How to get more views on TikTok: 16 essential strategies

The more methods you have to get TikTok views, the better.

Why? Because the more eyes on your TikTok content, the better your chances of growing your reach and engagement.

Building a TikTok marketing strategy means experimenting with new ways to get views.

However, getting those views isn’t a one-size-fits-all affair. You need options based on your brand and audience. Below we dig into 16 different strategies to get more TikTok views.

What is considered a view on TikTok?

Views on TikTok are counted after someone watches at least one second of a video. Even if they scroll away immediately after that, it’s still counted as a view.

For creators monetizing their videos through the TikTok Creator Fund, views only count when someone has watched a video for five seconds or longer. These types of views on TikTok are referred to as “qualified views.”

How much does TikTok pay for each view?

There’s no set rate that TikTok pays per view.

However, TikTok’s own Creator Academy has stated in the past that creators can earn between two and four cents per 1,000 views.

As of this post, the minimum payment threshold for revenue earned through the TikTok Creator Fund is $50.

Should you buy views on TikTok?

Under no circumstances should you ever buy likes, views, followers or any other type of social media metric. TikTok views are no exception.

The numbers might look nice on paper but inflated metrics won’t translate to long-term success. In the end, this may actually harm your business as you violate TikTok’s Terms of Services and Community Guidelines.

Instead, try advertising your content using TikTok Promote or follow our tips for getting more views on TikTok organically. And put that wallet away!

Why views matter on TikTok

Views are a crucial TikTok metric. Views highlight how many times people have seen your videos and signal interest in your content. The more views you get, the more your videos are shown, suggested and shared.

More views on TikTok translates to more opportunities to receive other types of engagement. This includes comments, follows and shares. While your follower count is the most straightforward way to measure an account’s size, your view count—the people actually seeing your videos—matters just as much.

Simply put, you need to learn how to increase TikTok views in order to grow your account, reach a wider audience and positively impact your business’s bottom line.

How to get more views on TikTok: 16 essential strategies

If you’re looking for ways to increase your views on TikTok, we’ve got you covered! Below are sixteen strategies to get more eyes on your videos.

1. Add hashtags to your content

Hashtags exist on nearly every social media platform as a way to categorize, tag and search for content.

Well, TikTok is no different. TikTok hashtags are used similarly—but can also be used for trends and challenges.

Using hashtags in TikTok captions can help even more users discover your content and boost your view count.

However, you need to be strategic about your hashtag use. Make sure you’re using hashtags that are both relevant to your content and are popular, ensuring you can generate some reach from your hashtags.

Here are a few key ways to find the best hashtags for more TikTok views:

• Pay attention to the hashtags your competitors are using
• Use a third-party tool like TikTok Hashtags to find popular tags
• Take advantage of TikTok’s autocomplete features to find hashtags
• Browse through the For You Page to discover trending hashtags
• Search TikTok’s Creative Center to find product-related tags in your industry

Here’s an example of how you can incorporate hashtags into your caption to help boost your videos:

Three to five hashtags seems to be the sweet spot with TikTok hashtags and getting relevant reach. Experiment with different tags and try to keep them consistent with similar topics. This will help the TikTok algorithm understand what you’re posting about and get your content in front of the right audience.

2. Create a multi-part series

If you’ve created a video that’s performed well, use that to your advantage.

Make it a multi-part series by coming up with more content of a similar nature.

For example, the Morning Brew team created a single video translating words into corporate speak. Their audience loved it, so they started creating more of the same types of videos with the same theme and format. The TikTok videos below are part of a series that they were able to build on.

     

TikTok allows users to create playlists that are perfect for putting together a video series. You can even add all of the parts of each series to a list, making it easy for users to view all similar videos within one single feed.

A few ideas for different playlists and content themes include:

• Customer showcases and testimonials
• Product demos and how-tos
• Reaction videos
• Reply videos
• Q&A videos featuring your audience
• “Tip of the week” videos

All of the above provide opportunities to both educate and entertain viewers. Given how much TikTok leans into the concept of “edutainment,” this strategy can be an effective way to get more TikTok views. If you find that a series gets traction, it makes sense to continue your momentum and make similar content.

3. Include popular music and trending audio

When in doubt, use popular music and sound clips within your video content. If someone likes the music clip, they can click on the spinning album in the bottom right corner to view more videos that use it, potentially leading them to discover your content.

TikTok now makes it easy to search for trending audio for your videos, including royalty-free songs and audio that’s cleared for commercial use.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to do a TikTok dance or anything controversial. Just a bit of creativity can help you incorporate trending sound bytes into your videos to get more TikTok views.

Leveraging trending music and audio is an easy way for brands to boost their reach and potentially get picked up on the TikTok FYP. The key is using music that makes sense for your content and not forcing yourself onto a trend.

4. Follow viral TikTok trends

Speaking of trends!

TikTok is all about following viral trends and they’re a great way to get more reach. Thankfully, there are many different types of trends to choose from. This includes dances, challenges, memes and more.

There are also truly organic events like the “Demure” trend that took over TikTok a few months back. Brands, influencers and everyday creators alike got in on it and got massive reach as a result. This example highlights again how you can use trending TikTok audio to get more views.

One of the best ways to gain an understanding of viral trends on TikTok is to spend a good bit of time simply consuming content on the platform.

Take a look at competitors and other brand accounts, but simply scroll for a bit each week as well to make sure you stay up-to-date on new TikTok content ideas. Also, pay close attention to the FYP and what’s trending among your target audience.

Note that content and trends move extremely quickly on TikTok. If you want to integrate these sorts of trendy ideas into your content calendar to get more views, you need to act on them quickly. Think days, not weeks or months.

5. Know your target audience

If you’re wondering why your views are low on TikTok, maybe it’s time to think about why your content isn’t hitting.

Pop quiz: who’s your target audience? Knowing your customers and who you’re trying to reach on TikTok can help you to create content that they want to see.

When you create content that your target audience actually enjoys, they’re going to be more likely to engage with it, share it with their friends and follow your account.

And all of the above leads to even more views.

Start by creating a customer persona. Put together a profile of exactly who you’re trying to reach—especially when you use social media data to do so. This can give you an understanding of which types of content each persona would be interested in consuming.

For example, are your customers looking at reviews? Are they looking up answers to questions or specific pain points? This is where doing research related to TikTok keywords can be a huge help, especially as the platform leans more and more into its search features.

TikTok’s keyphrase autocomplete can give you a ton of ideas related to your industry and customer pain points to create content that not only gets views but also ranks for keywords.

Next, analyze your competitors. What are they posting? Better yet, which of their posts gets the most views and engagement? How can you incorporate similar strategies with your audiences?

Then, start creating! Cater your content to your specific audience. And adjust your content strategy based on their reception.

6. Find the best times to post on TikTok

Posting at the right times can also ensure better odds of your audience seeing your content. According to our data, the best times to post on TikTok include:

• Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 9 to 11 a.m., noon, and 2 to 6 p.m.
• Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 6 p.m.
• Fridays from 4 to 6 p.m.

However, these times can change by industry and by brand. Consider also that other variables impact TikTok views and whether the algorithm picks up your content. Rather than stick to one-size-fits-all advice, it’s important to experiment with different publishing frequencies and schedules.

To find your own best times to post, pay attention to your TikTok analytics and when your audience is most likely to be online. Then, schedule your TikTok posts accordingly.

7. Cross-promote your videos

Rather than look for some sort of TikTok view trick, consider how a bit of cross-promotion can go a long way.

For starters, share your TikTok videos on other platforms to further spread the word. You can easily share them on Instagram Stories, or you can repurpose TikTok videos as Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.

Consider also sharing links to your TikTok videos on X (formerly known as Twitter) to cast a wider net.

