7 Tips to Build an Audience as a New Influencer

If you dream of becoming an influencer, growing your audience is one of the toughest challenges you’ll face. How do you become a social media somebody? How do you get people beyond your family and friends to follow you? Learning how to build an audience as a new influencer takes time and effort, but there are certain things you can do to boost your follower numbers.

Understanding influencer tiers 

One of the main reasons you want to grow your audience is likely to collaborate with brands. 

You’ll need at least 1,000 followers for brands to consider you as a partner. If you can reach 1,000 followers, you’re classified as a nano-influencer. As your audience grows, you move into different influencer tiers, which include: 

• Nano influencer: 1K-10K followers
• Micro influencer: 10K-50K followers
• Mid-tier influencer: 50K-500K followers
• Macro influencer: 500K-1M followers
• Mega influencer: 1M+ followers

As you suspect, higher follower counts often lead to higher compensation for brand endorsements. However, many brands are attracted to nano-influencers because they tend to have more engaged audiences.

Tips to organically grow your audience

As a budding influencer, you might be tempted to buy followers to skip past nano status, but it’s always best to grow your base organically. Here’s how to boost your audience numbers: 

Batch create and schedule content 

To encourage people to follow you, you need a steady stream of content. Rather than working on a daily post, consider setting aside a day to “batch create,” where you produce several pieces of content and schedule them out. 

Tools to help

Scheduling tools like Hootsuite or MeetEdgar can help you schedule content in advance.

Keep your content focused on your niche

As a new influencer, you might be tempted to create a variety of content to cater to different people. While the idea sounds effective, it’s counterproductive. As an influencer, your tailored audience is your biggest asset to a brand. They’re looking for specific audiences, so fight the urge to attract everyone. 

Instead, focus on the niche you’ve chosen. Nano- and travel influencer helloaelita, for example, keeps her Instagram posts focused on places she visits on her year-long trek around Europe, like Monte Lagazuoi:

Use super-specific hashtags

Hashtags make your posts searchable, which can introduce your content to new people. As you brainstorm a list of hashtags, focus on specific keywords. Why? Broad hashtags like #fashion will net many results, and your post will likely get lost in the mix. 

More specific hashtags like #luxuryfashionforkids have fewer results, which increases your chances of being noticed.  

Tools to help

If you need some help generating hashtags, use a tool like TagFinder. You type in a keyword, and it will show you a list of hashtags that are commonly used with it.  

Comment, comment, comment

Your social channel isn’t meant to be a one-way broadcast. Yes, you want to share your wisdom and tips, but you also want to engage with your audience. So, monitor your comments and respond to people as quickly as possible. 

In addition, comment on other content. Start following brands that you’d like to work with or other influencers that are in your niche, and start commenting on their posts. Ask thoughtful questions, share your insight, and propel conversations. 

Comments can grab people’s attention, and in return, they might look you up and follow you. 

Host giveaways or contests

Set up a contest on social to increase your audience. Think of something related to your niche that your audience wants to win. Let’s say you’re a baking influencer, and you just released a new cookbook. You could give away the book and a set of baking pans. 

Design the contest so participants must follow your page and tag three friends. By doing so, your follower count will go up, AND you’ll get introduced to new people. 

Tools to help

Tools like Woorise can help you manage contests should you decide to run them regularly. 

Add video to your channel

Research shows people spend nearly as much time watching user-generated videos on social media as they do watching traditional TV. So, if you’re not already, start creating videos to share with your audience. Even if your niche lends itself to still images, try to sprinkle in videos. 

Nano-influencer its_food_la, for example, posts mouth-watering pictures of new recipes on Instagram, but she also shares a Reel or two that shows people how to make a dish, like this pizza sandwich: 

Create interactive content

Aside from cool snaps and educational videos, add interactive content too. For example, ask your followers to participate in a poll. A travel influencer could poll followers on where to go next, or a home renovation influencer could ask followers to weigh in on kitchen designs. 

You could create quizzes, host a live Q&A, or post fill-in-the-blank statements. You entice more followers to join you when you share interactive content.  

Growing a socially-engaged audience takes time, but if you make efforts to share high-quality, focused content, you’ll see your follower count grow. The tips above can give your numbers a boost too, but remember, it’s important to remain as authentic as possible as you move up the ranks of influencer tiers.