9 effective, yet obnoxious tactics brands use to get social media followers

Do you require people to follow you on Twitter to enter your contest, or like your Facebook page to see your content? You may be driving fans away.

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The Internet is full of advice on how to add more people to your social network. You can find tons of articles that tout “How to get more followers on Twitter,” or “Get more people to like your Facebook page.”

Just because these articles demonstrate proven techniques doesn’t necessarily mean you should heed their advice. Not every successful technique to get more followers, fans and subscribers will be right for you. A technique can be effective, but unethical. And if not unethical, it can be outright obnoxious.

I’ve seen many people use these techniques as tricks or roadblocks to visitors trying to get to something else. If you use some of these techniques, people won’t necessarily follow you because they want to, they’ll follow you because they have to.

Do you want to trick people into following you? Do you want to use techniques most people find obnoxious? Is the cost of a damaged brand worth a few more followers?

Ask yourself those questions before you try any of these effective, yet obnoxious social media techniques:

1. Like-gating

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