5 Tactics To Build Your Social Media Following Know how to build your presence online.

I'm sure you're curious of how social media mega stars build up their following. After all, you probably want to be an influencer yourself.

Ultimately, an influencer with a strong social media following, is someone who the fans and followers go to for inspiration and knowledge in a certain subject area. They motivate and provide expertise.

You want to find out how they do it, so you can build your own massive following? In this article, I'll give you five tactics that some of the top social media influencers use online to get massive followings.

Strap yourselves in because this post has tactics you will want to put into place right away.

Utilize Tools and Software.

Most people with hundreds of thousands of followers didn't amass such a following simply by spending hours after hours on different platforms.

Instead, they've researched and found tools and/or software that will help them grow their followings. There are two main areas of focus for tools in social media, and they both deal with automation or analytics.

Analytics are huge as it allows a user like you to get stats about your different social media accounts. Receiving stats shows when you should be posting, which posts get the most shares, and what kinds of posts elicit the most positive response from your audience.

A really great Instagram tool I recommend is Squarelovin. It allows you to really dissect your Instagram account showing you what's working and what isn't. One of the features that I find most useful about this tool is the ability to see which of your posts have received the most likes and comments.

This information will give you great insight into knowing what your audience engages with the most. This is important because you want to give your audience the content that they want, not what you want.

The next tool that I want to share with you generated results immediately. When I used it, I increased engagement within minutes. The tool is IFTTT. It basically connects all the most popular apps like Facebook and Twitter together.

There are literally hundreds of different "recipes," as they are called, that connect apps to one another.

IFTTT connected my Instagram account to my LinkedIn account. Now everytime I post a new photo on Instagram, it will automatically post on LinkedIn. With my first post using IFTTT, I had 2 likes and 1 comment on LinkedIn in a matter of a few minutes. All of this was done automatically and increased my engagement instantly.

This tool comes highly recommended from myself and other influencers. This is a must have if you want to become a social media megastar.

Network with Influencers.

One of the most effective ways to gain a massive social media following is by connecting with influencers you follow or admire.

By commenting on their posts, sharing their tweets, and engaging them in conversation online, you are bound to get more eyeballs on your stuff.

Think of it this way. In order to get noticed, you need to network with the right people online. Pick 3-5 influencers and engage with their content. Write comments, engage in their community, and don't be afraid to ask them questions.

By doing this you will put yourself and your profile on the radar of the influencer and their followers. This visibility will land you a bigger following but also put you on a path to become an influencer yourself.

Get Noticed by Blogging.

Something that is often overlooked when it comes to building a social media following is blogging.

Everyone thinks you just need to put out awesome content and the followers will come. One way I've found to really kickstart this is through blogging on my own website, but also becoming a contributor on other platforms.

This allows your name and social accounts to be noticed around various websites online. By doing this, you will start to gain a reputation within your industry, which is a must if you ever want to grow your following.

If you aren't blogging yet, I highly recommend it. Start small like once a week until you start getting a hang of writing consistently. Then bump it up to twice per week.

The more content you put out online, the more likely you are to gain a bigger social media following.

Create Your Own Videos.

What I want you to do now is go look at the profiles of the 3-5 influencers I mentioned in tactic #2. Go look at their accounts and tell me if you see them using videos.

My guess is that at least 4 out of the 5 people are utilizing video in some way.

If you don't believe that, go look at your Facebook wall right now. Count how many posts have videos compared to just pictures or written posts. Alright, you get the point. Videos abound everywhere.

When it comes to following someone online, people like to put a face to a name. Influencers who utilize video are showing their followers that they are human and not some robot.

People like following other people. Even more, they like following people who are both real and similar to them.

If you want to gain a massive social media following online, start utilizing different platforms by posting videos.

Facebook presents a massive opportunity for anyone right now to jump on the video sharing train. Videos are poised to become a huge video platform in the coming years so get on it now.

Ask your audience what they would like to learn from you. This will be a great way to get some ideas about what kinds of videos you should record.

Once you do it a couple times, it becomes second nature to post videos more often. I cannot stress enough start posting videos. You will see your follower count rise.

Be Consistent.

Every tactic up until this point is useless unless you implement consistency. All the most iconic triumphs in life require consistency.

Whether that's becoming a professional athlete, studying to become a doctor, or building your business, you need to practice and improve everyday if you want the results you seek.

The same can be said for growing your social media following. You need to post consistently on the networks that mean the most to you.

Your followers need to be able to count on you for their daily dose of inspiration, or guidance on a certain subject. When you become a social media user on which followers can rely, your following will start to rise.

Now that you have 5 solid tactics to boost your social media following, it's up to you to implement them. Don't wait until tomorrow, start implementing a couple of the tactics I mentioned above right now.

The most successful people running fast growing companies agree that these five tactics are crucial to growing your social media following. Clinton Senkow, Chief Operating Officer at rapidly growing startup influencive had this to say on the topic:

"Growing a social media following is similar to becoming a professional athlete. You need to put in the time and effort everyday if you ever want the results you seek."