Beyond that, don’t be shy about promoting your TikTok presence across additional channels. Consider where else you can promote your TikTok presence and videos, such as your marketing emails or even product pages.

8. Create videos from TikTok comments

If someone comments on a video with a question, you can reply to it as a text comment or respond with a new TikTok video. Doing the latter creates a link from the new video to the old.

Those interested in seeing what the comment stemmed from will then go watch the original video, netting you even more views.

As you can see in this brand example, you can use this tactic as a way to announce or highlight products you’re promoting. The social team used this comment to showcase the product’s aesthetics in a way that got solid views and was likewise entertaining to the brand’s audience.

Note that you can couple this strategy with other tactics to get more views on TikTok. For example, you could make a full-blown series where you reply to customers or answer questions regularly. The bonus of using comments as content is that it naturally drives discussion and therefore more engagement and interactions, which drive views on your TikTok content.

9. Duet and stitch popular videos

Another way to create new TikTok videos is by dueting or stitching an existing TikTok video. A stitch plays part of an existing video before you take over with your own recorded video. It’s a great way to add additional context or commentary to someone else’s video.

A duet places your video alongside an existing video. This is perfect for reacting to another video, like OREO did by reacting to a creator’s video featuring their cookies.

Incorporating duet and stitch videos into your strategy can be a great way to generate more views—especially if you use videos from well-known creators. Like other tactics, it’s important to make sure you’re replying to relevant videos and not just trying to piggyback on trends for the sake of it.

10. Work with influencers and UGC creators

Speaking of well-known creators, partnering with them as part of your influencer marketing strategy can be a great way to reach an even wider audience on TikTok.

If users see a familiar face, such as a social media influencer, athlete or celebrity, they’re likely to stick around and watch, share and follow your content.

Similarly, if you have influencers create content featuring your brand on their own channels, their viewers may tap over to your profile and start watching some of your videos.

If you already incorporate influencer or user-generated content into your TikTok strategy, you’re on the right track. Pro-tip: you can drive engagement and views further by tagging creators in your content like in the post below. This goes goes hand-in-hand with permitting creators to promote their videos but also increases the chances for creators to cross-promote your content to their own audiences. It’s a win-win!

Consider that simply featuring real people in your content is a proven way to boost views as content with people gets more engagement, especially on TikTok. This is why many brands incorporate in-house employees or UGC creators to produce content for their TikTok accounts.

11. Participate in TikTok challenges

There are many different types of TikTok challenges, but the main two types are branded challenges and community challenges. Branded challenges are challenges that relate back to your product or service and that your brand creates to engage your audience. Community challenges are started by creators and TikTok users.

Try creating a unique branded challenge for your audience to participate in to see how much reach you can generate. Or, keep an eye out for community challenges that make sense for your brand or product to join. TikTok challenges can do wonders for your reach.

12. Create a lot of content

TikTok still says to post 1-4 times/day. If you want to keep up the momentum and grow your account, it’s a good idea to share as much content as often as you can.

Consider batch-creating content so that you have a lot to share for a week or two before you need to create more. Post daily at a minimum—more, if you can—to increase the number of views your TikTok account can get. In fact, it may be worth creating a social media content calendar to help plan your TikTok content in advance.

However, keeping up with this sort of content demand can be daunting which speaks to the importance of having a diverse content calendar. While some videos should be planned carefully, not all of them need to be.

By incorporating creators and customers into your strategy and posting off-the-cuff content, you can post more content without doing as much editing. Many of the best brands on TikTok have a wide variety of content on their feeds for a reason.

13. Engage with your community through comments and live streams

TikTok has leaned heavily into its live-streaming features lately. Chances are you’ve seen your share of TikTok LIVE presentations popping up on your feed as a result.

Check out how Stratia Skin does a TikTok LIVE to promote products and engage customers in real time:

Filming a TikTok Live is no small feat and requires a lot of legwork and prep to do effectively. That said, it’s a prime way to make connections with your audience and get closer to them.

Even not doing that, you can use comments to engage people as well. Brands that frequently reply to creators can drive engagement and get more views as a result. Showing customers that you care builds loyalty and long-term viewership.

14. Experiment with new video formats and styles

Experimenting is crucial on TikTok, especially as the algorithm and what ranks in the FYP changes rapidly.

You can’t post the exact same types of content over and over and expect more views. There are plenty of details big and small to play around with for any given video, including:

• Video lengths (sub-15 second vs 30+ seconds vs 1+ minute videos)
• Voiceovers vs no voiceovers
• Music versus trending audio
• Content featuring customers vs brand-generated videos

Another big detail to experiment with is less polished content. Many brands make the mistake of going overboard with editing and making their content feel too produced. Notice that most of the viral TikTok content is raw and off-the-cuff like this example. That’s no coincidence. This detail is even more important for branded accounts that generally get less reach.

You may be surprised at what works and what doesn’t. You’ll never know until you create it. This relates to our previous tip on keeping up a good posting frequency with diverse content.

15. Collaborate with other accounts to reach new audiences

Collaborating with other creators can be a great way to reach a wider audience. This could include people in your industry, other brands, or anyone else who might be a good fit. For example, if you’re attending an event or doing a cross-promotion, it makes sense to get the most out of that partnership.

Check out this celebrity crossover with Airbnb’s TikTok account for inspiration:

Successful collaborations require planning. Think about your partnerships, events, product launches and other opportunities. Then, figure out how to align them with your TikTok content strategy.

16. Leverage TikTok analytics to understand your audience

Your TikTok analytics are a treasure trove of insights to help you understand what videos get the most engagement so you can do more of what works.

You can use hard data to see if long or short videos are more popular, if people watch your videos all the way through, and if hashtags are helping you reach new viewers.

By analyzing all of this information, you can identify trends and optimize your content strategy to get more views. If you find that a specific video-length, topic or format is really successful, it makes sense to keep doing more of it.

Start getting more views on TikTok

Getting more views on TikTok doesn’t happen by accident. You need a strategy and consistency. By following the tips in this article, you can start to see results, especially since many of these strategies complement each other.

And if you need more help, check out our full guide to building and improving your TikTok marketing efforts so you can boost your view count sooner rather than later.

 

The post How to get more views on TikTok: 16 essential strategies appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Prepping your social customer care team for the holiday rush with Sprout

Holiday shoppers no longer line up outside big box stores for the best deals. Instead, they’re turning to social media to find, research and buy gifts. And when their shopping experience falls short, social is where they go to ask questions and share their frustrations.

Sprout Social’s Q4 2024 Pulse Survey shows that 57% of consumers plan to use social media for customer service as often as they did in 2023, with 35% expecting to use it even more. As the peak shopping season approaches, social customer service volumes are set to rise along with holiday demand.

To keep things running smoothly, customer care teams must make the most of all available resources. Luckily, Sprout Social is equipped with tools designed to alleviate the holiday rush while strengthening customer relationships—a gift that keeps on giving well after the holiday season.

‘Tis the season to bolster your customer care strategy. Keep reading to shape your strategy and to find out which Sprout features will set your team and customers up for success during this crucial period of customer service during the holidays.

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Why social needs to be at the center of holiday customer service

Answering customer questions on social sits firmly in the center of the social media and customer care Venn diagram.

Social media is a direct line to your customers. And during the holiday season, their outreach will inevitably increase, further extending social’s crossover into the customer care realm.

Let’s look at three key ways social media must be central to your holiday customer service.

Social is the home of product discovery

“TikTok made me buy it” is more than a catchy phrase. It’s a reflection of the influence social media has on buying behavior—on TikTok and beyond.

Social media is a virtual mall designed for product discovery, social proof and purchasing all in one place—and its popularity is only growing. Nearly half (47%) of all consumers plan to use social more to find holiday gift ideas in 2024.

Influencer recommendations are a top source of inspiration across all age groups—up from a fifth place spot when we last asked consumers in Q4 2023.

