos are a great way to grab people’s attention.

20. Be Human

According to different surveys and studies, consumers say that a brand’s authenticity is very important to them when it comes to buying their product. 

You need to show your followers that you are human, just like them. As we mentioned above, humor is a great way to do that. 

Let people know a little about you and who you are. They will be more likely to trust you and follow you. 

When in doubt, don’t try to be someone that you’re not, or that you think your followers want you to be.

Just be yourself. 

Get More Social Media Followers Today

Attracting social media followers doesn’t have to be difficult.

It may take a while to build up your numbers, but if you follow the steps we mentioned above, you will slowly start to see those numbers rise. 

If, for some reason, none of these steps seem to work for you, check out our website and this blog post to build your brand and get more followers.