Growing your social media presence is always hard.
It’s even harder for new businesses trying to find their footing, and downright frustrating for established ones facing an engagement slump.
Each one of us has wondered if there’s a shortcut, a way to hack the slow growth and see results faster.
Let me clarify this: there are no shortcuts to long-term social media growth. Whatever you do needs to stand on a well-planned, solid social media strategy.
However, savvy marketers have discovered and utilized a few social media hacks by studying algorithm changes and platform behaviors. And guess what? They work.
They won’t replace your strategy, but they’ll absolutely accelerate it. We’ve lined up the best social media hacks you can use to boost visibility, engagement, productivity, and overall growth.
But first….
Social media hacks are tricks and tactics you use to enhance your content creation, engagement efforts, cross-channel distribution, and overall productivity for quick social media growth.
The word “hack” can come across as a cheap shortcut or a gimmick. However, the real social media hacks are far from it.
They are legit because:
- They are based on how each platform’s algorithm behaves and don’t try to game it with black hat practices. We all know how the practice of fake engagement groups and followers gives vanity boosts and just doesn’t help businesses anyway.
- They enhance, not replace, your strategy. Think of them as micro-optimizations to get more out of what you are already doing. They serve as a catalyst to enhance existing strategy and process, boost your brand’s presence, increase engagement, and grow your following organically.
Let’s discuss different social media growth hacks you must start using quickly.
Most of the social media content hacks we will discuss are going to be for Reels, TikToks, Shorts, and every other platform that has lionized vertical videos. Let’s break down the hacks that can increase your play time and overall engagement.
1. Hook Your Audience with a “Hook”
Your Reels, Shorts, and TikToks have very little time in the explore feeds to grab attention. If you don’t hold it in the first three seconds, you’ve lost the scroll.
So you use hooks. A hook is an instant trigger that makes someone stop and watch. It can be a bold statement, a surprising statistic, or even those visual jolting hooks. Even Adam Mosseri promotes this idea:
But remember not to go overboard with hooks that feel off-brand or clickbaity. For example, a safety brand showing a near-miss moment, or a food brand using a “spill” as part of a visual transition, is fine. You just have to spark enough curiosity to make viewers wait for what happens next.
Look at this YouTube Short from Dymatize, a fitness supplement brand. The hook here is “Not all protein shakes are created equal.”
An interesting thing to notice from their feed is that the video with a hook has more views than other YouTube shorts. This proves the power of hooks in engaging users.
Here are some Instagram reel hook ideas that can be used on every other platform.
2. Speed-ramp the Buildup
Give information fast. You need to play with the pace of the video to hold attention. Most people scroll away because a video feels slow and not because it’s bad.
Even native platforms now let users increase playback speed to keep them engaged. So it only makes sense to use the same idea in your own videos. Of course, speed-ramping is suitable for showcasing progress, transformations, or behind-the-scenes setups, so avoid using it for informational videos.
Now there are multiple ways you can use it:
- You can speed ramp your clips during the buildup and slow them down right before the key reveal or payoff.
- You can create a time-lapse video of something being built up in a single clip to show progress.
Good thing that you don’t need fancy software for this. Tools like CapCut and InShot allow you to speed up or slow down footage easily.
3. Post “Wait till the end” Content
Short videos with “wait till the end” written are great at retaining viewers. They work because they tap into human curiosity and the need for closure.
People can’t help but reach the end of the video to see the end results. You can use it for product reveals, customer results, or simply to showcase the transformation happening due to your products or services.
Remember, the trick is to deliver a clear payoff that feels worth the wait. If you tease too much and deliver too little, people won’t fall for it twice. But when done right, this style of content drives longer watch times.
4. Make Mini-series Content
Your social media content strategy should include mini-series content as one of the pillars. Why?
It’s a good social media content creation hack because it makes the audience anticipate something more will come and keeps them coming back. And algorithms love repeat engagement. When someone interacts with one part, the next part often appears in their feed.
