How long does it take to grow a social media following organically?

There is no fixed timeline — it depends on your starting point, posting consistency, and how well your content matches what your audience wants to see. Most businesses posting consistently with a clear strategy begin to see meaningful follower growth within three to six months. Accounts that post sporadically or without a clear content direction can stagnate indefinitely regardless of how long they have been active.

Should I buy followers to grow my account faster?

No. Purchased followers are either bots or inactive accounts. They do not engage with your content, which means your engagement rate drops sharply. Platform algorithms read low engagement as a signal that your content is not worth distributing, which actively suppresses your reach. Bought followers also damage your credibility with real potential followers who check your account. The only followers worth having are ones who arrived because they want to see your content.

How many hashtags should I use per post?

Fewer than most people think. On Instagram, three to five highly relevant hashtags now outperform the old tactic of stacking 20–30 generic ones. On LinkedIn, two to four is sufficient. The goal is relevance and discoverability within a specific niche, not volume. A location-specific hashtag combined with one or two industry-specific ones will outperform a wall of broad tags that your post has no realistic chance of surfacing in.

Is video content better than images for growing a following?

Short-form video currently receives preferential distribution on most platforms — Instagram Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn video are all being actively promoted by their respective algorithms. That said, the best-performing content format is the one you can produce consistently and to a decent standard. Inconsistent, low-quality video will underperform consistent, well-composed static content. Start with the format you can sustain, then introduce video when you have the capacity to do it properly.

What is the best time to post on social media?

It varies by platform and audience. As a starting point: LinkedIn performs best on Tuesday to Thursday mornings; Instagram tends to see higher engagement mid-morning and early evening. More importantly, your own platform analytics will tell you when your specific audience is most active — that data is more reliable than any general recommendation. Check your native platform insights and schedule around your audience's actual behaviour, not generic best-practice tables.

Do I need to be on every social media platform?

No — and attempting it without sufficient resource is one of the most common reasons small business social media underperforms. A focused, well-maintained presence on one or two platforms that your audience actually uses will generate better results than a neglected presence across five. Choose based on where your customers spend time, not where you personally prefer to scroll.

How can I grow my social media following? | Bury St Edmunds Marketing

By Aaron Stiff, Founder — Bury St Edmunds Marketing. Published: November 2024 | Updated: April 2026

How to grown an organisation's social media

Growing a social media following is one of the most common questions small business owners ask and one of the most misunderstood. The honest answer is that there is no shortcut. What there is, however, is a repeatable set of principles that consistently produce results when applied with discipline.

Having managed social media accounts for businesses across a range of industries, the patterns below are what we think actually move the needle.

Choose the right platforms before you try to grow

The biggest mistake businesses make is spreading their effort across every available platform simultaneously. Each platform requires a different content format, posting rhythm, and community approach. Attempting all of them at once means doing none of them well.

Start by asking where your audience actually spends time:

LinkedIn is the dominant platform for B2B businesses, professional services, and thought leadership.
Instagram and TikTok suit visual products, hospitality, lifestyle brands, and consumer services.
Facebook remains effective for local businesses targeting community audiences, particularly in smaller towns and regional markets.

Pick one or two platforms and commit to them properly. A well-managed presence on two platforms outperforms a neglected presence on five.

Consistency matters more than frequency

Platform algorithms are designed to reward accounts that post reliably. An account that posts three times a week, every week, without fail will outperform one that posts daily for a fortnight and then goes silent for a month.

Before committing to a posting schedule, be honest about what is sustainable. It is better to post twice a week consistently than to aim for daily and burn out within three weeks. Set a schedule and protect it.

Create content your audience wants to share not just see

Likes are a weak signal. The metrics that actually correlate with follower growth are saves and shares — because those extend your content to audiences beyond your existing followers.

Content that gets saved and shared tends to:

Teach something — a tip, a process, a behind-the-scenes insight, a common mistake and how to avoid it.
Solve a specific problem your audience recognises immediately.
Reflect a perspective that is genuinely distinctive, not a restatement of what everyone else in your industry is already saying.

Before publishing any piece of content, ask: would I share this if I saw it in my feed? If the answer is no, rework it or replace it.

Engage before you broadcast

Many businesses treat social media as a broadcast channel: they post, then wait. Growth does not work that way.

Before you publish your own content each day, spend 10–15 minutes actively engaging with others: comment on posts from people in your target audience, respond to comments you have received, and engage meaningfully with accounts in your industry or local business community.

