If you’re familiar with physics or pushing heavy boxes, you know it’s harder to get things moving. Getting followers for new Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube accounts won’t be any different, but having a plan will make it easier.
Here’s our plan to build your online presence:
- Identify your niche
- Optimize your profile
- Create good content
- Learn to hashtag
- Find collaborators
- Cross-promote
- Engage your followers/subscribers
Identify your niche
It’s so obvious it’s often looked over… What do you want to share? A knowledge, skill, passion, or talent? Start with a niche, like reviewing makeup microbrands or tutorials for a trending markup style/technique, then expand to a broader topic. You’re building your brand/persona, so take your time and pick what works best for your interests and your knowledge, skill, passion, or talent.
Optimize your profile
Your first impression to prospective followers is crucial, so you’ll need a good headshot or easy-to-read logo.
Next, you need to consider your name and username carefully. Only your name and username are searchable on Instagram, so it’s a good idea to add a keyword or emoji (if appropriate).
Bios are the make-or-break moment for new followers/subscribers. The best bios have these four elements:
- Who you are (generally your name and what you’re about)
- USP (Unique Selling Point)
- Social proof, location, or products
- Call to action
The last part of your profile is the link. Send people somewhere for them to take action, for example, a sign-up page, a product page, or a link aggregator if needed.
Create good content
Good content is sharable and meaningful. Content is meaningful when your followers learn something new or visit a place you recommended. Meaningful posts can simply be thought-provoking or induce a laugh. In other words, your content must have value to your followers. Educational, interesting, and insightful content is a great way to get new followers. Shareable content like quotes, interesting tips, statistics, or even memes is a great way for your followers to spread the word about you.
The quality of your content should be the best you can do. And your best should always be improving. Learning about lighting for videos or honing your craft produces better content. Offering your content in different mediums, like live streams, Instagram stories, or YouTube shorts, keeps your content feeling fresh and helps you find new followers.
Learn to hashtag
There are only 2 things you need to know when hashtagging.
- Statistically, 20 is the optimal number
- The best way to choose a hashtag is to copy someone bigger
Don’t copy them verbatim, you don’t want to #CDMX in #Ireland. But stealing #nomadlife and #nomadlifestyle from a fellow digital nomad is totally fair game. Just review the hashtags before you post.
Find collaborators
Collaborations can be as simple as retweeting and as complex as a joint video. Collabs provide social proof, peer validation, and better content. Both collaborators benefit from getting new eyeballs on their content. Many people, especially on YouTube, outright say they want to do collabs, so all you have to do is ask.
Cross-promote
Don’t neglect your different social media channels or your website. Make it easy for your YouTube subscribers to become your Instagram followers and vice versa.
Engage your followers/subscribers
One reason to be engaging is to build a core group of fans/followers/subscribers…your base. Plus, the comments, likes, shares, etc., give you a better ranking in the algorithm. The follower or subscriber count is the big headline, but you need a good foundation to get big.
Another way you can engage with your followers or subscribers is Yodl. It’s an all-in-one booking, 1:1 video chat, and payment platform for creators to sell their skills or knowledge to their followers and subscribers. Yodl is a unique way for subscribers and followers to financially support the channels they love through 1:1 video chats.
