{"id":11477,"date":"2016-08-16T09:17:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T16:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=11477"},"modified":"2016-08-16T10:07:34","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T17:07:34","slug":"get-followers-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/16\/get-followers-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Get More Followers on Social Media?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Yellow Brick Road via Airdiogo\/Flickr<\/a> (Creative Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“How do I get more followers?”
\n“Make gorgeous and\/or useful things that people want to share.”<\/p>\n

After teaching at a conference this weekend, I learned how woefully inadequate this answer is. When an attendee — a woman clearly not a novice — literally rolled her eyes at me, I decided to rethink my answer.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to buy followers if you want numbers. You can buy likes and friends, too. A simple transaction lets you grow your organic follower base (people who joyfully follow you because they are your friend, because they like your work) to Kardashian like numbers overnight. Mitt Romney<\/a> was accused of this during his 2012 Presidential bid. Take heed though; followers do not automatically translate to customers, or in this case, voters.<\/p>\n

There are more useful ways to get more followers but none of them are quick fixes. (Here’s a good write-up from HootSuite.<\/a>) Being an attractive 20 something who looks great in a bikini is a great way to get more followers, though that approach isn’t available to everyone. Shirtless guy with great abs, same drill.<\/p>\n

You can spend time curating your feeds, doing nothing but posting “on brand content”, but a friend who has a significant following says that his Instagram feed “looks like a grade school bulletin board. I got a bunch of followers because people saw my stuff and shared it.”<\/p>\n

\u00a7<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I worked with a project manager who was moving into content strategy. “Sometimes, I feel like my job is to ask ‘why’ until the client punches me in the face,” she said. Or rolls their eyes.<\/p>\n

Here’s how this looks when the conversation is about followers:<\/p>\n

“How do I get more followers?”
\n“Why?”
\n“Because I have something I’m selling.”
\n“I should follow you because you want to sell me something.”
\n“I’m building a platform, I need more followers to prove my value.”
\n“Why?”
\n“So I can sell things, or brands will pay me.”
\n“I should follow you because it’s good for you<\/strong>? That’s why I should follow you?”<\/p>\n

I can count on one hand the number of times this conversation has landed on “You should follow me because I think you’ll really like my stuff.” It’s that rare.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I don’t know how you get more followers or friends or likes<\/strong>. There, I said it. Also, I don’t care how many followers I have, which may be why you’re making money and I’m not. I care about making good things.\u00a0 I share ideas and work I care about and I let the follower question answer itself.<\/p>\n

That’s why I’ve answered that question the same way for so long.<\/p>\n

I’m going to stop doing that. From now on I will respond with another question: Why should I follow you?<\/strong> I’m going to get punched in the face for asking, but it’s a question that deserves a better answer than “Because it’s good for me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My answer is woefully inadequate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":11482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-working","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11477"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11486,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11477\/revisions\/11486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}