We’ve all done it. Curiosity begs you to seek out your competitors on social media but then you do, and what?! They have over 10k followers?! But how?! What sorcery is this?!

How could they possibly have so many followers when your account is clearly better? First of all, don’t fret. More followers does not always mean better.

Having lots of followers should only give you a sense of pride, accomplishment and credibility when you have manually curated the audience yourself. What we mean to say here is – no bot nonsense. A huge audience is only meaningful if it’s a real audience. It’s about quality over quantity.

Now you’re probably thinking “I didn’t click this link to get a lecture” and you’re right, so let’s get into how you can build a successful, large audience organically.

Stay Consistent

It’s like working out. If you want to see results, you have to keep working out. You need structure. Social media is exactly the same – if you want to gradually build an audience, you have to be consistent with your postings. This is where a social media plan comes in handy. Structure and strategic planning will help your social media empire grow.

Keep Things Fresh

Structure is great, and necessary but over time, you will definitely begin to see what fits in your regimen and what doesn’t. You’ll be able to tell what content is getting actual interactivity and what content is falling flat. This will help you adjust your sails. What you need to do is make sure your structured content is improving. Even in a minor way. At Yelling Mule, we have daily motivational posts, with a consistent layout. We’ve changed our style and design to these quotes over months. The results? More interaction because people know we’re going to post something inspiring every morning and more sleekness with our cleaner, simpler designs.

Try New Things

This is similar to the last point but we can’t emphasis how important it is to keep your account alive and breathing with dashes of creativity. Structure works best with innovation. If you’re innovating, trying new things and elements to your posts – you will see positive results. Be creative! Play with ideas, brainstorm with teammates on how you can improve your content curation, make videos and have fun with it.

Engage Like There’s No Tomorrow

This is the most important piece of advice we could ever give you: engage, engage and then engage some more.

It might sound sad but without bots, engagement is pretty hard. This is where people begin to use bots, but we haven’t resorted to that kind of work yet. Nope, if you ever receive a comment or like from Yelling Mule, it’s genuinely us trying to connect with you. We spend time engaging on Instagram and Twitter on weekdays, weeknights, weekends and holidays. This is seriously one of the most important things you can do. You will see most of your winnings by consistently engaging with your current audience and with people you admire. Why? Well, specifically on Instagram, by skimming your Discover feed or by engaging with your followers – you are making yourself more available but also more visible. The more you engage, the more alive your account becomes. Trust us, and give it a try. Spend a day casually liking and commenting on photos whenever you possibly can. Your follower numbers will slowly begin to increase.

We hope these tips help you grow your audience quickly and organically! What methods have you found most useful in your experience audience building? We’d love to hear what you think works and what doesn’t!

Check out our other posts about Social Media.