How To Get More Followers To Grow From 0 to 100 or 1000 to 10K

Way back when, we wrote an article about how to get 50K followers in a month. It took us the better part of 2 years to realise that some of you may be searching for how to get more followers when you’re still at 0 or 10 or 1000.

So, that’s what we share today: ways to get more followers. Because here’s the real deal. It’s hard work to gain more followers on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, pick your poison. Unless, of course, you’re famous.

But, and this is a big one, it can be done.

The most common method to get more followers

The one strategy that every person uses to build their followers is the follow/unfollow hack. We’ve written an entire guide on what it is, how to use it, and whether you should try it. But the gist is this:

You follow, say, 50 people every day. A small percentage of them (about 5 to 10 people) will follow you back. Over time, it builds your audience. So, in a month, you may have 150 to 300 followers. Some creators say it gives fantastic results, particularly on channels like Medium. On others, like Instagram, not so much.

So, be cautioned before you try it.

What more can you do to get more followers?

Search for “get more followers” on Medium, Google, or even our own blog, and you’ll get dozens of results. The summary of most of them is this:

1. Post (and post, post)! Consistency is the weapon, giving your arsenal more firepower. Why? Because the more users see your content, the more familiar they’ll become with you. That familiarity leads to likes, follows, and shares.
2. Have a solid bio (different for each social). It’s the digital version of a handshake. Create a good impression, and more people will tap that “follow” button. Here’s how to write bios.
3. Use the right hashtags (they make you discoverable). Random keywords don’t help. You need to research them and then check if they’re helping. Here’s how.
4. Intentionally design your feed (for platforms like Instagram and Pinterest). People get hooked on pretty, weird, eye-catching, or just thngs that look different. And then they choose to follow your account. Here’s how to create an aesthetically pleasing grid.
5. FLC: follow, like, comment (on other people’s posts). Posting isn’t enough. You need to interact with other users on the platform. Why? Because they reciprocate. If you comment on their YT Shorts, they’re more likely to do so, too.
6. Collaborate with other creators (shoutouts work wonders). Here’s how to do it.

2 uncommon and hard to find tips on how to get more followers

Diligently follow the 6 steps, and you will get more followers, irrespective of whether you start from scratch or already have 37,000 of them. That said, you can always do more to expand your reach.

1. Use Gary Vaynerchuk’s $1.80 method, which basically says:
2. Find the 10 top hashtags in your content niche.
3. Open the top 9 posts within each # and then leave a comment under each.
4. comment has to be more than 4 words (more meaningful, the better).

Gary says each comment is your 2 cents ($0.02). Count all the comments you leave (10 hashtags x 9 posts), and it comes to $1.80. Get the name now?

1. Try guest posting on a site that embeds your social channels into their blogs. Take Buzzfeed. They love to include Instagram posts in their content. So, if you write an article for them, it can help you grow as a creator and reach thousands of more followers. How do you post your content on Buzzfeed? You submit it to the Community section!

How to get followers on Instagram and Twitter?

Since Instagram and Twitter are the most popular social platforms, let’s tackle them now for people who have just created an account and have 0 followers.

Growing from 0 to 100 Instagram followers

1. The first step is to find your friends, family, acquaintances (think school and college mates) and colleagues by adding your list of contacts to Instagram.
2. Link it to Facebook to get more options.
3. Next, browse through the suggestions Instagram gives you.
4. Send them a follow request, and they will follow you back.
5. This is your collection of foundation followers. Now you build upon them.

Growing from 100 to 5000 Instagram followers

Once you have those initial 100-odd followers, it’s time to boost them by interacting with bigger accounts.

1. Find creators or accounts in your niche or adjacent to it who have made it big.
2. Follow them and turn on post notifications.
3. The minute they post, comment on it. Make it relevant to the image/video or the caption.
4. Also, browse through their follower list and follow a few accounts from it.

Getting more followers on Twitter

The appeal of Instagram and YouTube is rooted in the fact that you can experiment with content to grow your account. Twitter is a different beast. Tweeting about different topics makes it harder to get more followers.

Let us paint a picture. Say you are a fitness creator. In a week, you post 2 tweets on fitness, 1 on gardening and 2 on politics. The majority of your tweets in that week had nothing to do with fitness! So why will someone interested in losing weight or a healthier body follow you?

Let’s say if not 20, then 5 people still follow you because 2 out of 5 tweets are about fitness. These 5 people will not engage with the 3 other tweets, and that trains the Twitter algorithm to think that people are not interested in your content. So, it stops showing your tweets in their feeds.

In short, when you tweet about a variety of topics, fewer people see your next tweet, costing you followers. Here’s the right way to create content for Twitter and get more followers.

If you don’t have a lot of followers, use Quote Tweet

When you’re stuck with 26 followers (or a similar smaller number), replying to tweets by bigger accounts will help you more than posting your own tweet. Why? Because it reaches more people and gives your account more exposure.

The rule of thumb is not to quote tweet every account that has 30K followers (or a similar bigger number). Make sure they are talking about your topic, subject or niche.

One rule to rule all rules about getting more followers

Gaining more followers is slow growth. It takes 20 to 30 minutes of work every day for a year to see fantastic results like 3K followers reaching 11K. And this is beside the time you spend on creating content.

So have patience. Don’t buy followers.

That’s the 1 rule to rule them all. Other than that, find a niche and stick to it. Be authentically you, and remember that your number of followers means nadda if they don’t turn into an engaged community.