You might have seen Creators using this format, such as “3-part guides,” “Breakfast series Day-1,” or “Behind the scenes, part 1 of 3.” Businesses can also break down information into bite-sized videos the same way.
5. End Videos Where They Started
Loop back your videos to the starting frame. It’s a clever short-form content hack to increase repeat views, which sends a good signal to the algorithm.
Here, you need to bring users back to the opening idea, visual, or message in a way that ties everything together. You might have seen the creator start the video with a strong question and then return to it in a way that feels like the video never ended.
Zach King does it the best.
The use of AI in social media is one of the biggest hacks that marketers can leverage. It enables you to think and create content fast. The capabilities turn agentic when combined with automation and make a massive difference in your productivity and quality.
1. Use AI to Turn Ideas into Multiple Posts
Keeping the content pipeline full across multiple channels is one of the biggest challenges social media marketers face. The hack to solve this problem is repurposing the same content across channels.
Still, even that requires brainstorming and the knack for adapting one idea to fit different formats and platform nuances.
AI can supercharge the repurposing hack to a great extent. Now, you just need a great core idea. Rest, all AI can make happen for you in just a click.
There are social media AI tools that enable you to:
- Turn your text into videos.
- Turn your text into images.
- Turn a long-form video into bite-sized vertical videos.
2. Set Up Keyword-Triggered Direct Message Automation
You’ve likely seen creators or businesses on Instagram asking you to comment a specific word to receive an offer or content. For example, “Comment ‘INFO’ to get access to my free guide!”
If you comment those exact words, you will receive a tailored message giving you the link to what you have asked for in your inbox. That’s what Simon Squib has setup to promote discount coupons for Loveable.
That’s the latest Instagram DM automation hack that makes it easy for businesses to connect with their audience and streamline their lead generation process.
You can set up the same automation using tools like Many Chat and Kommo. This hack has a double benefit of hiking the engagement on your posts and making it easy to generate leads.
3. Create Agentic Social Media Workflows
“AI agents” is the new buzzword. They act as your assistance and automate tasks based on the workflow you set for them.
You can create Agentic social media workflows to handle everything from content creation and research to scheduling and publishing. This social media hack is becoming a necessity in saving your time and increasing productivity.
Platforms like n8n, Make, and ChatGPT enable you to set up customized workflows with different stages and the right tools to automate content creation and publishing.
Multi-purpose workflow automation tools aren’t suitable for a multi-account publishing workflow. You will have to get APIs for the platforms individually.
That’s why we created our own SocialPilot Agentic AI scheduler, which you can access directly inside ChatGPT. You just have to prompt it, and it not only creates social media posts but also schedules them at the best times. It’s a massive time-saver for busy marketers and agencies.
To achieve growth, you first need to appear in your audience’s feed. However, gaining visibility and growth for your account in the crowded social media space is an uphill battle. You need to play right by the algorithm with the following social media growth hacks:
1. Use Trending Sounds
Visual platforms like TikTok and Instagram thrive on trends. Videos that feature trending sounds or templates often see a boost in engagement.
You can also jump on the bandwagon and make your content around TikTok trends and Instagram trends on the horizon. Of course, ask yourself if the trend tied to the sound aligns with your brand story, and work backward from there to create something meaningful.
2. Comment on Other People’s Posts
You can no longer be a brand that sits in isolation, waiting for people to come to you.If you want your company page to feel more human, you need to engage like one. And what do humans do? They socialize.
Start commenting on posts related to your niche, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Reddit, or Instagram. If you see posts where you can add your two cents, feel free to do so.
See, Adidas showing up in relevant account’s comment section.
People often check the profiles of comments they find interesting. A single positive comment can lead to increased visibility and more visitors to your profile.
3. Add Geotags on Your Posts
The availability of geotagging on social media is a boon for local businesses, brick-and-mortar stores, and mom-and-pop shops.
