How To Get More Followers With 21 Ways That Will Boost Your Social Media Traffic

How on earth do they do it? How do your favorite brands, bloggers, and personalities get more followers that seem to be raging, shout-it-from-the-rooftops fans?

It feels like social media followers just flock to these people, naturally, with no effort from them whatsoever. And all the while, you’re here, working your backside off, just to pick up a follow or a like or a mention from someone.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

But today, that frustration is going to melt away. You’re about to learn how to get more followers on your social networks in a very scientific way. And you’re going to unlock those “industry secrets” that are going to skyrocket you to more people, better conversions, and better customer experiences.

Here we go…

1. Post After Lunch to Reach More People

Research from Chartbeat shows 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. is the optimal time to share on social media, with social traffic being at its highest in the late afternoon:

While there is still mileage in posting through the morning (more on that next), schedule the updates you want to convert most with, like blog posts, in this time window.
2. Find The Best Times For You To Share To Social Media

It’s a generality to say that posting in the afternoon is the best way to grow your audience. But there are better times to post on social media than others.

To find out when your own audience is active on social networks, grab this Google Analytics custom report we custom-built for you with love from CoSchedule. :)

It’ll tell you when your current audience is clicking through to read your content. That will help you understand what your most popular social networks are so you can use your time more effectively. You’ll be able to share your content even smarter.

So let’s use your own data to strategically choose the best times to share. First, choose the blog you’d like to apply the report to:

That report doesn’t look like much at first, but right off the bat you’ll see which networks are your most popular ones:

When you click through to see the data for each network, you’ll see the best days to post on that network. Take it one step further and click through on those days, you’ll see the best times to post on that network, too.

That Google Analytics custom report will work with your own data that comesdirectly from your audience. Use it to schedule your social messages at the best times to increase your traffic and opportunity to get more re-shares that could help you get more followers.
3. Share More Often To Get More Followers

The folks over at Beevolve recently posed the question: If you tweet more, will you get more followers?

And, well, the short answer is yes:

The more you share, the more followers you will get. But as the boffins over at Buffer noted, this could be for a few reasons:

1. You become more practiced and effective at tweeting.
2. You’re more active and can interact with more people.
3. You have a larger volume of valuable tweets for people to interact with.

But while it’s not clear whether this is correlation or causation, it doesn’t really matter. Tweeting more will increase the amount of followers you have in one way or another.

Just be sure you’re not only updating about yourself…

4. Inform For 2x More Followers

In the world of social media, you’re unknowingly categorized into two separate camps:

1. Meformers: People who talk only about themselves. Like your friend Dan and his incessant lunch updates.
2. Informers: People who bring value to the table.

The updates of a meformer are inward looking and have more of the feel of a broadcast:

While an informer shares outward-looking, valuable information—a little like this. 

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Now there is nothing wrong with being a meformer. It’s fine to do that for your friends and family on your personal accounts, like the other 80% of meformers out there.

However, if you do want to get more followers, Rutgers university found that informers have 2x more followers because their updates and content are of value to the reader.

Think of it a little in the terms of blogging. You wouldn’t write a post where you only say, I or me all the way through it. And you’re probably not going to tell them about your cousin’s latest drunken mishap either.

So focus on curating valuable, outward-facing social messages with a personal touch.
5. Be Positive, Always

Being quintessentially British, this is a bitter pill for me to swallow. But, the data doesn’t lie. Dan Zarrella’s research found that the more negative remarks you make, the fewer followers you’ll get:

Not only does positivity help you get more followers, Neil Patel also analyzed data that suggests people are much more likely to share positive content, especially when it connects to these emotions:

1. Curiosity
2. Amazement
3. Interest
4. Astonishment
5. Uncertainty

Get the followers and shares your content deserves by sharing positive social messages.
6. You Have One Hour To Keep A Follower

According to Lithium, 52% of people who Tweet your brand expect you to respond within one hour (even if you’re a solo blogger, you’re a brand). And, if that’s a complaint, it jumps right up to 72%.

If you don’t respond, they’re likely to punish you by either negative word-of-mouth, unfollowing, or other means. While if you do respond in a timely manner:

• 34% are likely to buy more from you.
• 43% are likely to spread positive word of mouth.
• 38% will be more open to your advertisements.
• 42% will share your good work with their friends.

That means not only is responding quickly good for your business now, it’s good for lead generation and the future of getting more followers.
7. Cash In On Daily Trends

While it might not be fitting for your business to share your Man Crush Monday (David Beckham, always), it turns out there is actually an optimal day for everything on social media:

Pinterest research found that different days of the week had different connotations for people. For example, starting the week off on a positive high with fitness and ending with chilled food and crafts.