This aligns with a broader trend of increasing influencer impact—our 2024 Influencer Marketing Report found that 86% of consumers surveyed make a purchase inspired by an influencer at least once a year.

To stay relevant during the holiday season, customer service must prioritize social media, meeting shoppers at the heart of their gift search. Outfitting your team with the training and customer care social media tools they need boosts customer satisfaction by resolving issues where they’re most active.

Customer outreach on social media will surge during the holiday season

Research shows that brands will experience an uptick in social customer care requests throughout the holidays. Knowing where and how those messages will come in is critical to your seasonal success.

Social users who contact brands on social media overwhelmingly prefer direct messaging. Other popular methods of outreach include posting comments or tagging a company publicly.

Having visibility and access to social is crucial for delivering strong customer service. If customer care teams are only reviewing and responding to email, phone and web form requests, they’re not getting the full picture of holiday-time customer service needs.

Consumers reach out on social during every step of their shopping journey

From inquiring about restocks to posting reviews, customers engage with social media at every stage of their shopping journey.

Social media content sways purchasing decisions for 89% of consumers—promo codes make the biggest impact, followed by content from regular social media users.

And when it comes to contacting brands, consumers do have network preferences. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are the top three platforms consumers expect to use to contact brands during the holiday season. All the more reason your team needs access and, if necessary, training on engaging through these channels.

Remember: A stellar holiday customer service strategy doesn’t just resolve issues—it can turn casual shoppers into loyal customers and enthusiastic advocates. At the same time, a strategy that doesn’t account for social has the power to do the opposite.

8 tips to improve your customer service during the holidays

Holiday-related spikes in support requests can be stressful. But the right process and tools can empower your team to rise to the challenge of providing exceptional holiday-time customer service.

If you want to revisit and revise your team processes before the rush hits, here are eight tips for enhancing your holiday customer service strategy and some ways Sprout can help along the way.

1. Plan ahead

The holidays feel like they start earlier every year. If you’re not planning for the holiday surge—by organizing your team, prepping your media and solidifying influencer partnerships—you’re risking the chaos of last-minute adjustments.

Avoid the scramble of catching up in a busy season. Plan to ensure smooth sailing before the ‘season’s greetings’ decor goes up.

Consider the other milestones your agents should align with—think: key dates for holiday marketing, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales or the last shipping days for guaranteed holiday delivery, that may lead to a spike in messages.

Planning ahead can mean different things to different businesses. For your team, it may mean securing a budget to hire temporary holiday support staff to boost customer satisfaction (which we’ll get to.) Or creating a dedicated DACI model to align on social customer care. Or talking to the merchandising team about peak sale periods to prepare your agents.

2. Create holiday-specific FAQs

According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 54% of marketers plan to use customer self-service tools like FAQs to scale social customer care. Add holiday-specific FAQs to your site, chatbots (more on that below) or even post captions so customers can find answers themselves.

No matter how many FAQs you provide, you’ll always get repeat questions. Amazon, for example, uses pre-written answers for repeat questions to save time and help its team stay less stressed during peak holiday times like Prime Day.

Creating one source of truth for these quick responses ensures consistency. For example, using the Sprout Asset Library, you can quickly search for and select pre-written answer templates as you respond to a question on social.

And if you want to limit or expand permissions, you can easily adjust who can access the Asset Library within Sprout.

3. Staff up

No matter how early you prepare for the holiday rush, even the best planning can’t replace the need for extra hands on deck. Consider hiring temp or additional staff. For example, Al’s Sporting Goods hires seasonal customer service staff to handle holiday demand and ensure they maintain service quality.

Speed is key. The quicker your new staff can hit the ground running, the smoother your holiday season will be. Ensure you provide training and tools that make onboarding a breeze. For example, Sprout has earned industry recognition as a platform with high ease of use, setup and admin—crucial elements when you need to get new staff into a tool fast. And with features like Cases and Case Management, you can assign and triage messages so your team can respond to every incoming message, without duplicating efforts or losing meaningful customer context in the process. With robust customer service case management strategies and tools, you can further streamline collaboration even as your team scales.

4. Tackle the highest-priority customer questions

Ensuring the highest-priority messages are sorted and answered quickly is crucial. Think: complex issues, urgent product inquiries, complaints or even valuable positive feedback needing acknowledgment.

Sprout’s Sentiment for Messages capability lets you identify and sort messages based on whether they’re positive, negative or neutral and create separate inboxes based on these sentiments. This empowers you to identify opportunities for proactive engagement—especially important for developing deeper audience connections, like in this conversation with Rare Beauty.

Teams managing a high volume of inbound messages should also consider a sophisticated triaging tool, like Sprout Social’s Case Management solution. Its smart automation capabilities remove the manual effort and monotony from assigning and creating cases, ensuring that your care teams can get to work quickly, provide the right level of care and avoid disruptions.

Inbound message tagging is another way to get the most out of Sprout’s Smart Inbox and Case Management solution. An organized tagging strategy helps you create tailored inbox views, ensuring quicker responses and improving your ability to analyze customer interactions once the holiday rush is over.

Make sure all your customer care agents—seasonal or otherwise—are up to speed on your strategy with thorough documentation. If you’re not tagging messages in Sprout already, here are potential use cases to consider:

• Tag by urgency: If your agents are divided by support tiers, tagging messages by urgency can help ensure customers are connected to the right representative quickly.
• Tag by customer concern: Understanding trends in customer questions and complaints (e.g., in relation to specific themes or products) can better prepare you for next year’s holiday season. Use the Cross-Network Tag Performance report (which analyzes recurring themes across customer inquiries) to report on questions by internal Tag.
• Tag by response need: Some messages aren’t actionable. For example, if someone promotes their own services in your replies, you’re better off ignoring it. Tagging non-actionable messages lets your team focus on important customer interactions and helps you more accurately measure your agents’ time to first-response (TTFR) rates.

Use these tagging strategies individually or in combination to streamline customer service response and reporting efforts. By proactively tagging inbound messages and Cases, your team can provide excellent customer service no matter how many messages you receive this holiday season.

5. Use automation and AI

An impressive 81% of marketers say AI has already had a positive impact on their work, according to the Index. And it’s undoubtedly front-of-mind for teams wanting to ensure customer service efficiency this holiday season. When you can’t get an extra headcount to lessen the burden on your team, there are ways you can use AI as an assistant during busy seasons.

Here are two stand-out areas where automation and AI customer service tools can make a difference:

Faster responses

While consumers still feel torn on how brands should use AI, most agree on one use case: using AI to improve customer service. A Q1 2024 Pulse Survey found that almost 74% of consumers agree they’re comfortable with brands using AI to deliver faster customer service on social. There will always be customer questions that go beyond your prepped FAQ answers. And fresh responses take time.

Sprout’s Enhance by AI Assist, for example, uses generative AI to improve your responses to social comments and DMs–tailoring replies by length or the tone you want to convey, like friendly or professional to ensure responses align with your brand voice.

Lean on chatbots

If you’re not already using chatbots to lighten your team’s load, this is your sign to start. And if you are, this is your sign to update them with holiday FAQs like order deadlines and promotional offers to keep responses accurate and reduce wait times as customer inquiries increase.

To address basic holiday customer service questions faster, we recommend using Sprout’s Bot Builder. Sprout’s Bot Builder lets you easily customize rule-based chatbots to handle a variety of holiday inquiries, from order tracking to shipping deadlines

These rule-based chatbots also manage common questions that come through Meta’s Messenger or X (formerly known as Twitter) Direct Messages.

To start, determine what conversations you want your chatbot to handle. If you need help, Sprout comes equipped with a customer care-specific Bot Template, which you can tailor to handle holiday-specific questions, like return policies or gift card information.

