Creating a large social media following can be very good if you want to grow your brand. Also, having a large audience brings a sense of trust, and it will make it easier for you to convert leads into paid customers. However, there are plenty of companies that try to increase their following artificially via purchasing followers. Needless to say, social media companies have quickly realized that.
In doing so, they found many different ways to ensure that a profile has authentic followers and they don’t artificially inflate their following via using bots. It’s imperative to grow your audience, but it’s always important to stick with organic growth. Authenticity is huge in the online world, and that’s why you want to have organic, real followers.
Why does it matter to have real followers?
That’s the thing: some profiles have bot followers, and those have no engagement. Obviously, social sites will promote and showcase profiles that have very good engagement. Authentic, real followers will always engage with your content, and that’s what you want. You need to have real, organic, authentic, and high-quality followers. Those will make it easier to grow your profile, whereas unnatural or bot followers will drag your profile into the ground.
Plus, if people see lots of engagement for every post, they will start looking into your profile. And realistically, that does inspire trust. It shows people that the content is engaging, interesting, and it sparks a debate. That’s the type of content a lot of people are looking for on social media, so use that to your advantage.
It allows you to stand out
A lot of people will try to surpass others by cheating and using bots or other methods to inflate the follower count. But as we said earlier, it comes down to engagement and not only how many followers you have. That’s why the main focus has to be on creating a great experience for all your followers and keeping them engaged. Obviously, you need authentic followers for that, hence the reason why you should always focus on organic growth.
It allows you to build a real community
Once you start connecting with followers, you always want to keep them excited and post often. Your content should spark a conversation and encourage people to speak their minds. Once you do that, you’ll have that much-needed growth and communication that you rarely see on social media. Plus, a community that trusts its members and treats them fairly will only grow and lead to amazing results down the line.
How can you create an authentic following on social media?
- Establish and stick with your own voice on all social platforms.
- Make sure that you create valuable, high-quality content.
- Engage with the audience, encourage audience-created content, but also reply to comments, and ask people to share your content.
- Start using hashtags; it will help boost your audience size while also introducing new people to your community.
- Harness the platform features; all social platforms have great features that will help you expand and reach new people.
- You can also start creating unique content for each channel. That way, people have a reason to follow you on all social platforms actively. You want to avoid having the same content everywhere.
Conclusion
Making sure that you have authentic followers on social media is crucial for your branding and growth. While it can be difficult to grow on social media, you should always focus on naturally growing your audience and nurturing them. Artificial growth won’t do you any good; if anything, it might be penalized by social platforms. Plus, organic growth comes with higher engagement rates, and it also brings more views and shares!
