A Tale of Two Social Media Networks

While I’ve had an Instagram account for the past year or so, I’ve been largely inactive until only recently. I used to post a random photo here and there and my four followers might like or comment and that was that. Over the past few weeks however, I’ve started to take more initiative with my personal social media presence. One day, after taking an exceptionally interesting photo in my opinion, I thought “I have way more friends on Facebook who would appreciate this.” So when it came time to share the photo I posted it to Facebook as well. After doing this a few times, not only have I gained a whole lot of likes and an ego boost, I’ve also gained about 60 followers in a couple of weeks. And Instagram continues to alert me to Facebook friends who have joined Instagram (in case I wanted to be proactive and reach out to new users in the hopes they will follow me in return).

This concept can be especially useful for brands trying to build an Instagram following. We frequently discuss how people use various social media platforms in different ways and with different intensity, and how different networks attract different demographics (i.e. Twitter and Instagram tend to appeal to younger adults).

Because of this, it is valuable to promote across a variety of social media networks and not put all of our eggs in one basket. That said, the reality is also that many users are on multiple platforms. A 2013 Social Media study by Pew Research Internet Project says that 42% of online adults use multiple social networking sites. So with that in mind, a great place for a company to start prowling for new Instagram followers would be their Facebook fan base – a large group of users who are already familiar with them and have enough interest to like them on Facebook.

All of this only works with quality content. If you take an amazing Instagram photo of a beautiful scenic vista and filter it to perfection, share it across all your social media networks and see if you can hook some new followers. Repeat the process the next time you have something really valuable to share.