6. Give agents the context they need to succeed

To set your team up for success through the holidays, you must provide them with the right information and tools. This also means giving agents the customer context they need, such as recent interactions and order history, to provide personalized service.

If your team has to juggle multiple tools just to handle a single customer message, you’re slowing down response times and frustrating both your team and your customers. Plus, your team may miss important customer history.

Sprout supports social CRM integrations with tools like Salesforce, eliminating the need to bounce between systems. You can access details from each platform in a single interface, so you can get a better understanding of the customer you’re supporting, the issue at hand and what’s been done so far to help.

For example, Sprout’s Salesforce integration helps you use social data for a world-class, omnichannel care experience. It enables your care teams to meet customers where they are vs. sending them to other channels, like a phone line or email.

And now with Sprout’s social data in Salesforce’s internal AI assistant, Agentforce, care agents have message history accessible in a matter of seconds to speed up case resolution time, personalize responses and enhance customers’ overall experience.

An integrated social support strategy can make a major difference when dealing with a high volume of social messages. Connecting Sprout throughout your tech stack paves the way for more exceptional support experiences for your team and customers.

7. Establish collaboration norms

Creating a frustration-free, collaborative environment can look different for everyone, depending on your company’s needs. Before you design a process, you first need to evaluate existing and potential points of friction to address them proactively.

If you’re new to prioritizing social as a customer care channel, here are some questions to consider:

Who will review responses from seasonal agents and new hires?

Monitoring responses from new agents is time-consuming but necessary at the start of a busy season when quality control is especially important. Establishing a structured message approval process ensures customer interactions meet brand standards, even with new or seasonal agents.

To build an approval process, first identify which agents can be responsible for approving messages. Pair them with newer agents to ensure all replies stay compliant and on brand. As new agents feel more comfortable in their role, they can handle issues without an approver.

Sprout’s Reply Approvals workflow streamlines the process, allowing agents to submit, review and approve responses without interrupting their workflow to boost team efficiency during peak seasons.

You can also create user teams in Sprout to ensure conversations and message comments are fielded to the right people for replies or clarification.

Who should agents go to with questions?

Whether all tough questions go through a single individual or you have point people for specific issues, documenting responsibilities for various topics and ensuring agents know exactly where to direct their questions.

Bonus: Great customer service strategies aren’t built in a vacuum. Use this free social media customer service training deck to align marketing and service teams around a defined set of shared goals.

Get the deck template

To further reduce confusion, use Sprout’s Conversations feature. This centralizes team conversations within the Smart Inbox, so questions can be answered without extra emails or direct messages back and forth.

8. Capture feedback and performance metrics in real-time to constantly improve

To refine your holiday customer service strategy, you must be able to capture real-time feedback and performance metrics to make continuous improvements. Externally, customer feedback surveys are critical to seeing the big picture of how people feel about their service.

Add surveys directly on social platforms like Instagram to capture feedback where customers are most engaged. Using Sprout, it’s easy to configure and implement surveys that measure Customer Satisfaction Score and Net Promoter Score on Instagram, Facebook and X—three major platforms for customer engagement—to gain insight into customer loyalty and satisfaction levels.

Internally, analyzing customer service metrics—like reply time and messages answered—fills in the details behind why customers may feel a certain way about your service by pinpointing bottlenecks.

In Sprout, the Inbox Team Report lets you easily measure team effectiveness and performance—from a bird’s eye view and by individual team members. This report breaks down metrics like median first reply times and unique messages replied to, taking the guesswork out of refining your customer care process so you can head into the holiday season prepared and confident.

‘Tis the season to be efficient: Master your holiday customer service strategy with Sprout Social

A strong holiday customer service strategy has a long-lasting impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty that continues long after decorations have been put away for the season.

The folks on the front line of your brand play a pivotal role in resolving customer concerns and building loyalty that endures. Equipping your team with the right tools ensures they can focus on delivering top-tier service—the kind that drives repeat engagement, clicks and purchases.

Luckily, Sprout can keep your customer care team in good spirits well into the new year. Get started with a free 30-day trial and spread holiday cheer, empowering your team to delight customers all season long with exceptional customer service during the holidays.

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How and why you need to track brand mentions across networks

Brand mentions on social media are the new word of mouth. They give more visibility into opportunities for brand amplification, but also reveal potential risks and crises, making them a key aspect of social media listening. Businesses use social listening to keep their ear to the ground so they can better understand their audience, monitor brand reputation, trendspot, stay atop of conversations and conduct competitor analysis.

In this article, we’ll define the different types of brand mentions and show you how to monitor them. Plus, we’ll share tips for tracking and increasing brand mentions so you can feel empowered to make informed decisions, build stronger audience relationships and improve your brand reputation.

What are brand mentions?

A brand mention is any reference to your brand’s name, products and services on a blog, website, news article, forum, social media post and other digital channels. Brand mentions can be direct and indirect.

Types of brand mentions

Here’s an overview of the different types of brand mentions across social and other forms of media.

Direct brand mentions

Direct brand mentions are clear references to your brand and occur when someone uses the brand’s name, logo‌ or another identifiable element in their content. They can involve tags, hyperlinks and @-mentions. In the post below, notice how the user includes two @-mentions to thank the brands, Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty, for hosting an event.

Imagine a celebrity donning your apparel and posting a picture with your brand account tagged—that’s the kind of brand mention that can send your visibility soaring. Responding to this brand mention is a golden chance to boost brand recognition and engage with your audience in an organic way.

Indirect brand mentions

Indirect brand mentions are more subtle. They happen when someone talks about a product, service‌ or event associated with the brand, but they may not use a tag or @-mention. They may not say the brand’s name, but allude to it. For instance, if someone says how much they love the latest Star Wars movie, it would be an indirect brand mention for the Walt Disney Company. In the post below, a user shares an unboxing video showing Fenty Beauty’s 2024 advent calendar. Notice how the user doesn’t tag the brand directly, doesn’t capitalize the brand’s name or use the official name of the product.

Indirect mentions can also include misspellings, slogans without brand names and product-only references. For example, someone saying they prefer iPhones because they enjoy using FaceTime would be an indirect mention.

Social media mentions

Social mentions are likely the ones you’re most familiar with. These are brand mentions on social media networks including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter). An @-mention typically marks them, but they can also be in the form of tags, hashtags, comments or posts. For example, if someone posts about how much they love your new product and tags your company with a branded hashtag or @-mention, that’s a social media mention. Social media mentions can also be indirect, such as someone discussing your brand in a thread. For example, Hyatt Centric Midtown Atlanta tagged the accounts for non-profit Atlanta Pride and AtlannaTonight, a media company, in a post about their partnership for Atlanta Pride Weekend.

Blog mentions

These brand mentions occur when your brand, product, service or even specific content you’ve created is referenced in someone else’s blog post. This could be anything from a brief mention with a hyperlink to an in-depth discussion. For instance, if a food blogger writes about their favorite products and includes your brand in the listicle, that’s a blog mention.

Media mentions

This is a broader brand mention term that encompasses any mention of your business in the media, including both traditional and digital publications. This includes news articles, editorial pieces, TV or radio broadcasts, podcasts, magazines, etc. A newspaper writing an article about your company’s recent production innovations is an example of a media mention. Media mentions can include social media and blog mentions, but they’re not limited to these. For example, Sprout Social data was highlighted in an AdAge article about athlete-influencers.

Reviews and testimonial mentions

These are instances where your brand, products and services are discussed on review platforms like Yelp, Google Reviews or TripAdvisor. For example, if a customer writes a review on OpenTable about their experience with your restaurant, that’s a brand mention on a review site.

