Building followers vs Gaining followers

Building Followers

  • Goal is to increase number of followers
  • Every post should reach x number of likes, comments
  • Projecting only the strong side because want to be perceived as a ‘thought leader’
  • Applying popular social media growth hacks to boost engagement
  • Super focused on the voice, tone, content, grammar etc of the post

Gaining Followers

  • Goal is to share valuable content
  • Every post will not receive the same level of engagement but it’s still important to share
  • Not just shares content but also asks question, talks about vulnerabilities
  • Just genuinely sharing content without worrying about time of day, strategies etc
  • Posting just like how you would talk and acknowledging that there will be mistakes

Don’t look at social media (especially Linkedin) as an alternate version of yourself where you have to project a more “professional” version of yourself. It’s simply an extension of your offline self.

If you have valuable things to say to a colleague, they’re valuable here too. If you don’t, then you probably won’t have anything valuable to say here.

Your goal here isn’t to build followers, it’s an outcome. Just keep saying valuable things you’ll gain them soon enough.

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