Platforms measure engagement velocity, meaning how quickly your post receives interaction after it goes live. An account that is actively engaging with others tends to see its own content distributed more widely because the algorithm reads it as an active participant rather than a passive broadcaster.

Use hashtags and keywords with purpose

Hashtags and in-caption keywords are discovery tools, not decoration. The mistake is either ignoring them entirely or adding 30 generic tags that are too competitive to surface your content.

A more effective approach:

Use a mix of broad, niche, and location-specific tags.
For local businesses, location-based hashtags (e.g. #BurySt Edmunds, #SuffolkBusiness) can surface your content to a highly relevant local audience with far less competition than national tags.
On LinkedIn specifically, keywords in your captions affect how your content is indexed and served — treat captions with the same keyword awareness you would a blog post.

Leverage your existing network before chasing new audiences

Your existing audience — customers, email subscribers, website visitors — is the easiest group to convert into social followers, and the most overlooked.

Add social media profile links to your email signature, your website footer, your newsletter, and any printed materials.
If you send a regular email newsletter, include a prompt for subscribers to follow you on your primary platform.
Ask satisfied customers directly. Most people who have had a good experience with a business are willing to follow them but they simply have not been asked.

Collaborate to access new audiences

Solo content creation has a ceiling. Collaborations whether joint posts, guest contributions, or simply tagging a partner business in relevant content expose your account to audiences that would otherwise never encounter you.

Identify businesses or individuals in adjacent (non-competing) industries who serve a similar audience, and find genuine reasons to create content together.

Review your performance monthly and adjust

If you are not reviewing what is working, you are guessing. Most platforms provide native analytics that show you reach, impressions, saves, shares, and follower growth on a per-post basis. Look at this data monthly.

The questions to ask:

Which posts drove the most profile visits or new follows?
Which content format (video, static, carousel, text) performed best?
What topics generated the most saves and shares?

Double down on what the data shows is working. Stop spending time on formats and topics that consistently underperform.

How Bury St Edmunds Marketing can help

Managing social media consistently, while running a business, we know is where most owners struggle. The principles above are straightforward; the execution is where time and expertise become the limiting factor.

At Bury St Edmunds Marketing, we offer social media management packages designed for businesses at different stages of growth. Whether you need support establishing a consistent presence or a full-service approach that integrates social media with SEO, paid advertising, and email marketing, we have a package to suit.

View our social media packages

FAQ

There is no fixed timeline. It depends on your starting point, posting consistency, and how well your content matches what your audience wants to see. Most businesses posting consistently with a clear strategy begin to see meaningful follower growth within three to six months. Accounts that post sporadically or without a clear content direction can stagnate indefinitely regardless of how long they have been active.
No. Purchased followers are either bots or inactive accounts. They do not engage with your content, which means your engagement rate (the ratio of interactions to followers) drops sharply. Platform algorithms read low engagement as a signal that your content is not worth distributing, which actively suppresses your reach. Bought followers also damage your credibility with real potential followers who check your account. The only followers worth having are ones who arrived because they want to see your content.
Fewer than most people think. On Instagram, three to five highly relevant hashtags now outperform the old tactic of stacking 20–30 generic ones. On LinkedIn, two to four is sufficient. The goal is relevance and discoverability within a specific niche, not volume. A location-specific hashtag combined with one or two industry-specific ones will outperform a wall of broad tags that your post has no realistic chance of surfacing in.
Short-form video currently receives preferential distribution on most platforms. Instagram Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn video are all being actively promoted by their respective algorithms. That said, the best-performing content format is the one you can produce consistently and to a decent standard. Inconsistent, low-quality video will underperform consistent, well-composed static content. Start with the format you can sustain, then introduce video when you have the capacity to do it properly.
It varies by platform and audience. As a starting point: LinkedIn performs best on Tuesday to Thursday mornings; Instagram tends to see higher engagement mid-morning and early evening. More importantly, your own platform analytics will tell you when your specific audience is most active; that data is more reliable than any general recommendation. Check your native platform insights and schedule around your audience's actual behaviour, not generic best-practice tables.
No and attempting it without sufficient resource is one of the most common reasons small business social media underperforms. A focused, well-maintained presence on one or two platforms that your audience actually uses will generate better results than a neglected presence across five. Choose based on where your customers spend time, not where you personally prefer to scroll.

Aaron Stiff is the founder of Bury St Edmunds Marketing, working with local and regional businesses on social media strategy, SEO, and digital marketing.

How can I grow my social media following?