Forum and community mentions

These occur when your brand, products or services are mentioned or discussed in online forums or communities used for open discussions and can include sites like Discord, Reddit, Quora and specialized forums (e.g., tech forums, gaming communities). If someone posts a question about your software on a tech forum and other users respond with their experiences, those are considered brand mentions.

Understanding the different types of brand mentions are important because they reflect brand sentiment, or in other words, how and where your brand is perceived.

Why brand mentions are important

Recognizing the importance of brand mentions is key for businesses looking to improve their online visibility and customer relationships. Brand mentions help fuel online reputation monitoring. These unsolicited references can help you gauge brand awareness and customer sentiment, giving you the information you need to make informed decisions and adjust your strategies based on data.

Brand monitoring and awareness

Brand mentions are a powerful tool for measuring brand awareness. If you track and monitor brand mentions, you get a clear picture of your brand’s reach and how well it’s recognized. They have an impact on SERPs because Google recognizes brand mentions as a trust signal and rewards sites that have a strong reputation online. By tracking how often, where and what is said about your brand, you can understand how effective your marketing efforts are and identify growth opportunities to help you allocate more resources. This will also help you optimize your campaigns and maximize your visibility in a competitive environment. Overall, paying attention to brand mentions aids with determining awareness, along with brand monitoring.

It’s important to note that brand monitoring and social media monitoring are not one in the same, but they do complement each other. ‌​​Social monitoring focuses on social media coverage, while brand monitoring covers social media plus other external places where people are talking about your brand. Brand monitoring combines social monitoring and social listening with other methods of tracking brand mentions on non-social media channels to collect audience insights.

Customer feedback and sentiment analysis

Brand mentions offer a unique opportunity to gather customer feedback through sentiment analysis. Mentions are part of sentiment analysis because all brand mentions are either positive, neutral or negative—regardless of if they are direct or indirect. Brand mentions provide real-time insights that enable businesses to understand how customers perceive their brand, products and services. By comprehending the content and sentiment of brand mentions, companies can glean valuable insights into their customers’ perceptions and preferences. Positive mentions signify customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and advocacy, while negative mentions reveal issues, dissatisfaction or unmet expectations. This information can help your team make informed decisions about product development, marketing and customer service strategies.

Strengthen customer care

By keeping an ear to the ground, you can swiftly respond to praise and criticism, demonstrating your brand’s attentiveness and commitment to customer satisfaction. Addressing concerns raised in negative mentions, companies can demonstrate responsiveness, rectify issues and strengthen customer relationships. For instance, if a surge of negative mentions is detected, social and care teams can promptly address the underlying issues to turn the tide. If you track brand mentions, you can engage in real-time conversations and interactions with your customers. This proactive approach to social listening enables you to respond to customer inquiries, address concerns and build stronger, loyal relationships.

Competitor analysis

Brand mentions support competitor analysis by providing insights into public perception of your industry contenders, helping identify market gaps and opportunities, and allowing for comparative analysis of brand visibility and sentiment. They also offer real-time updates on competitors’ activities and can highlight customer preferences, enabling businesses to strategically position their offerings. Additionally, monitoring competitor brand mentions can uncover crisis management strategies and areas where competitors may be faltering, presenting opportunities for differentiation.

How to monitor brand mentions

By being proactive in tracking brand mentions, you can stay ahead of the curve and respond to feedback quickly and effectively. There are several techniques you can use to monitor brand mentions.

Manually search brand mentions

One effective method for tracking brand mentions is to manually search social media and websites for relevant keywords. This includes major networks like Facebook, Instagram and X, along with popular forums and review sites. By regularly checking these, you can identify brand mentions and engage in conversations with customers.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free tool that can help you save time manually tracking mentions. You can create alerts for your brand name and other relevant keywords. Once you set the cadence for alerts, you’ll get email notifications each time a brand mention appears in search results, simplifying the process of tracking and monitoring brand mentions.

Social listening and monitoring tools

You can monitor brand mentions manually, but we recommend using a social listening or monitoring tool like Sprout to automate the process. Sprout is a powerful tool for monitoring and tracking brand mentions across various platforms. Here’s how you can use it to stay on top of conversations about your brand:

• Social Listening: Set up Sprout Social’s Listening solution to track mentions of your brand name, product names and relevant hashtags across social media, including X, Instagram, Facebook and more. This will help you capture direct mentions (like @-mentions) and indirect mentions (where your brand is discussed but not tagged).
• Custom queries: Create custom queries to monitor specific keywords, phrases or even competitor brands. This enables you to tailor your listening to capture the most relevant conversations.
• Sentiment analysis: Sprout analyzes the sentiment behind brand mentions, helping you understand whether the conversations around your brand are positive, negative or neutral. This can provide valuable insights into customer satisfaction and potential issues.
• Real-time alerts: Set up alerts to receive notifications whenever there’s a significant spike in brand mentions or negative sentiment to respond quickly to emerging issues or capitalize on positive trends.
• Engagement: Sprout’s Smart Inbox enables you to view and respond to brand mentions directly on the platform. This is crucial for engaging with customers, addressing concerns and building relationships—it also eliminates the need to respond natively and toggling between multiple networks.
• Reporting and analytics: Use Sprout’s Reporting tools to track trends in brand mentions over time, identify peak conversation times and measure the impact of your engagement efforts. This data can inform your social media strategy and help you make data-driven decisions.
• Competitor analysis: Monitor mentions of your competitors to gain insights into their strategies, customer sentiment and market positioning. Identify opportunities to differentiate your brand, fill gaps and improve your offerings.

By combining manual monitoring with automated tools, you can keep a close eye on brand mentions across channels, so you’re always in tune with the market and your customers’ needs and expectations.

Tips for tracking and increasing brand mentions

Tracking brand mentions is a crucial part of measuring the success of your marketing efforts and uncovering valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors. To monitor and increase brand mentions, consider implementing these tips:

• Regularly monitor platforms where your audience is most active: Keep a close eye on social media review sites, forums and industry-specific blogs where your target audience is likely to engage and discuss topics related to your brand.
• Use social listening tools: Automate brand mention tracking with social listening tools like Sprout. These robust tools offer comprehensive monitoring and analytics. You can get real-time data, filter mentions by sentiment and track keywords and hashtags so you can gain more insights into your brand’s digital footprint and customer interactions.
• Encourage user-generated content: Encourage your customers and followers to actively share their experiences, reviews and opinions about your brand by promoting user-generated content (UGC) campaigns. UGC increases brand mentions while building credibility and community with your target audience. Consider organizing contests, giveaways or challenges to incentivize customers to share their UGC and amplify your brand’s reach.
• Engage with your audience: Respond to brand mentions promptly and thoughtfully. Engaging with your audience shows you value their opinions—whether it’s positive or negative—and nurtures customer relationships.
• Collaborate with influencers and industry thought leaders: Form partnerships with industry experts, leaders, journalists and media professionals to increase your brand mentions and expand your reach. Collaborate with influencers who share your brand’s values and target audience to create sponsored posts, reviews or product demonstrations that showcase the benefits of your brand and encourage their followers to engage.
• Optimize your website and create content for search engines: Make sure your website is optimized for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords, updating meta tags and descriptions and creating engaging content that speaks to your audience. By boosting your search engine rankings, you’re more likely to have your brand mentioned in online conversations, articles and others’ blog posts. Create blogs and social media content about your brand’s story, products and services to build awareness and provide value to your target audience.

Use brand mentions to prove your social ROI

By monitoring brand mentions, you can gain immediate feedback on customer perceptions and market trends. Whether you use manually or automated brand mention tracking, taking a proactive approach enables you to adapt quickly to market demands, boosting customer satisfaction and driving revenue growth. See our social listening ROI guide to help you further maximize your investment in social media marketing.

The post How and why you need to track brand mentions across networks appeared first on Sprout Social.

