10 tips to grow your social media following and promote your blog

Let my preface this post with a disclaimer: when I wrote this post, I was still a newbie blogger myself. I started my blog in May 2016 and then two months later recreated it on WordPress. I’m also part-time. I only wanted to write this because my social growth has been pretty decent. In three months I grew my Twitter from 0-1800+, Instagram from 0-1000+, and Pinterest, well, Pinterest has always been my weakness. 

*note: I made edits four months later to better reflect my current strategy.*

I hope to successfully monetize my blog someday, but my numbers are currently so low I’m not holding my breath. I’m just trying to be steady and enjoy the process. 

These tips are a combination of ideas I’ve gleaned online from other blogs and just things I’ve discovered from my own experience. I hope maybe one or two of these tips can help you grow and promote as well.

 1. Grow your following by following 200-300 people a day on IG and Twitter

I’ve heard negative feedback from other bloggers about people who follow only to unfollow later if they don’t get a follow back. If you don’t want to unfollow that’s fine, but you may end up with a following that is 3-4x your followers. 

The method that works for me is this: I follow 2-300 people or so. Always find another user with the same niche as you and follow their following. I have a copy followers private list on Twitter where I keep users in my niche with decent followings. I have a list in my notes for Instagram. I keep going until I hit another 500 followers, then the next morning I unfollow. I then wait until the next day to start following again. 

2. Use an auto DM

I only have an app that allows me to do this on Twitter. My auto DM looks like this:

I find this is pretty successful in getting people to respond, as well as to follow me and check out my blog. I have a routine that whenever someone responds to this with their info, I try to follow, visit their blog, and tweet posts as soon as possible. 

3. Use a quality app to design your posts

The app I use is called Spark Post and I love it. I try to post 1-2x a day on Instagram, and then I pin those posts on Pinterest as well. 

4. Use a scheduler

I use Hootsuite when doing social media work for my job. I’ll create several days worth of posts and then schedule 2 posts a day for Twitter and Instagram. As I’m creating the posts I’ll simultaneously schedule on my organization’s Facebook page so it publishes somewhat simultaneously. 

5. Always check to make sure you’re following back your target audience

If you don’t, many WILL unfollow you. If they’re not who you’re trying to sell your blog to, it’s not that big of a deal, but you wanna keep the keepers. With Instagram you have to stop because of follower limits, but you should try to on Twitter and Pinterest. 

6. Collaborate on Pinterest boards

Invite others to collaborate on your boards, particularly ones you post your articles to. I have a Glorious Mom Blog board that I post only my articles to, but also a Mom Blog Articles board I invite other mom bloggers to contribute to that includes my pins. I want that one to get enormous. Contact me if you want to collaborate. 

7. Share other bloggers’ stuff

They say your Twitter posts should be 2/3 retweets … Or something like that. The truth is that if you want people tweeting your stuff, you gotta tweet theirs. Plus it’s an easy way to get noticed with more content. When they do retweet your stuff, don’t forget to mention and thank them. 

8. Repin pins of your blog posts at intervals

Have several boards that you pin your blog articles to. This is easy to do especially when you’re collaborating on a bunch of boards. When you pin a new article, repin to a different board every few hours or so. They have pin schedulers that do this for you, but I haven’t discovered any free ones yet. Read my Pinterest post about rocking Pinterest here, creating a great pin here, and more tips here. 

9. Share old posts

If you have time to write a blog post every day, that’s awesome! I don’t. I’m lucky if I get two a week. So sometimes I’ll repost a blog that I had posted the night before on Twitter: “just in case you missed it,” or I’ll put up an older one I think people might like. 

10. Subscribe to other blogs

It not only gets people to think about subscribing to yours, it gives you material to share, and overall promotes goodwill. 

I hope these tips have been helpful! Again, I’m a newbie, so if you have any more tips, let us know!

If this post was helpful to you, you might be interested in 6 Month Blog Traffic and Income Report.