Not every advice you will get online about social media marketing is correct.
Whether because social media is a relatively new phenomenon or because it has attracted an array of self-proclaimed experts, it is not uncommon to receive advice that does not make sense or that would not work for your brand.
Therefore, you should always do due diligence to seek a second opinion before taking up a piece of advice and implementing it for your business. You probably have received some bad advice from your friends or even from popular websites that discuss the goings-on in the social media landscape.
Here are some of the worst advice we’ve ever had about getting followers on social media, particularly Instagram and the best Instagram tool you should definitely be using to acquire new followers.
You don’t need a strategy
Going into social media without a proper strategy is a mission bound to fail. Any “expert” who would advise you not to create a strategy for social media is misleading you.
While there are people who have grown their audience on social media without a proper strategy, going into it without a strategy and hoping for the same kind of results that they got is lying to yourself; you might not be as lucky.
A strategy need not be complex. Even a simple strategy that helps you iron out every detail that’s designed to make your business stand out and achieve results is good enough. A strategy will make sure that you’re not scrambling for content and that every post has a purpose behind it.
Given that social media marketing is not a sprint but rather a marathon, a strategy will help you stay the course for the long haul.
Send automatic direct messages welcoming new followers
Many marketers think that sending new followers direct messages is a nice and courteous way to welcome them. This could not be further from the truth. Sending these messages is often off-putting. Most of these new followers will treat these messages as spam and may unfollow your brand as soon as they receive them.
In any case, social media users know that these messages are automated and therefore, not designed specifically for them.
This makes these messages impersonal and therefore bad etiquette on the web.
Don’t get personal
Did a self-proclaimed social media expert tell you not to get personal? They misled you.
Even if you are tweeting using a business account you should still find ways to show your followers the personal, human side of your brand. Sometimes it’s also good to send some informal responses.
Showcasing your brand personality is best done by showcasing the personalities of the people behind the brand.
Social media is about connections. When your brand is so impersonal, the connection often goes missing. This can in turn result to stunted follower growth on these social networking platforms.
Use lots of hashtags on all your posts
This is a common bad advice. The idea that the more hashtags you use on your posts the better your brand will perform on social media is misleading. Indeed, use of hashtags on social media has a lot to do with the hashtags you choose rather than how many they are in your post.
Even hashtag-oriented social sites have a limit to the number of hashtags you can use in a single post. Sometimes using so many hashtags dilutes your message and makes your post look unplanned and messy.
When choosing the hashtags to use, keep in mind that the idea is to make the post receive better engagement and interaction as well as be noticed by the people who matter to your brand.
Generally speaking 2 or 3 hashtags should be enough. Instead of spending so much time trying to look for 5 to 10 hashtags to use on a single post, use that time to engage your audience in the comments section or responding to queries you’ve received in your inbox.
Keep posting updates tirelessly
People new to social media often publish too many posts on social media. As a result they overwhelm their audience. A gazillion updates will not make your brand stand out more. Instead they make your audience resent your brand.
Many of these people will choose to stop seeing updates from your brand while others will unfollow you on social networking websites.
Even if you think that you have a lot of content to share, you must choose the dates and time to publish this content in a way that does not make your brand look like spam. If you don’t want your followers to bail out on you, stop posting updates tirelessly.
Pick and choose what to share and only share the content most likely to give you the highest engagement.
…And the best Instagram tool to get followers
From there Growr uses the information to get you people most likely to be interested in your products, services or brand. You use certain industry hashtags, connect to influencers that have a high number of followers and Growr figures out the rest.
What’s more, the tool can help you stay engaged with your audience through its automated liking feature. Within just a few minutes after setting up, you can start receiving real likes and super-targeted Instagram followers.
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