With billions of users across various social media platforms, growing a social media account can be harder than people think.
“It can be hard to grow your social media account depending on the content and dedication,” Je La Boulden, junior psychology and criminology major with over six thousand Instagram followers, said.
A big part of social media is personal branding, which is the way that you portray yourself to others. You can do this by having specific colors, fonts, designs and topics you use throughout your social media.
Does it matter if your content is branded or not? Dr. Nune Grigoryan, assistant professor of communication at Cabrini, believes it does:
“It definitely does matter,” she says. “If you have branded content, it makes your voice more recognizable.”
Senior digital media manager at Cabrini and alum, Emily Rose Rowan, agrees.
“It’s taken me a really long time to grow the Cabrini University account,” Rowan said. “You have to make sure your content stands out because there is so much competition.”
Rowan manages three different Instagram accounts: @cabriniuniversity, @err_photography (her photography page) and her private account. She says that it’s really important to find your niche.
A good tip is to not put too much attention on the analytics, because it could make you more stressed about posting.
“Sometimes I’m like ‘this picture is going to be seen by so many people,’’’ Leigha Sepers, freshman communications and secondary education major, said. “But it got to the point where I thought whatever I’m just going to post what I want and it’ll make me happy and that’s all that matters.”
In some cases, people gain a following for simply their vibrant personality or attractiveness.
“I truthfully do not know how I grew my account,” Boulden said. “I think a lot of people tuned in for my story times that I used to have that were funny, but other than that I have not done much.”
A lot of people want to get famous now, especially on TikTok.
“TikTok is one of the fastest, in terms of growing your account because people usually love short videos,” Grigoryan said. “The algorithm [on TikTok] is a lot more flexible.”
One popular influencer, Kaiti Yoo, who has almost 500,000 Youtube subscribers, considers “a catchy personality, unique editing and content value” as the key factors that led to her success.
“In order to blow up on [Youtube], you need to have at least two of these,” Yoo said in a Youtube video.
Tips ⤵
- Think about what your interests are and how you can incorporate that into your social media accounts.
- Decide what your personal branding is.
- Ask your audience or followers what they like and do not like to receive feedback and constructive criticism.
- Post regularly, keep your content fun, interesting and not repetitive.
- Connect with your audience.
Keep this in mind, Boulden said:
“When you have an abundance of followers, especially on a public page, anyone can see what you post,” Boulden said. “It is just a matter of being mindful and for me I am raw and authentic, but others may like to keep a conservative image.”
Sepers said that maintaning who you are is the most important part of growing your social media account:
“Be yourself. Don’t try to be someone else because transparency is really key.”