Your feed might not fit all of these categories. But, there are specifics like quotes or humor you can use no matter your industry:

8. Take Care Of The Little Guy
You want power users to interact with your content. I know every time Jeff Goins likes or comments me on Facebook, I do a little fan-boy giggle.

But the truth, as confirmed by Mention, is that 91% of the people who talk about your brand will have less than 500 followers:

You’ve just seen that responding to the people who mention you can have a big impact on your business and conversion success. So, no matter who gets in touch with you, be sure to acknowledge them.
9. Use Large Twitter Cards For 3x More Interactions

Research from Canva and BuzzSumo found that large Twitter summary cards create 3x more interactions than any other form of card:

While you may not be able to use these for every update because it’s code that has to be embedded into your page, it’s beneficial for:

• Blog posts
• Promotions
• Surveys
• Generation tools
• Sales pages

Where you can display them in a larger, more informative manner, like this one:

To get this card, simply head to this developer page and copy this code:

Head over to your post in WordPress, hit the Text tab, and paste it in at the bottom of your post:

Then edit the sections inside the quotation marks. So, for this post, the code would look like:

<meta name=”twitter:card” content=”summary_large_image”>
<meta name=”twitter:site” content=”@CoSchedule”>
<meta name=”twitter:creator” content=”@j4meswrites”>
<meta name=”twitter:title” content=”Boost Your Followers Using Science”>
<meta name=”twitter:description” content=”Want a scientific way to boost the amount of Social Media followers you have? Look no further…”>
<meta name=”twitter:image” content=”http://coschedule.com/image-for-this-post-example-only”>

Reaching more people will inevitably help you get more followers.
10. Add Images To Facebook Updates For 2.3x More Engagement

The decline in Facebook organic page reach has thrown a big wrench in the engine for social marketers. But, there are still some real glimmers of hope out there.

That same research from Canva and BuzzSumo also found that adding images to your Facebook updates will give you 2.3x more engagement.

Be sure to do this by uploading the image on its own, too. That way, it goes into your Facebook post through the add photo’s function as opposed to being pulled from the code on your post:

11. Use Video To Reach More People

While photo posts are great for engagement, Facebook is slowly taking away the ability to reach more followers. In fact, it now has the lowest organic reach of any type of update, with video getting more than double that reach.

You don’t have to be the one who created that video content, either. You just need to upload it.

Facebook might have been the start, but you can now experiment with video on tons of networks: Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ (well, YouTube) all have ways to use video to reach your audience.
12. Images Are Still King On Twitter, Though

In a study of over 4,000,000 tweets, Stone Temple Consulting found that tweets with images had more than double the retweets and almost double the likes of those that didn’t contain images:

More retweets equals more exposure. More exposure means more engaged followers. That’s a win/win right there.
13. Keep More Followers By Not Bulk Posting

A big part of getting more followers is keeping the ones you’ve already got; but if you’re guilty of bulk posting (I am), that could be problematic.

Research from KAIST university in South Korea found that a big factor for people unfollowing is leaving too many posts at any one time:

The survey participants unfollowed those who left many tweets within a short time, created tweets about uninteresting topics, or tweeted about the mundane details of their lives.

So, take advantage of social scheduling tools like CoSchedule to space out your (exciting) posts across days, weeks, or even months instead of posting multiples at once.
14. Freebies + Offers = Fans + Followers

A survey from Nielsen noted that…

• 52% of people who follow brands do it to learn about offers
• 38% follow to take part in competitions
• 33% do so to get access to freebies

…which is a lot of your follower base. In fact, more than half of them are primed and ready to buy from or engage with you. So take advantage and let them spread the word for you at the same time.

Create a competition or offer that involves retweets and shares, and you’ve got a campaign that will draw attention.
15. The 5 Essential Emotions Of Any Social Campaign

There’s no way around it. The more shares, mentions, likes, and retweets your social campaign gets, the more followers you’re going to pick up along the way.

But, what most social campaigns miss out on is emotion. And by doing that, you miss out on a huge opportunity to get more followers.

The big-wigs at Harvard studied marketing campaigns and the emotions that make them go viral. The results? Each campaign evoked at least one of these five:

• Admiration
• Interest
• Serenity
• Amazement
• Astonishment

You’ll normally find you can combine two or three of these into any social media message. At the least, your headlines or content should create interest.

