Three new ways to grow your social channels
Summary/Overview
To many social media marketers, growth means success. After all, having a growing social media presence means significant influence, increased brand awareness, and genuinely interested eyes on your content.
But like many of the best things in life, growth doesn’t come easy. You need to be patient, resilient, creative, consistent, and not afraid to take some risks.
You also need to put in the work to understand what is popular on social media, who your audience is, and how you can bring value into people’s lives via their social media channels.
To get the scoop on how you can kickstart your social media growth, we spoke to someone who’s already been there done that — and is happy to share her secrets. Katherine Pan, known online as Katliente, is a Twitch Partner, stream advice TikToker, and social content producer.
We recently corresponded with Kat about the strategies she’s used to crack some of the biggest mysteries behind social channel growth. We learned a lot from her practical, inspiring, and thought-provoking insights and we think you will, too.
Social growth through content
Naturally, awesome social media content is one of the biggest drivers of online growth. But there’s more to keep in mind than just creating quality content. Kat begins by reminding us of the importance of watching when you post and not just what you post.
Kat Pan: “It’s important to post more frequently to meet the ideal posting frequencies of each platform (TikTok 3 times a day, Instagram reels 1-2 times a day, YouTube at least 3 times a week). The math checks out: The more you post, the higher chance it will hit in the algorithm and pop off.”
She also stresses the power of hashtags when it comes to pushing your content to the right audience and scoring points with the algorithm.
Kat Pan: “Hashtags flag your video for which categories TikTok and other platforms should push your video to. When the audience lines up with your video, there’s a higher chance the video hits better in the algorithm as well as results in more reach.”
As you might expect, the more visual you can make your content, the better. We all know that visual content is incredibly engaging; the success of TikTok and Instagram speak volumes. Kat’s advice is to keep all content as visual as possible, even for social media platforms that aren’t typically visual channels.
Kat Pan: “Adding visuals helps a lot (especially in X posts). Words can easily be skimmed over, but visuals grab people's attention and draw them into your post for longer.”
Fourth and finally, Kat reminds us to keep adding CTAs (calls-to-action) to your content to encourage action from your audience. It’s easy enough for an audience to enjoy a social media post, and then scroll past without a second thought. Inspiring the audience to engage with the post, on the other hand, is much trickier. It doesn’t always occur to an audience that they should engage with the post or take any other action. Adding CTAs can make all the difference when it comes to your social media metrics.
Kat Pan: “Call to actions are very important to convert ‘eyes’ into action, and getting people to actually hit that subscribe or follow button, as well as directing people to other channels.”
Growth through social channel management
It’s easy to get so wrapped up in content planning that you forget to properly set up your social channels. But it’s so important to have a complete social media profile, not just so your followers understand who they’re following, but also to reap some additional benefits from the social media platforms.
Kat Pan: “Adding keywords to your bio is very helpful! It gives your account a chance to pop-up and get flagged in the algorithm (for example, I have ‘Twitch streamer’ in my bio). Adding a business email in your bio also helps convert sponsorships and get more sponsorships, as well as adding your location (just a country is fine) as some sponsors are limited in which countries they can work with.”
Another secret to faster social media growth is to make a deliberate effort to engage with your social media following. Replying to comments on your content helps to build relationships with your audience, form loyalty, show gratitude to them for engaging with your content, and make them more likely to engage in the future. Engaging with your followers makes engagement from others more likely as well.
Kat Pan: “Responding to comments helps show that you're engaged and care about your community, which leads to a higher chance of people returning to your content.”
Growth tactics by social channel
It’s all well and good to talk about social media growth in a general sense, but when it comes down to tactics, it’s not always one size fits all. Some strategies can work across many platforms, but others are more social channel specific.
As different types of people flock to different social channels, and algorithms differ per platform, it’s important to understand where you need to be altering your approach.
Kat Pan: “For Instagram, you really want to be utilizing reels, as they're pushing that out. Also, Instagram can use up to 30 hashtags, so maximizing the hashtags, using trending sounds in reels, and posting when your followers are most active is the most helpful for growth. Posting one story a day helps convert new followers to long-term followers, as it shows them an insight into your life and makes them care about you more as a creator!
“For Tiktok (I have a 13 page free guide for this), it's posting three times a day, using 3-5 small-medium hashtags, catching people in the first two seconds of the video, using trending sounds, and keeping your videos short (under 15 seconds). It also helps immensely if you hop on trends early.
“For YouTube, make your thumbnails as eye-catching as possible, with bold visuals and minimal text. The title should also be easy-to-digest, and key words should be placed in the beginning of the title (ex. POKIMANE DID WHAT?? vs I can't believe pokimane did this)”
Kat’s advice for social media beginners
We asked Kat if she had any advice for those who are just getting started on social media and looking to quickly grow their channels. Kat’s advice is refreshingly simple: forget the noise and just get started.
Kat Pan: “Just hit post! Sure, there are many analytical things you can do on the backend data side to get the most optimal post but for new creators, just hitting post and getting content out there is the most important thing. You can’t grow as a creator if you don’t post content! I find that when creators get too overwhelmed with the technical stuff in the beginning it starts limiting their creativity. Just be creative, post what you think is fun and you like, and think about the strategy later when you get the hang of posting.”
So, what are you waiting for?
We hope that Kat’s advice has removed some of the intimidation and mystery around social media channel growth. We love Kat’s advice because it fits well into Adobe Express’ mission to make content creation accessible for everyone. Like Kat says, if you have an idea for social media content, simply get started and get posting.
Make use of Adobe Express and our collection of professionally designed templates and assets for social media content, logos, and more. Publish your finished content directly to your social media channels using Content Scheduler within Adobe Express.
Take it from Kat: “Adobe Express helps me make beautiful YouTube thumbnails, pretty graphics (that can easily convert from a 16:9 ratio for X to a vertical IG story) that I use to promote Twitch events that are happening (or other things going on). I also immediately auto-publish my X graphics through there to save time.