A lot of artists and creators I work with find social media daunting. What most people don’t realize is that running social media accounts can be a job unto themselves. For the last few years, I’ve helped clients grow their social media platforms with some basic strategies, and I wanted to share those tactics with you.
Start with One Platform
It can be tempting to start a Facebook page, a Facebook group, a Twitter, and an Instagram account for yourself or your brand all at once, but you will often find that yourself drowning in all the pressure to create content for all those platforms.
Start with one platform that fits your industry well. For example, the educational company I worked with used Facebook because many teachers use that platform. My artist friends tend to use Twitter or Instagram. Most of my comic writing buddies are on Twitter. Figure out where you can network and build an audience and start with that platform first.
You will also want to tailor your content to that platform, which we will discuss in the next section. Once you feel comfortable with your first platform, consider adding on a second social media account.
Create Your Calendar and Batch Your Content
The key to building a social media following is consistency. For clients in the past, I’ve started at the beginning of the month and mapped out content for their platforms. I’ve mapped out the content based on what socials they want to grow. I have even printed off calendars and created color-coded plans to know exactly what to create and when to post it.
You can figure out how often you want to post and what you should be posting by doing a bit of research. If you post too much or too little, it can impact your account negatively on some platforms, so be very careful with that. It can also be seen as spam by your audience if it’s not well thought out.
On average, here is a good rule of thumb for posting on different platforms:
| 3 Posts Weekly | |
| 3-30 Posts Daily | |
| 1-2 Posts Daily | |
| 3-30 Pins Daily | |
| 2 Posts Weekly | |
| YouTube | 1 Video Weekly |
You’ll also want to consider how you want to use hashtags in your posts. Using too many hashtags on some platforms can be seen as spam, but platforms like Instagram use hashtags to help filter content to their users.
For me, I often print off or use a digital calendar to plan out posts for one or more platforms.
Engage with Your Audience
Posting is only half the battle. You have to follow people back, engage with their content, and build relationships to grow your following. If you post a question or something that leads a discussion, make sure to go back and engage with those that respond to you. If you treat social media like a one-way street, it will be more challenging to grow your following.
If engaging with others feels daunting, set a daily goal for engagement. Reply/comment 5-10 times a day, which should only take a few minutes if you do it all in one go. People love to feel seen and valued, so engaging with them is a great way to do just that.
Keep Going
Social media accounts take time to grow. If an account has several thousand followers, you can bet it did not happen overnight. There have been times it felt like I was posting to crickets, but as long as I stuck to it and engaged with those around me, eventually, things started to grow.
The Taming of the Muse 