If you want to see almost all of these encompassed in one sentence, look at this excellent piece of copy from Slavery Footprint:

16. Use The Most Shareable Colors On The Internet 

I recently researched what makes the most shareable images on social media, and there was some fascinating research in there. One of the standouts was this:

Researchers at Georgia Tech studied over 1,000,000 images on Pinterest and discovered that using red, pink and purple in your graphics got you the most shares and interactions. Because, well, they’re deep visceral colours that create emotions like sexual arousal and failure in people.

Try incorporating these colors into your next social media image by making them the focal point of your text, or the main image. The results could shock you.
17. Analyze Your Competitors (And Steal Their Followers)

KissMetrics ran an interesting study about how to steal your competitor’s followers. One of the most interesting aspects of that study—that you can use right now—is approaching their neglected fans.

By running a competitor’s Facebook page through FanPage Karma, you can see an analysis of Facebook trends, habits, and posting schedules. But, more importantly, you can see how that competitor interacts with their audience. And, you’ll see that a lot of pages neglect their fans:

And you’ll find that most of these pages are in the 60%+ for neglecting their fans’ comments. So, you can swoop in by:

• Interacting with these people.
• Providing insights or answers the company isn’t.
• Building a community presence.

Then you can usher them back to your page without having to be all comment-link-spammy about it.

18. Be Authoritative About Who You Are

Most people like authority, it’s just built into them. And, that’s been proven time and time again throughout history. But now it’s also come to the realm of social media.

Dan Zarrella found that people who identify themselves as an authority have many more followers than people who don’t.

So, don’t be humble in your profile. Identify yourself as who you are in the best possible light, just like you would on your resume.

Knowing what you know now about meformers and informers, which of these sounds more appealing?

• Daydreamer, coffee enthusiast and author
• Writer, speaker, and the official author of the CoSchedule Blog

The second one, of course. Because while the other is nice and accessible, the latter lets you make an instant decision on whether someone is worth following.
19. That Being Said, It’s Appearances That Really Matter…

OKCupid discovered that what you write about yourself on their dating site is less than 10% of what someone thinks about you. The other 90% is your profile pictures.

And, that’s not just a stat that applies to dating sites either. It works for social media too.

As Rand Fishkin found, having a brightly colored background on your profile picture can make a big impact on the amount of followers you will get. Buffer’s extensive research into the psychology of profile pictures also validates that, too.

But you might be thinking, “I can’t have a profile picture like that; I’m a business”. For you, a simple logo picture will still be effective.

And you can get creative with it, too, like KLM have done here:

20 Jump On The #Hashtag Bandwagon

As much as you might think hashtags are a little silly, especially when you see them for toothpaste or toilet paper, they’re actually an incredible marketing tool. And, they can help you get more followers much more effectively.

Hashtags are not only a big part of how we use social media; they’ve even started to become part of how you speak. Or, at least those up-to-date on popular lingo.

More importantly, as Linchpin SEO shows, using hashtags can help you get 2x more engagement among other benefits:

And, if you want to take a leaf from Marsha Collier’s book, you can join in the conversation other people are having on your hashtag, like she does with the hashtag #custserv.

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21. Post Milestones To Boost Your Organic Reach

Post Planner picked up on a piece of information from Business Insider and Facebook that could seriously help you boost the amount of people you can reach there.

Apparently, when you use the word, congratulations, more people pick up on your post. But this also appears to have carried on over to other milestones, too, such as:

• Weddings
• Graduations
• Landmark trips
• Babies or birthdays
• Awards

And it doesn’t appear to just be speculation, either.

When I posted a recent update about visiting Machu Picchu, a milestone event in my life, the engagement I got was huge:

That is much more engagement than my standard post at 12 to 20 likes a time. Some of these likes and comments came from people I hadn’t interacted with in years on Facebook, too.

Other travelers, I was with reported getting 200 to 300 more interactions than normal on their Machu Picchu posts also. Post Planner also saw similar results from landmark posts when they looked at the most viral posts from Facebook’s top 50 brands, too.

Now You know How To Get More Followers To Grow Your Traffic 

Okay, you’ve been hit with a lot of data there. But all of it is easy to do and super valuable to help you get more followers on any social media channel.

It doesn’t matter if you’re starting from scratch, or trying to increase your six-figure audience base, all of this data when applied will help you:

1. Reach more people.
2. Convert more people to your content or site.
3. Get more social shares and authority.

Now, the only question that remains is, which one are you going to start with to get more followers?

Let me know in the comments…

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