Social Media requires followers, but how do you build your social media audience? This article will walk you through ten proven methods for increasing your followers across your social media accounts.
- Be consistent. You should aim to post two or three times a week, as an academic you should upload engaging and interesting content on a regular basis. This will help build both a new and recurring audience.
- Know your audience. As an academic your core audience should be other academics and enthusiasts. By using relevant hashtags, you can bring a new audience to your posts. For example, an Astrophysics professor may use the hashtag ‘#SuperNova’ to connect with people interested in this phenomenon.
- Post original and relevant content. New and innovative content always finds a way to the masses and will excite those who see it. This will in turn encourage your followers to share your posts, broadening your social media exposure.
- Actively search for and follow others. Social Media is being used more widely by academics and many have extremely interesting blogs, Twitter accounts or Facebook pages. Make sure to follow and promote your peers posts regularly. By sharing their content and engaging with those in your niche will help expand your social network.
- Link social media accounts to one another. Your audiences may differ on each platform. To make sure that the widest audience sees your post, cross-share your accounts. Usually there is an option on the social media application to share the post to other social media’s.
- Quality over quantity. Make sure your content is thought provoking and interesting. In theory you could be uploading talks, presentations and papers on a daily basis however, by flooding your social media with trivial posts, you will water down your content and make it lose its appeal.
- Tell stories. Instagram, for images, and Blogger, for blog posts, are perfect media’s to tell stories. Continuously posting and writing about an ongoing experiment or project heightens a follower’s engagement.
- Share other peoples content. Re-posting and sharing content from like minded individuals who may or may not have a larger following is another way to attract new followers and spread sciences
- Be relatable. Post videos using 5minofscience, showing your followers that you are not faceless thus making your content more personal and attractive.
- Set goals. Lastly by setting short term but specific goals you will enhance your efficiency on social media. These goals will record your social media activity and whether you are being active enough.