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7 X/Twitter analytics tools to amplify your strategy

You’re putting in the hours on X (formerly Twitter)—creating posts, engaging with followers and pushing your brand’s message. But without the right tools, it’s hard to know if all that effort is moving the needle.

Twitter’s built-in analytics provide basic metrics such as follower counts and impressions. Third-party analytics tools give you deeper data—the kind that reveals what’s really working, where you can optimize and, most importantly, how your Twitter strategy impacts your overall business goals.

In this article, we’ll explore why you need a Twitter analytics tool and list seven third-party X/Twitter analytics tools designed to help you track and improve performance.

Why do you need an X/Twitter analytics tool?

An X/Twitter analytics tool optimizes your social media strategy by providing detailed insights into content performance, audience behavior and competitive positioning. It enables you to understand what’s working and what’s not, adapt your messaging and stay ahead of competitors.

Here’s exactly how it helps.

Identify top-performing content

Knowing which posts in your Twitter marketing strategy resonate most with your audience helps refine your strategy and allows you to continually build on what works. With an X/Twitter analytics tool, you can easily pinpoint posts with high engagement metrics like reshares and build on those insights to replicate success.

Understand audience demographics

Insight into your audience’s age, location and interests helps you tailor your messaging. This deeper understanding of who’s engaging with your content lets you create campaigns that directly address their interests and boost conversion rates. This could be through more targeted ads or curated content that speaks to their needs.

Track brand sentiment

Customer sentiment analysis helps you gauge how people feel about your brand in real time. Tracking brand sentiment allows you to amplify positive feedback or address complaints swiftly, preventing them from escalating and maintaining your brand’s reputation.

Measure campaign performance

Analytics tools help you analyze your own strategies—whether it’s engagement rates, content themes or audience interaction patterns. These tools also give you a clear picture of social media ROI and the insights needed to optimize future campaigns.

Monitor competitors

Stay ahead of your top competitors by analyzing their strategies with X/Twitter analytics tools. Competitive monitoring tracks competitor X/Twitter post performance in terms of engagement rates, follower growth and hashtag use. And you understand your competitors’ overall share of voice, compared to your organization’s, on the topics that matter to your brand.

7 best X/Twitter analytics tools

We’ve evaluated several tools based on features, usability and the depth of insights they provide. Here are some of the best X/Twitter analytics tools.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social delivers in-depth insights into account performance, audience engagement and content effectiveness across multiple X/Twitter profiles.

Analyze key metrics such as impressions, engagements and follower demographics to refine audience targeting and optimize your X/Twitter content strategy alongside other networks. Plus, identify your best-performing posts and conduct a competitive analysis to see how you stack up against industry leaders. These X/Twitter insights give you a detailed look at what your audience likes, how they engage and when they’re most active—so you can tweak your strategy for maximum punch.

Sprout’s Premium Analytics further enables you to select metrics that align with your X/Twitter goals. Create presentation-ready reports to showcase the impact of your strategies and share insights easily with key stakeholders through shareable links. You can also compare performance across multiple profiles with Sprout’s cross-channel capabilities to get a holistic view of your brand’s X/Twitter presence.

In addition to these X/Twitter-specific functions, you get access to a full suite of social media management tools—from publishing and analytics to engagement—to streamline your X/Twitter strategy.

Features:

• An easy-to-use dashboard that offers a unified overview of your platform, including demographics and profile insights
• Hashtag tracking to learn what hashtags your audience is already using to reach and grow your audience
• Summarize by AI that distills complex data into actionable insights, making it easier to understand your X/Twitter performance at a glance
• X/Twitter Listening capabilities to understand audience sentiment and identify advocates and influencers
• Device demographics to inform your content strategy based on how your audience accesses X/Twitter
• Customizable reports on audience growth during your selected reporting period
• Analyze by AI Assist to track metrics, hashtags, keywords, Smart Categories and emojis to uncover major insights
• Several report options to guide your X/Twitter strategy, including:
  • Post Performance Report to identify your best-performing content and analyze engagement metrics
  • X/Twitter Profiles Report for tracking changes in performance over time, including engagements, replies, likes, reposts and audience growth
  • Competitors Report to see how you compare to rivals
  • Paid Performance Report to track ROI from Twitter ads

2. Twitter Analytics

Twitter Analytics is a built-in analytics tool only available to Twitter Premium users.

It’s a useful tool for getting started and providing a snapshot of what’s working on your account—helping you identify quick wins.

To access, head to analytics.twitter.com, or from your regular Twitter feed, click More in the left sidebar, then click Analytics. Here, you get basic insights into your best-performing X/Twitter posts, how your last 28 days compared to the previous period and how much engagement your individual posts get.

Features:

• Monthly highlights that show your top X/Twitter post, mention, followers and other key updates
• Detailed breakdowns of engagement metrics, showing likes, profile clicks, reposts, replies and detail expands
• Average monthly engagement rates, number of replies and reposts

3. SocialPilot

SocialPilot offers social media scheduling, content curation, its own browser extension, help with ads as well as analytics.

Features:

• Automated reporting that generates and delivers daily, weekly or monthly reports
• Custom filters to perform tailored analysis, track performance over time, make historical comparisons and assess goal achievement
• Top Mentions Posts that highlight the number of times your brand gets mentioned
• Most Engaged Followers metric shows you who interacts with your posts, so you can reciprocate or give free products as a thank-you

4. Keyhole

Keyhole is a social media monitoring and analytics tool that helps you track your online presence. In fact, it differs from some of the other tools we’ve already covered because their entire focus is on social listening.

Monitor hashtags, keywords and trends across various platforms in real time to get insights into engagement and sentiment analysis. It also offers cross-platform publishing so you can schedule all your upcoming posts for all your channels (including X/Twitter) from one dashboard.

Features:

• Automated, comprehensive reports that eliminate human error in spreadsheets
• Campaign-specific reporting so you can see how individual social media promotions are performing
• Hashtag reporting to track user-generated content and relevant hashtags your brand is promoting
• Analysis of post types and times that will generate the highest levels of engagement, such as likes, clicks and shares

5. Meltwater

Meltwater provides tools for social media monitoring, media analysis and audience segmentation that help you understand market trends and customer sentiments.

Meltwater is ideal for global brands who want to track multilingual conversations and stay culturally relevant while addressing market-specific trends.

Features:

• Multi-brand search functionality for various research purposes
• Data sources include social media platforms as well as traditional media like radio and TV
• Assisted search feature as an alternative to manual boolean searches
• Data storage covering a 15-month period

6. Fedica & Followerwonk

Fedica and Followerwonk provide powerful tools for detailed social media analysis, especially on X/Twitter.

Fedica brings together publishing, analytics and engagement tools that help you improve your social media strategies across platforms. With the Follower Segmentation tool, you can group followers by different traits to target specific audience segments.

Now part of Fedica, Followerwonk adds features like bio search, user comparison and follower tracking, which helps with competitor analysis and audience insights. Together, these tools help you check the quality of your followers and track engagement.

Features:

• X/Twitter account analysis to find the accounts influencers follow—a way to pinpoint potential customers to interact with
• X/Twitter user comparison to find gaps or overlaps in how your followers line up with your competitors
• Follower growth analysis over a specified period to monitor how your account is expanding
• Audience interest and sentiment analysis to reveal trending topics, concerns or praise among your followers
• X/Twitter engagement dashboard to keep an eye on how your followers are receiving your X posts

7. Brand24

Brand24 helps you monitor and analyze brand mentions across various online platforms, including social media, blogs, news sites and forums.

It uses sentiment analysis to label mentions as positive, negative or neutral to help you understand public perception in real time. The platform’s Brand Reports pinpoint emerging trends and correlations, highlight key mentions and identify key events.

