Are you a social media marketer who wants to increase followers organically? Yes, paid advertisements will help you get clicks instantly and followers too. But the results and growth potential would be of short shelf life. Long term benefits (such as brand awareness) can be obtained from organic efforts only – be it search engine optimisation or social media marketing. To promote your brand organically on social media and reach your target audience, the very first thing you need is the strong base of dedicated followers.

Get more social media followers organically

How to get more and relevant social media followers? Here is the list of 7 best and proven practices to be followed.

1. Follow the people whom you want to follow back

Social media users prefer to follow those who have high social authority and from whom they can get the information they want. Further, your social value depends upon the quality of your followers. So ensure to follow those entire users whom you want to follow back. Follow all relevant accounts, have timely interaction with them and make them feel your presence on social media. Their one like, favourite, retweet, repost, share or mention can also make a huge impact.
Also, to increase the number of your followers, you need to increase the number of your followings.

2. Create, Curate and Share valuable content

On social media, you need to earn engagement to establish long-run relationships. Remember, content has immense power to drive engagement. Users will follow you only if your social content adds some value to them. Share all that content with which your targeted audience can relate to.
Brands like Airbnb, Adidas and Natural Geographic are rocking in terms of sharing best social content on Instagram.

3. Do not miss to stay updated and keep others updated

Social media presence is almost similar to an open book. Anyone can visit your timeline at any time and see your posts, replies and other activities. If your posts sound old and outdated, is there any reason for them to follow you? No! Hence, it is crucial to keep your account active and updated. As soon as you come across any novel or trending thing of your industry, ensure it to post on your social networks with hashtags. People usually search the latest information on social media and that’s how they might come across your account.

4. Influencer marketing

Influencers have loyal fan base. Whatever post will be shared by them will get high amount of attention with trust. Influencer marketing serves as WOM for your brand.
Identify the influencers of your niche and take their help for various marketing activities. Their strong reputation will assist in increasing brand awareness, boosting media impressions, engaging with ideal customers, and building your social media following. Also, you can collaborate with similar other companies to expand your reach and increase your followers.
Hallmark partnered with a number of family-friendly Instagram influencers to promote its 2016 holiday collection of keepsake ornaments. The aim of this collaboration was to share personal, tender moments from their families’ holiday season. Similarly, in 2017, HP Australia partnered with Vogue Australia to launch the new HP Spectre product (laptop) in Australia and increase product awareness.

5. Follow hashtags and use hashtags

Hashtags on social media are a cool way to communicate without writing complete sentences! Always use industry-specific hashtags to attract a relevant pool of people. You can also create your own brand-specific hashtag to promote yourself. But ensure to use your own hashtag along with industry trending hashtags. It will help your target audience find you. Similarly, you can also search a relevant network by following hashtags.

6. Be responsive

Funny enough but its true – Facebook is the only place where it is fine to talk to a wall. Nowhere else anyone prefers talking to the brick wall. Whenever you receive any notification, ensure to reply within 24 hours. Send thank you messages to your new followers, mention the users who share your content on their feed, and reply to all queries. As far as possible, send personalise messages and avoid automation. However, depending upon your availability, you can take help of social media automation tools for scheduling content and sending thank you messages.

7. Participate in daily trending topics

Even if you are taking help of automation to schedule posts, it is must for you to come online when your target audience is most active. Analysis from your social media analytics the best time when your users come online. Post relevant social content and interact with them during their active time. To create interest in  your posts, share the latest, recent and trending data and statistics.

Time to start now…!

All these tips will drive followers organically. They will follow you for a reason. Hence, chances are minimal that they will run away, unless you stop providing value.  Remember social media is an open book. Be honest and transparent. Do not miss out on spreading your presence and the potential to educate and entertain your followers.