Once you’ve figured out your niche within social media, you’ll want to find others within the same niche in order to not only grow your community and profile, but bond with like-minded individuals. Thanks to social media, it’s never been easier to find a community that has the same interests you do - no matter how (seemingly) obscure. There’s no better feeling than connecting with those who share the same passion and interests as you do, and you will likely find that they are some of the most supportive people when it comes to the content you share.
Nonetheless, it may require some effort, especially if you’re just starting out. We’ve created four tips that will help you as you navigate this online territory in an effort to find your people - follow these steps below, and you will ingrain yourself in the community you want to be a part of in no time.
Use hashtags:
Hashtags are signals to like-minded individuals that not only does your content exist, but so do you! Thus, it helps your community find you, and vice versa. Not to mention, it can also assist when it comes to engagement, as using hashtags allows your content to be featured among the top posts of any given hashtag (a whole world of possibilities opens up, versus if you choose not to use any). In order to make the most out of hashtags, ensure you’re using ones that identify your content on a wider scale - what is it - as well as some hashtags that get more specific about what’s in your post - and finally, you can also add in some more location and detail-oriented hashtags. You want to choose hashtags that are a mix of small and large, rather than only opting for broad and expansive. For example, if you choose a simple “#art” hashtag on Instagram, there are over 998M posts with the same hashtag - it may prove more helpful then, to use a hashtag that defines your art a bit more, such as “#watercolour” (15.3M posts) or even, “#watercolourart” (1.2M posts). Ultimately, anywhere from 5-15 hashtags should suffice.
Share the love:
Social media is all about being social! In order to find your community you need to spread the love, which in turn, will spread awareness about your account. That means to use those hashtags– after you do a post and you’ve added your chosen hashtags, click on one of them and visit recent posts. These should be your people - those who are in the same niche - and once you engage with their posts by adding meaningful comments, they will be likely to return the love. Choose several hashtags to check each time you post.
Follow like-minded individuals:
This goes hand-in-hand with sharing the love - beyond simply commenting and liking on posts within your community’s oft-used hashtags, take it a step further by hitting the ‘Follow’ button! Don’t be afraid to follow people who do what you want to do, or do something you already are doing/are passionate about - especially if you genuinely love the content they post. When you appreciate their content and follow them, it’ll make it that much easier for you to simply engage with them on a day-to-day basis, and they will be more likely to follow back when they see you engaging with their page so often.
Use the search function:
Social media is becoming more and more agile when it comes to searching for content. Beyond simply finding and using hashtags that identify with your content, go ahead and search using the main keywords associated with your content. See what popular posts come up, and from there, go down the rabbit hole - check out the pages, check out the commenters, not only engage with these pages but see what you can learn from them - what are they doing that appears to be successful and appeals to you and your content?