Features:

• Automated sentiment analysis gives you a quick view of public opinion about your brand, helping you react faster to changes in sentiment
• Mentions feed for easy tracking and response to all X/Twitter brand mentions
• Marketing analytics to monitor positive and negative mentions over time
• GPT-powered recommendations to identify growth opportunities and fine-tune your strategy

Evaluate your current X/Twitter marketing strategy and build from there

Ramp up your X/Twitter marketing with the best Twitter analytics tools for auditing your performance. An audit uncovers gaps, optimizes underperforming posts and aligns your content with audience expectations—ensuring your efforts on the platform actually pay off. Select the right platform for your brand and perform an X/Twitter audit so your content connects with your audience and drives meaningful engagement.

The post 7 X/Twitter analytics tools to amplify your strategy appeared first on Sprout Social.

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How to get more followers on Instagram: 5 strategies to grow your audience

Instagram is the foundation of so many brands’ social presence. Instagram marketing has proven to drive traffic, support sales and engage customers.

But if you’re not thrilled with your Instagram growth and engagement, you’re not alone.

Competition on the platform is fierce. And cracking the code of Instagram’s algorithm can be tricky.

However, taking steps to grow your audience is absolutely worth it. That’s because the bigger your audience, the more opportunities to delight your customers.

In this post, you’ll learn about five powerful strategies to tweak your presence and get more followers on Instagram. Let’s break them down.

5 key strategies to get followers on Instagram (for free)

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, this post is about building an organic following.

And yes, the distinction matters!

Some brands want to take shortcuts when it comes to trying to get more Instagram followers. We don’t pretend these pay-for-play sites don’t exist.

But these services aren’t worth it for brands long-term. The Instagram algorithm weeds out low-quality accounts and faux engagement from paid bots.

Growing your audience authentically gets you results that actually matter to your business: brand awareness, revenue and loyal customers.

Read or watch the video below for our best tips on getting more Instagram followers (the right way).

1. Optimize your Instagram account

Before you worry about how to get followers, consider how your Instagram business profile is set up first. Ask yourself:

• Does your profile “look the part?”
• Can your audience easily find it?
• Does it encourage them to take action?

Here’s how you can optimize your Instagram profile for maximum impact.

Choose a professional profile photo

Your profile photo is part of your brand identity on Instagram.

For businesses, a high-quality and appropriately-sized logo is ideal. Any text in your profile picture should be legible on a smartphone screen.

Place keywords in your name, handle and bio

If you want more followers, your profile needs to be discoverable by your target audience.

For starters, add the right keywords to your account. There are three places to focus on here:

• Your username (or handle)
• Your profile name
• Your bio (description)

To have a search-friendly username, stick to either your brand name or whatever’s closest to your existing social handles.

If your name is too long, shorten it to a variation your audience would recognize (ex: Cold Stone Creamery’s account is @coldstone). You can always write the full version in your profile name.

Next is your bio. You can use this space to add keywords related to your niche, industry, products or services. Check out Peach Slices’ Instagram bio as an example.

With these keywords naturally weaved into the description, their account is more likely to pop up for search terms like “k beauty”, “skincare” and “acne”.

Organize stories as highlights

Ever created a killer story that you wish could live on your profile forever? With story highlights, it can.

Highlights are groups of select old (expired) stories. You can organize them by theme or topic, such as Q&As, tips or events — making it easier for people to find relevant stories.

Story highlights are also located at the top of your profile, which makes users more likely to check them first before scrolling down to your posts. Think of them as a curated portfolio that showcases the best of your brand.

Add your location and relevant links

Adding location info pushes your profile higher up in search results for local audiences.

This is especially important for businesses targeting nearby audiences or those wanting to drive more foot traffic to their physical store (e.g. restaurants).

Business accounts can also add multiple links in their bio. This is crucial for turning your followers into meaningful traffic or customers. On Instagram, bio links are your only way to funnel social traffic to your site and promotions.

Linking to your homepage is fine but not always ideal. To encourage more meaningful interactions, add links to specific product pages or even a social landing page that points to multiple links.

This gives your audience total control of how they engage your business next. That means a better experience for your followers.

Showcase your Instagram wherever you can

Don’t be shy about promoting your Instagram if more followers are your goal.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to promoting your ‘gram, either. Here are a few ideas:

• Add social media icons to your website and emails. Social media icons make it easier for people to find your business and help you connect with customers.
• Feature an Instagram feed on your homepage or product pages. Many e-commerce and consumer brands have dedicated UGC feeds on-site (see Sony’s example below).
• Re-share Instagram-specific content or announcements on other social channels. For example, you could talk about an upcoming IG Live via TikTok or Facebook.

Pro tip: Use Sprout Social’s social media scheduling and publishing features to easily plan posts across multiple social media platforms from one dashboard.

2. Develop a solid content strategy

Instagram success doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a clear strategy — one that shows off your brand’s unique side and helps you create content that clicks. When you nail that, engagement goes up, your community gets stronger and new followers roll in.

Let’s dive into the tactics that make this strategy work.

Schedule Instagram posts in advance

There’s no denying that brands are at the mercy of the Instagram algorithm for reach. Still, posting at the right times can still give your posts more visibility. Anything you can do to maximize engagement is a plus.

This speaks to the value of scheduling Instagram content. With Sprout’s newest tools, brands can schedule Stories, Carousels, Reels and Posts.

Scheduling content in advance ensures control and organization. Instagram scheduling tools ultimately help you hit that cadence we mentioned earlier. The ability to crosspost content from other networks helps here, too.

You can also use Sprout’s ViralPost feature to nail down your timing, too. Our platform analyzes your engagement history and identifies the best times to post.

Keep a consistent content calendar

Momentum matters on Instagram. In other words, you likely won’t get followers on Instagram if you post at random.

Creating content and providing value is what builds your audience. Doing so consistently is what helps you keep them.

That’s why sticking to a regular posting schedule is crucial.  In terms of when and how much to post, you don’t have to stick to a set-in-stone number. Most brands post daily or near daily. This tracks our own research on how often to post as well.

For reference, below is a breakdown of the best times to post to Instagram.  “Optimal” engagement is during the mid-to-late morning and early afternoons during the week.

If you’re worried about your posts not getting seen enough, we get it. Consider how features like Stories can get more eyes on your content if it wasn’t seen the first time.

Have a strong brand and Instagram aesthetic

Instagram is home to over 200 million businesses. That’s a lot of competition. To stand out, you need to have a strong, distinguishable brand on the platform.

Maintaining consistency in things like colors, aesthetics and post style can help users remember your brand and recognize your content at a glance. Here’s how Canva does it.

Notice how their story highlights and posts follow a similar, consistent style.

Why does strong branding matter? Because it directly impacts your bottom line. Research from Marq (formerly Lucidchart) shows brand consistency can increase revenue by 10-20%.

Leverage short-form video content

Sprout’s data shows that 66% of consumers want to see more short-form videos from brands. This means Reels should be on your radar.

Reels are fun, snappy and they’re algorithm gold. Think tutorials, product highlights or even quick behind-the-scenes peeks.

And since you only have a few seconds to grab attention, get creative. Use the built-in tools like stickers, cuts, filters, music, voice-overs and transitions to craft trendy, eye-catching Reels.

Cherry on top? These bite-sized videos can easily be cross-promoted on platforms like TikTok, helping you reach new audiences and attract more followers.

Post content that followers actually want to see

Easier said than done, we know.

Filters. Captions. Content types. Post times. That doesn’t even scratch the surface.

There are so many variables to consider, right? It doesn’t help that Instagram’s algorithm is fickle. What works for one brand might not work for the next in terms of format and timing.

For example, some brands swear by Carousels. Others are all-in on Reels. Both approaches can work. You’ll quickly find on Instagram that some content gets more likes than others. This is why testing is so important.

