The media industry has exploded in recent years. This can be attributed to the rapid growth of social networks. Facebook alone has billions of users. Companies are taking advantage of these massive user bases and creating content specifically for social media. Taking advantage of social media is important while looking for a career in the media industry.
The first challenge you will face with social media is growing a following. Getting users who are already following hundreds if not thousands of other accounts on social media to notice you is a daunting task. No one who isn’t already a celebrity can start a social media account and expect to instantly have thousands of followers. In the rest of this blog, I will present some of the strategies used to grow a following on social media.
- Just keep posting
The way social media platform algorithms are set up. The more you post, the more likely people will see your posts. How much you should post varies from platform to platform. On Twitter, users with a larger following are tweeting constantly throughout the day. Popular Instagram Users post around once a day on their feed while also utilizing Instagram’s story feature. While it may feel like you’re just posting to the void if something you post gains a lot of attention on social media, users looking at your profile are more likely to follow you if they see other posts they enjoy.
2. Join the Discussion
Only you know what you’re interested in. Use your strengths. There are people having conversations about almost any topic you could think of almost constantly on social media. Join the conversations that you relate to. This allows you to network with people who share your interests and you might even gain a few followers who share your point of view.
3. Show your talents.
In today’s age, if you want to work in media you can show what talent you possess by posting your work online. Unless your talent is photography don’t just post pictures. If you edit videos post some clips of your work. If you’re a writer, share your blogs or articles. Companies looking to hire you for media are going to look at your social media accounts. Posting content you are proud of that showcases your talents just gives companies another positive point of reference when deciding who to hire.
4. Cross-Promote
If you have a social media post that is gaining traction and drawing attention to your account on one platform, use that attention to grow across all platforms. Links to your other social media accounts should be included in the biography section of all of your accounts. If a clip of a video you created is harboring attention on Twitter, make sure you include a link to the original video on YouTube, and encourage people to like your videos and subscribe to your channel. The more you can grow your social media following, the more people that will see your work.
Following these tips aren’t going to magically make you famous on social media. The content you produce has to be engaging. Even then, part of growing a following on social media will always be getting lucky. You can have engaging content, but if it doesn’t reach the right audience there’s no guarantee of success. Doing these things are a way to expand your reach on social media. As I previously stated, if more people are following you more people will see the things you produce. More people seeing your stuff means you are more likely to find people who enjoy the content you create. By following the advice in this blog you might just find your niche audience on the internet.
My question for this blog is: What talent do you have that you want to share with your internet audience?
Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.