4 Follower Growth Tactics to Avoid

It can be tempting to obsess over our follower number and look for anyway to grow! If you’ve fallen into that trap, don’t worry you aren’t alone! Businesses, influencers and even regular account owners can become obsessed with this figure and desperate to see it increase.

That often drives us to look for ways to grow. Specifically, quick ways to grow! 

As a former influencer and now business owner who works to create successful accounts, I’ve seen all the tactics and tried a few of them, so let me tell you a little about some of the most common ones and why you want to avoid them.

4 Follower Growth Tactics to Avoid

ONE: Follow for Follow

This concept is pretty simple, usually other people who are also trying to grow their account agree to follow you, if you will follow them. It seems like a pretty simple way to grow with real people, running active accounts. 

But these people usually aren’t your target market. 

Often they are others in your industry, or maybe they are a completely different industry that you don’t even serve. So while they will follow your account, chances are they will not engage which will hurt your account in the long-run.

Two: Follow/unfollow

This was a really popular tactic several years ago! You could even pay a company to do this on your behalf. The concept is simple. You follow a bunch of accounts that are your target demographic. Wait a couple days to see if they follow you back, If they don’t you unfollow them and then follow a new set. If they do follow you, you’ve gained a new follower - yay! 

The perceived benefit is that those who follow you back are usually interested in your account. They tend to be real people with active accounts - All of which sounds amazing!

But it also can do a lot of damage to your account. I tried it for two weeks back in 2017 to see if it was an effective and authentic growth method. 

And… I hated it! 

During the process I had a ton of accounts in my feed that I had no interest in following, and then the accounts I did want to see were lost in that mess. This ‘system’ can also mean you accidentally follow and unfollow the same people over and over. This happened to me - so much so that someone messaged me to tell me I was an idiot. I also found that the people who followed me in the end were not as engaged as people who found me organically. 

THREE: Purchasing Followers

This is one of the most common offers I get in my DMs. They promise quality follows from real accounts. And while they are ‘real accounts’ in the sense that they exists they are NOT accounts that are actively used by the owner. 

These new accounts following you are are often mass produced, inactive and people far outside your target demographic. 

On the podcast this week I talk a little about how you can tell which accounts have used this tactic by looking at their followers - a helpful tool especially if you are a business looking to partner with an influencer. 

There are a lot of problems with buying followers. First: it’s inauthentic. Second, it hurts your engagement rate, since none of these accounts are going to interact with your content. Third, they aren’t your target demographic. 

All of this will skew the algorithm and hurt your account. If you’ve done this and gained a lot of followers as a result, you would probably be better off starting from scratch than trying to rescue your account.

FOUR: Giveaway pods

Okay I admit I think there is a time and a place for a great giveaway! And it can be an effective way to grow your account. But it can also be an effective way to tank your account.

The giveaway pods seem like a great idea! You partner with a bunch of accounts and offer a significant giveaway. Because the cost is spread over multiple people you can offer a pretty great package for a small investment. In order to be eligible for the giveaway, a person has to follow EVERY account hosting the giveaway. The followers pour in! Admittedly, I did this pretty consistently for a year on my Influencer account, which helped me hit 160,000 followers. 

Sounds amazing, right? 

Honestly, now I wish I had never done it! 

While this isn’t inauthentic because I am not buying followers and each person who followed me chose to do so, it isn’t a great way to grow an engaged following!

People from all over follow you, meaning many will end up not being in your niche, even if you pick a giveaway package that would appeal to your people. 

Many too, get so excited about winning this prize pack that they create additional accounts - which they don’t actively user - except to enter giveaways. 

Others follow for a chance to win and then promptly unfollow as soon as they are not the winner. 

All of these things hurt your account. 

A word about good giveaways:

I think the occasional giveaway can still be an effective way to grow, but it has to be done right. The best way to do this is to partner with a handful of other brands/businesses that target your same demographic - but offer different services. Together you can create a giveaway package that will appeal to your audience. To enter they need to follow the small, hand selected group of co-hosts. Doing this will eliminate all the negative sides I mentioned above!