Instagram’s native analytics are surprisingly powerful. That said, investing in Instagram analytics tools will take things to the next level.

For example, Sprout makes it easy to benchmark and analyze Instagram content across accounts. Rather than second-guess what’s working and what’s not, our reporting spells it out for you.

Be confident in your content strategy by analyzing those variables we mentioned earlier.

And if you’re unsure where to start, try analyzing your competitors. A staggering 90% of brands say that social media data helps them keep up with competing social accounts.

You obviously shouldn’t copycat your competitors. That said, you can take notes on what they’re doing or posting that drives engagement.  Sprout’s Instagram Competitors report can provide a breakdown of what’s working in your industry. A little competitive research can go a long way.

Oh, and keep your ear to the ground with new Instagram trends. That way you won’t miss out on platform-wide opportunities to hop on trending content formats.

Go live on Instagram

Host Instagram Live sessions to interact with your audience directly. This helps foster real-time engagement and build a sense of community.

For example, you could host virtual events like product launches, show quick tutorials or simply have candid chats and Q&A sessions. If you’re an e-commerce store, users can even shop your products in real-time.

Plus, you can share these Live streams as stories that last for 24 hours, allowing followers who missed out to catch up later.

3. Engage with your audience and build relationships

When you make your Instagram followers happy, you’ll see the payoff in audience growth. The best Instagram accounts have fans and communities (hint: not just followers).

For many accounts, this means building customer relationships.

Here are some ways to engage with your audience and build relationships.

Create content that highlights your brand’s personality

Content that highlights your personality and the humans behind your brand can help you connect with your audience on a deeper level. This includes:

• Inspirational content
• Humorous content
• Re-sharing UGC with unique captions
• Storytelling posts
• Behind-the-scenes photos and videos
• Posts that raise awareness for social causes

Also, make sure your content aligns with your brand voice and values. Avoid coming across as needy, solely sales-driven or robotic at all costs.

Make meaningful conversation with your audience

Food for thought: 60% of marketers use Instagram as a service channel.

The platform is perfect for going back and forth with followers. Likewise, many popular Instagram post ideas center around asking questions and engaging in a dialogue for a reason.

Off-the-cuff questions, shipping concerns or praise for products are all fair game from followers. Check out how Cometeer responds to all of the above on their Instagram posts:

Being supportive and responding promptly shows people that you care. This also applies to any brand mentions or direct messages (DMs) you get.

You’d be surprised at how your Instagram followers increase once you start acting more personable. Our Index research shows that 89% of consumers will buy from a brand after following them on social media. Every interaction counts.

Again, try to respond to as many questions, messages, mentions or comments as possible. Doing so could make or break someone becoming a long-term follower or a customer.

Engage with customers and brand advocates

Figuring out how to get more Instagram followers means engaging your audience.

And one of the best ways to do that is through responding to and republishing their posts.

Enter the power of user-generated content. UGC campaigns build social proof by showing followers you’re invested in them. For example, Drunk Elephant regularly regrams their followers’ posts. They gather content with their #BareWithUs and #DrunkBreak hashtags.

But don’t just wait for UGC to happen — spark it yourself! Encourage your customers to create content by giving them a reason to share.

For example, you could run a Reels contest where followers show off your product in action. Winners could get free merch and a feature on your page.

4. Utilize tags and hashtags

Location tags and hashtags are powerful tools on Instagram. They can help your target audience discover your posts (and profile) faster.

Here’s how to utilize tags to grow your following.

Find hashtags where your followers hang out

Instagram hashtags have been a staple of the platform, like, forever.

That said, they don’t hold as much weight as they used to.

Dumping hashtags into your posts isn’t going to get you any new followers. Especially when there’s so much noise on the platform.

Be proactive by focusing on industry-specific hashtags relevant to your customers. For example, Lashify regularly posts content to the #LashEducation hashtag. Tags are less general and competitive than #beauty. Becoming more visible within these types of tags is meaningful for brands in the right niche.

Understanding how your hashtags perform on Instagram is critical. With Sprout Social’s hashtag analytics tools, you have direct access to in-depth performance and usage data. Figuring out which hashtags to use is just a few taps away.

Use geo-tagging to attract local followers

Instagram brought back location stories last year. But now, users can find them on a map. This feature helps people search for top posts and stories in specific locations, such as a coffee shop or a shopping mall.

And how do you get your content to show up on the map? By tagging the location, of course. Geo-tagging your posts and stories makes your content visible to people in the vicinity or users checking out the place where your photo or video was taken.

Wondering how to tag the location in your Instagram story? Simply use the location sticker and type in the location you want to tag.

5. Collaborate with influencers and other brands

If you want more Instagram followers, consider teaming up with others. Collaborations open doors to new audiences and help you build trust quickly.

Below are two ways to expand your reach with partnerships.

Find and work with influencers in your niche

Influencers have a loyal network of followers who trust their word.

Collaborating with influencers in your niche, especially those with small but highly engaged followings, can amplify your brand’s reach and build credibility.

That said, finding the right influencers to work with can be challenging. There are millions of creators on Instagram, and not everyone aligns with your brand or has an authentic following (hint: they might be bots).

Good news: Tagger by Sprout Social makes this task easy for you. Use smart filters to sort through vetted influencers that match your brand.

You can also check out our free influencer database by industry full of insights to help you plan your next influencer marketing campaign.

Partner with brands that are similar to yours

Strategic brand partnerships can significantly boost your Instagram reach and engagement.

It also gives your content a fresh perspective, making the entire experience fun for everyone involved, including your audience.

Think about what your customers like beyond your products to guide your partnerships. Look for brands that fit those interests but don’t compete directly with you.

Ubereats, for example, partnered up with Blueland (a sustainable home essentials brand) to let people buy the eco-friendly company’s products directly from the Ubereats app.

They created this Instagram Reel as part of their campaign.

When you reach out to potential partners, focus on mutual benefits. Suggest ideas that would help both brands grow.

Ideally, you should start small, like co-hosting an Instagram Live or sharing each other’s content. As you see results, you can build bigger campaigns together (like Ubereats did above).

How to get more Instagram followers (the wrong way!)

Disclaimer: Sprout Social does not endorse purchasing Instagram followers. We don’t recommend services that sell followings or “Likes.”

As the social space becomes more crowded and competitive, brands are willing to take risks for the sake of instant results.

We’ll say it again: brands shouldn’t buy Instagram followers. Nobody should!

Why you shouldn’t buy followers on Instagram

Here are some reasons why buying followers to grow your account is a serious mistake.

Your real followers know what fake followers look like

Social consumers are getting savvier. Privacy concerns and social scammers have made people hyper-aware of weird activity. In short, people today are spam-detectors.

A sudden follower spike is a red flag. Not to mention having bots stink up your account with endless spam followers. This all damages your reputation and keeps you from growing an authentic Instagram following.

Fake followers bring nothing to the table

You’re probably worried about your Instagram metrics and understandably so.

That said, your follower count doesn’t mean much if your “followers” don’t drive engagement. You might look “bigger” at a glance but who cares? Consider how your engagement rate on the platform will suffer if your follower count is inflated.

If nothing else, buying Instagram followers violates TOS

No surprises here.

Consider how Meta has taken direct action against buying engagement in the past. They’ve gone as far as to shut down companies that sell likes. That’s because this practice violates the platform’s terms of service.

How are you growing your Instagram following?

Listen: getting more followers on Instagram isn’t going to happen by accident.

And despite what you might have heard, there’s no silver bullet solution for making it happen.

The strategies above can help you build the foundation for an organic following that actually engages with you. Putting these tips into action is so much easier with a powerful publishing and analytics tool like Sprout.

Want to see our suite of tools in action? Start a free trial today and see for yourself!

The post How to get more followers on Instagram: 5 strategies to grow your audience appeared first on Sprout Social.

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