I spent 30 days testing the advice of famous influencers on how to grow my social media presence. These 4 tips worked the best and I saw immediate results.

• Jen Glantz is a solopreneur and the founder of Bridesmaid for Hire.
• She asked successful influencers how they grow and monetize accounts, then followed their advice.

One of my biggest goals in 2022 was to finally start monetizing social media. I've started to view my accounts as more business than personal, so I've tried to focus on building my audience, posting content consistently, and staying on top of trends.

After reaching 89,000 followers across three different social media channels last year, I decided to reach out to brands to start doing paid partnerships.

In an effort to elevate my presence on social media, gain new followers, and just home in on the right kind of content to post, I reached out to three major influencers — two of whom have more than a million followers — to ask them for guidance.

I followed their advice for 30 days as an experiment, and I plan to keep doing it. Here's what they told me and how it went.

1. Know each platform and what works best

In order to be able to create quality content on a consistent basis, I only focus on two platforms at a time. For the past year, I've posted mostly just on TikTok and Instagram.

While the platforms seem similar — for example, both TikTok and Instagram allow you to post vertical videos — the strategy is different on each. This is something I often forget, and I'm guilty of taking one video and sharing it on both platforms.

However, Alexa Johnson, whose @glowopedia skincare TikTok account has more than 300,000 followers, taught me the importance of spending quality time understanding the type of content and trends that garner attention on each platform.

Johnson shared that right now, on TikTok, telling personal stories and speaking directly to the camera is the go-to style for growth.

"On TikTok, people want to feel as if they know the creator," Johnson said. "Generally, users crave real connection."

While the majority of my TikTok videos in the past have been silly ones based on popular and trending sounds, I started following this advice. A few of those videos even became some of the best performing videos of the month I posted them in, and they helped me grow a few thousand followers in just the course of 30 days.

With Instagram Reels, shorter content seems to perform better.

"Most Reels users do not have the volume up, which is also why talking videos don't do as well and why snappy humor still reigns supreme," Johnson said.

I tried this approach and kept the majority of my reels for a month under 15 seconds. I saw around 2,000 to 4,000 views per video, which was higher than my average views of months prior.

Because it seems like the trends change constantly and it can be hard to keep up, I found a free online resource that shares the latest social media news every day. I plan to reference this at least once a week to help me strategize my content.

"Tweak your content to make it fit for the platform you are posting to in order to really connect and engage an audience," Johnson said.

2. Create a community and give back to it

For the last few years, I've made the mistake on my social account of working hard just to post consistently that I've ignored countless direct messages and even comments on photos or videos.

Johnson shared that if I want to hit my follower count growth goal, I need to work on creating more of an engaged audience first. Not only will this give new people a reason to follow me (because they'll see that I interact), but it can help me get to know more about my followers and the things they care about.

For example, using stories to share snippets of your life and thoughts can spark conversations in the DMs.

I tried this out on Instagram and did an entire story that showcased a day in my life. Giving people access to what I do on an hourly basis sparked an inbox of multiple direct messages and people asking me to do more content like this. It helped lead to at least 100 new followers after a few months of low growth.

I also made it a goal to respond to every message and comment.

"When you are messaging with someone, your content is prioritized on their feed," Johnson said. "Instagram knows that the person you were just messaging with enjoys your content and will continue to show your posts to them."

3. Mass-produce your content in batches

As a solopreneur who runs a business in the wedding space and freelances on the side, social media isn't my full-time job. Yet at times, it can take hours every day.

Corina Layton, registered dental hygienist and TikTok influencer with 2.5 million followers, told me that if you want to grow your followers, you have to mass produce, or batch, your content.

"I will make many videos in one day (a batch) and then consistently post over the week and weekends a couple of times each day," Layton said. "Having a surplus of videos takes the pressure off of having to come up with new ideas and film a new video every day."

In the past, I spent an hour every Sunday mapping out what kind of content I wanted to create and post during the week ahead, but I didn't create that piece of content until the morning of. Following Layton's advice, I started spending 90 minutes, once a week, creating as many videos as I could.

I'd often get anywhere from 30 to 45 videos out of one session. I'd then store some of these videos for future weeks or post a few a day as part of my growth strategy on TikTok.

"Batching ensures that I'm posting consistently to keep my current followers engaged while also attracting new audiences," Layton said. "Batching is also beneficial because it allows me to make videos focused on my niche rather than trying to come up with something on the fly just to push out content."

I noticed that batching my content freed up my time during the week from having to sit down and brainstorm the video of the day to make. It also allowed me to spend more time connecting with my audience and responding to their messages.

Even though I created a lot of content in one session, I didn't always post everything I created. It just gave me options that ensured what I did post was valuable and engaging, and not rushed.

"Quality content is a huge draw for followers," Layton said.

4. Stay authentic (and trendy)

As I've tried to grow on TikTok, I've found myself mostly just posting copycat videos of trending songs, putting text over them that's related to my brand. While it's helped me grow, I've started to feel like I haven't shown my personality or even been authentic.

Stephanie Hui, who has nearly 2 million followers on TikTok, told me how important it is to be authentic and provide real value to your audience with your content.

"Growing and maintaining a social media account takes dedication, patience, and discipline," Hui said. "Your personality and authenticity truly shine through when you're creating out of passion, and your followers will recognize it as well."

I put this advice into motion by creating more vulnerable content that I hoped allowed my audience to really get to know me, without gimmicky music playing in the background or watching me do a dancing trend from TikTok.

To ease into this type of content creation, I created a series of videos on TikTok where I responded to real questions from my audience. I made sure these videos were longer than usual (more than 60 seconds) and provided specific advice. These videos were some of the best performing videos of the month.

"Showing your authentic self and sharing your truth is really what's going to connect you with your audience and start that intimate relationship," Hui said.

Jen Glantz is a solopreneur and the founder of Bridesmaid for Hire.