Who doesn’t want their social media to be bigger, better, and more popular? For everyone out there who has built an empire – big or small – there are thousands who haven’t. These tips below will make sure you don’t fall into the pitfalls that almost guarantee failure.
Every time you log into Instagram, Twitter, TikTok etc you get bombarded with content and personalities with thousands of followers and millions of views have almost endless engagement. While success is never easy, failure can be. Here’s three great tips for major pitfalls to avoid when trying to grow your brand or business in 2021.
Don’t Try and Automate Your Expansion
When Instagram first started, the now dreaded “algorithm” was almost non-existent. As a result, a huge number of early influencers used bots (fake computer accounts) to build huge followings – many fake. While that blue tick they got years ago is there for good, the days of using bots to achieve this are gone. Your account will get banned or heavily limited from appearing under hashtags. DO NOT be fooled by Google searches – pages promoting social media bots will still appear but there are no legitimate ones. The only way to gain a following now is high quality content and promoting through relevant hashtags. Have a look at this link for some beginner tips for managing hashtags and avoid bots and automation.
Don’t Rely on Influencers to Promote Your Products/Business
While the attraction to using other people’s followers to build your own business is obvious, it comes with significant risk. You are handing over your product or promotion of your business to someone because they’re popular. You are relying on their follower’s emotional connection turning into a tangible connection for you or your business. The chance of that happening is low and, depending on their output can do more harm than good. Furthermore, with influencers becoming a face of your business, you get caught up if that person behaves negatively at some point in the future. Lastly, there is the risk they don’t offer anything – because their account is based on the first tip above. Anyone legitimate is unlikely to be doing promotions for anything short of significant monetary gain – and that can be better spent!
Check out this post from SocialFox for some advice on how to make your own high-quality content and bring people in on your own terms. Back yourself!
Don’t Try and Force Engagement
Engagement is the buzzword of the year currently for social media – and rightly so! If people aren’t engaging with your product or personality, then you are on a treadmill going nowhere. The effort of posting is hard enough without the stress of no likes, comments, or activity. But no matter what, creating fake engagement through avenues such as “like for like” groups, “follow for follow” pages and other similar options is a HUGE no go. Instagram cracked down on what they call “Engagement Pods” a long time ago now and track link sharing, networks of the same people all liking/following the same people in a giant web and anything which is not organic discovery or natural searching on the platform. Other platforms have followed suit and now you’re likely to get algorithm limited to stop you trying to fake it.
Instead, be an active member of the platform – like, comment and engage yourself with other people, especially stories. For example, going into hashtags you want to post under and commenting or liking similar content is a great start. This is a great blog with some useful tips for organic engagement. Now that you know what NOT to do along with some advice on what to do instead, you’re ready to begin conquering your social media journey. Make the most of it but be ready for work. It’s worth it!
By Daniel Markos – Daniel is the manager for a full-time model and influencer and works in content planning and creation.