Kasey's Kitchen: Social Media Growth for Bloggers

Confession: I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I love the idea of social networking and sharing your thoughts and ideas instantaneously however, I hate the “high school”, for lack of a better word, feelings that come with it (I don’t have enough followers, no one liked my picture, wah wah wah). As a blogger, I have become painfully aware as to how important it is to have a strong social following. A major brand has general requirements for the bloggers that they work with and many of those requirements rely heavily on their social impact. It’s a vicious cycle of not being able to work with a brand because your numbers aren't high enough and then not getting your numbers high because you’re not working with brands.

I commend those bloggers who have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media; I would be happy to know their secrets. I feel that a lot has to do with getting in the game early on, maybe a bit of (or a lot) of great content, maybe getting some promotion from brands or big influencers but what about the little guys like me? Blogging is an “elevated hobby” of mine, so I still hold down a 9-5 job and do not have the time to commit to growing my social following the way that I have heard many others do in the past.

Recently, I was approached by a company called SOGRO. They reached out via Instagram and asked if they could email me to tell me about how they could grow my social following. Instantly skeptical about this being a “Buy Followers Now” kind of thing, I did a bit of research, read about the company and the owner (it’s a legit start-up out of Miami) and said, what the heck! After a few emails back and forth with Aaron, the owner, I decided to give SOGRO a try. The plan came with a 10-day free trial so I figured it couldn't hurt.

SOGRO

After registering, SOGRO asked me to fill out a form and tell them what my blog focus was, who my target demographic was, and what hashtags I identified with the most. After I hit submit, they took it from there. In less than one month since I registered, my Instagram account has added 600+ real, authentic, engaging, followers to my account. They are fellow bloggers, foodies, and crafters that have now started to interact with my feed daily. SOGRO is completely honest with how they operate – they follow accounts as you in hopes that those accounts will follow you back. Those who don’t follow you back, they unfollow for you. Does that make sense? So you’ll see an influx of “Following” but that will go up and down as they continue to manage your account.

That's pretty much the key here - You need to follow to be followed. Again, back to the whole high school correlation. You need to get yourself in front of as many potential followers as possible, so start going through your feeds and liking pictures of people you don't know. Jump on a certain hashtag and like those pictures or start following some people who use it. You'll be surprised to see the response! This is the formula for Instagram, but you can see how a similar practice can work just as well for Twitter and Pinterest.

Listen, I was skeptical too. I was worried that my account was going to get hacked or that it would be filled with "bots" that commented “FOLLOW FOR FOLLOW” on every post or something crazy like that, but I was proven wrong. I've even noticed that because I’m now more “active” on Instagram, that I’m getting more followers outside of SOGRO too!

If you’re looking for a more organic way to grow your following, I would highly suggest giving them a try. They work on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. All packages come with a 10-day risk free trial and you can cancel at any time.

It’s pretty much like having a Social Media Intern working for you 24/7. If you’re interested in giving SOGRO a try, you can sign up with my link here – http://bit.ly/KKSoGro