Posts with location tags often appear in the feed of the local audience, which makes it easier for you to build a targeted community.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other major social channels offer this functionality. On most platforms, you can search by location. Since social media platforms have become another medium for searching, location tagging has become a valuable hack for increased visibility.
4. Give Teasers for Full Content
The teaser hack encourages followers to engage with your full content on the same platform. It’s super effective on YouTube, where you can use Shorts to tease longer videos and drive traffic to them.
How to do it? You just have to leave a part of your story or content unfinished in the Shorts and direct your audience to the full video.
Similarly, you can create stories on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to direct people to your short-form videos or carousel posts.
5. Make Content That Gets Shared
The “Share” metric is the apple in the algorithm’s eye. The more shares your post has, the more often it appears in the feed and explore page. This is the case with both TikTok and Instagram.
There are some proven content types that you can create: “This is so you,” “This is soooo us,” “Same,” or “So me.” “Mood right now,” and “le me.”
Using this hack, you increase the likelihood of people sharing your content organically.
6. Add keywords, Like You do Hashtags
Keywords are bringing visibility on social media platforms—yes, more than hashtags. While hashtags are essential for content categorization, they no longer bring the same level of visibility as Adam Mosseri himself has said.
Social media algorithms have become smart enough to trace relevance through your caption, description, and even the content itself (videos or images).
So it makes more sense to write captions, alt text, and even the on-screen texts and video scripts, keeping the relevant terms in mind. Don’t overstuff with keywords. Remember, quality is still the key.
6. Post on Optimal Times
This hack is a rather famous one. Posting at the best times has become a staple of every social media marketer’s strategy. There are some optimal time slots we have uncovered in our own study across multiple channels.
The idea is simple: you post at the times when most of your audience is active on the platform to see and engage with it. The best time to post depends on your audience, your time zone, and your industry as well.
1. DM Past Engagers
When you have fewer followers, it’s a smart messenger marketing strategy to share new content with those who have engaged with your past posts.
This hack is great to get constant engagement when your account is new. When you have fewer followers, you can personalize things more effectively. However, use DMs thoughtfully and not just as a broadcast channel.
Share the things based on what they liked earlier. For example, if you create a “mini-series” like we said above, and they interact with it, then share the next parts with them.
As your audience grows, it’s better to move them into inbox communities or broadcast channels that most social media platforms now offer.
2. Challenge Common Notions
Challenging the common notion is an incredible hack to spark engagement. If you have expertise in your niche that challenges the status quo, then that makes for the best content.
We are not asking you to post something controversial that may hurt sentiments. That can get you reported and end up penalizing you in the eyes of the algorithm.
Instead, it’s about:
- Sharing thought-provoking ideas
- Alternative angles
You need to encourage meaningful discussion. This will show you have a unique perspective and nudge the viewers to follow you.
3. Pin Comments
Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube let you pin comments under the post. It’s a great feature that can be used to run hacks, like pinning a comment to initiate further discussion or driving your audience to take an action like visiting your website.
Simply adding comments like “Save this” or “Drop a comment” actually works. Here are some comment ideas you can pin:
- “What do you think about this? Comment below — I’ll reply to the first 20!”
- “Agree or disagree? Drop your take.”
- “Tag someone who needs to see this.”
Creators and businesses are using this widely on YouTube. Since YouTube allows links in the comments, it’s easy to drive link clicks. On other channels where links are not supported, nudge users to engage to drive positive signals to the algorithm.
Also, a pinned comment doesn’t have to be yours only. Pin any comment that adds value or excitement for others.
Ready to Hack Your Social Media Growth?
You’ve got the social media growth hacks now. Start small and pick up a few hacks from the list. Start adding keywords in your captions, a bolder hook in your Reels, or automated DMs for your high-intent audience.
Remember that these social media hacks alone won’t turn your social media channel into thriving communities. They are to support your existing strategy. Choose the hacks that align with your current strategies.
Test them. Keep what works. Drop what doesn’t.
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