How To Grow Your Social Media Accounts To Make Them Irresistible To Buyers
By Michael Gary Wirth
2021-08-12T04:00:00Z
Flipping social properties can be a lucrative undertaking, but much of the value in these social media accounts comes in the large followings they boast. Anyone can start a social account with a pithy name and put it up for sale, but unless it comes with pre-grown metrics, it probably won’t get much interest from buyers. So how does someone grow a social account enough to make it profitable?
Curate Content
The first and most organic way to institute growth is to use the account. If it’s Twitter, begin tweeting. If on Instagram, share photos. Even if all you tweet and share are quotes and memes, give the account some activity. Then follow some other accounts, like and comment on others’ posts, and become an active member of the community. This is sure to bring steady growth to the social property.
However, the major drawback to this method is just how slow it is. People on social media can be fickle, and unless they see great value in your account, they may be less inclined to hit that follow button. One way to circumvent this, though, would be to have an easily identifiable brand. That will help to make the account more enticing to followers. Make a humor account by sharing funny memes, or concentrate on relationship memes and go for the “couples goals” market. If a stranger is able to look at the content on your social account and get a good idea of what they can expect from the account in the future, they’ll be more likely to follow, which builds the account’s value to a prospective buyer.
Cater To Your Colleagues
Another method to growing the account’s metrics, which works in tandem with the first method, is to take advantage of Follow Back accounts. Many people on social media are concerned with their follower numbers as they equate a larger number with more influence. Whether this is true or not, those people are more likely to follow back an account that follows them in the hopes of retaining that follower. Some of these accounts even broadcast their intentions by using #followback and #teamfollowback in their bio. These types of accounts are perfect for building your own numbers, because you can be sure that as long as you continue to follow them, they will continue following you.
Problems can arise from this method, most specifically in regards to following limits. Twitter, for example, only allows you to follow 400 accounts per day, meaning the highest number of new followers you can gain is 400 per day, and that’s relying on every single person you follow to follow you back. On top of that, accounts can only follow 5,000 other accounts. Once you hit that threshold, you will have to wait for your follower number to increase before you can follow more. So this method, too, can take a very long time to build a social media account that would be attractive to potential buyers.
It Takes Money To Make Money
Given how long these two methods take to build up your account’s metrics, what options are there for flippers who want to build a profitable account in a short amount of time? Well, there’s always buying followers. There are plenty of sites out there to buy followers for all social accounts, like GetInsta and Twicsy for Instagram followers, Twiends for Twitter, and GetViral.io for TikTok followers. Some of these sites, like Twiends, even work for free, providing followers in limited numbers but expanding much wider with paid options. However, this method also comes with its drawbacks, namely the price. If your goal as a flipper is to profit from a social account, buying followers would eat into your profits. While $40 for 3,000 followers seems like a cheap investment for many users, if that account will only net you $50 when it’s flipped, that’s severely limited your profits.
The other drawback to buying followers is a lack of engagement on the account. Many buyers look for accounts with engaged followers, meaning those who like, comment on, and share the content. And while the sites that sell the followers claim they are all real followers, many times that’s simply not true. Even if it was, that doesn’t guarantee engagement. So by virtue of trying to increase the follower numbers, you’ve simply spent money to devalue the account.
Contests, Contests, Contests
Another option to increase followers is to host contests on the account. People love the prospect of winning things online, and contests tend to draw a lot of attention. Plus, they’re easy to host. All you need is a product to give away, either physical or digital, and a well-worded social post. Specify in the terms of the contest that entrants “must follow to qualify to win,” and the account is sure to have an influx of new followers, with possibly hundreds over the course of a couple of days.
Running contests takes some responsibilities, though. On Instagram, for example, there are a number of rules pertaining to contests in the TOS to limit Instagram and Facebook from liability, including outlining the specific dates the contest will run and clearly specifying how the winner will be chosen. Also, you’d need to ensure you follow through with delivery of the prize. Asking people to enter a contest and not awarding the prize is considered fraud and could get your social account banned from the platform. And after all the work you’re putting in to build your social numbers, the last thing you want to happen is have the account get banned.
Ringing In The Growth
One other way to build a social following is not one you’d expect to be successful but somehow works and that’s to create a webring of sorts of private accounts. “Why private accounts?” you ask. “Then other people won’t see the account.” Yes, however, setting an account to private and hiding your content creates an air of exclusivity. It’s like a club that only allows certain people to be involved, like the Masons. People want to know what’s happening inside and are willing to follow to find out.
But by taking it one step further, you can use that account to promote other accounts, all of which are set to private. By showcasing those other accounts, you’re likely to capitalize on your new subscribers there and get new followers. This allows you to build multiple accounts at once, thus increasing their social media value.
During your shoutouts, you can state things like “this account is only accepting the next 500 followers,” which creates scarcity in the user’s mind. This is akin to stores stating they only have ten of a certain product and to “hurry now!” This is a psychological trick that plays on the idea that missing out on something makes people more apt to want it, whether they need it or not.
On top of this, these accounts can then become a stream of income on their own. When your users see the shoutouts for the other accounts, you can leverage your social handle by selling shoutouts for your followers. So what started as merely a promotional tool to build your following can help make an income by itself and may even become more lucrative than selling the account.
Growing a social media account is not always easy, and it could take weeks to reach a point at which it would make for a profitable flip. However, by putting in the time, you’re more likely to secure a more valuable social media account that is attractive to prospective buyers. And the best part about these accounts is that you aren’t limited to doing one at a time. You can invest that time in building multiple accounts at once and increase your profitability.