"Follow for follow" might be the most repeated advice in Poshmark Facebook groups. New sellers swear by it. Veterans roll their eyes at it. Both camps are missing something.
The theory sounds reasonable enough. You follow someone, they get notified, they check out your closet, maybe follow back. More followers = more eyeballs on your shares = more sales. Simple.
And yes, sellers with big followings do tend to sell more. But those same sellers also share consistently, price well, and photograph their items properly. Following didn't make them successful. Being good at selling made them successful. The followers came along for the ride.
That doesn't mean following is useless. Strategic following can put your closet in front of people who actually want what you're selling. The word "strategic" is doing heavy lifting there. Blasting follows at random accounts? Waste of time.
Who to Follow on Poshmark
A closet with 50,000 followers sounds impressive until you realize they're all other sellers following you back. Sellers don't buy from you. They're competing with you. What you want are actual buyers who spend money on the platform.
How do you spot buyers vs. sellers? A few things to look for:
- Small closets (under 20 items) with love notes received
- Recent purchase activity visible in their feed
- No "seller" indicators like branded cover photos or detailed policies
- Following lots of closets but not getting many followers back
- Engagement on parties and brand-specific pages
Someone who just liked five items in your size range is worth ten random follows. Same with people commenting on or liking items similar to yours. These people are showing you what they want. Pay attention.
Know who buys from you before you start following. If you sell size 6-8 athleisure, don't waste follows on people shopping for vintage plus-size formal wear. Get specific.
Skip accounts with no profile picture, nothing posted in 30+ days, or massive follower counts with zero purchases. Dead accounts. They won't engage, won't buy, won't help.
Strategic Following Approaches
Several approaches actually work. Most successful sellers mix a few of these together.
Follow-Back Reciprocity
Basic idea: follow people likely to follow you back, hope they peek at your closet. With active accounts, expect 20-40% to follow back. That drops below 10% when you're targeting inactive accounts or fellow sellers.
Competitor's Followers
Find closets selling similar stuff and follow their followers. These people already like your category. Someone following a closet full of vintage Levi's while you sell vintage Levi's? That's a real prospect.
The catch: you need competitors who attract buyers, not other sellers. Look for closets with lots of sold items and love notes. Follower count alone tells you nothing useful.
Brand-Specific Following
Poshmark has brand pages where fans of specific brands hang out. Sell Anthropologie or Free People? Follow active users on those brand pages. They've already told you what they like.
Works for size-specific communities too. Some Poshmark users mostly engage with petite or plus-size content. Match your following to what you actually sell.
Party Participants
Posh Parties are great for finding active buyers. Anyone sharing during a party is actively using the platform right now. Sell athletic wear? Follow people participating in Lululemon parties.
Party hosts attract engaged followers too. Following people who follow party hosts can surface buyers you'd otherwise miss.
Follow Limits and Pacing
Poshmark lets you follow about 5,000 new accounts per day. Hit that wall and you're done until tomorrow. But maxing out the limit is almost always a mistake.
Quick math: 5,000 follows at 25% follow-back rate gets you 1,250 new followers. Sounds great. But most of those accounts will never look at your listings, never like anything, never buy. Big numbers, zero value.
500-1,000 strategic follows per day hits the sweet spot for most sellers. Stays well under the limit, leaves time for actual targeting, builds engagement over time.
Speed matters too. Following 1,000 accounts in 10 minutes looks like a bot because it is bot behavior. No human taps that fast. Spread it out. Mix follows with shares and likes. Keep it natural.
Fifty targeted follows of people who liked your items will beat 500 random follows every single time. You're not trying to win the biggest number. You're trying to build a buyer network.
Following Automation
Manual following gets old fast. Find account, click profile, hit follow, go back, repeat. Over and over. It's tedious, which is why automation tools exist.
Auto-follow tools do what you'd do manually, just faster and more consistent. Most let you set targeting rules: follow users who liked a specific listing, followers of a particular closet, people active in certain parties.
Safe Automation Settings
If you're automating, go slow. Good tools offer:
- Randomized delays between follows (not exact intervals)
- Daily limits you can set below platform maximums
- Scheduling to spread activity throughout the day
- Break periods that look like normal usage
- Filters to skip inactive or bot accounts
The real value is in targeting. "Follow 1,000 random accounts" is useless. "Follow users who liked items from this closet in the past 24 hours" is actually worth something.
Unfollowing Automation
Follow 1,000 people daily without unfollowing and you'll eventually hit the platform cap. Most accounts max out around 100,000-200,000 total follows. Auto-unfollow tools clean this up by removing accounts that never followed back or went dormant.
Common approach: unfollow anyone who hasn't followed back within 7 days, or accounts inactive for 30+ days. Keeps your list manageable and weighted toward people who actually engage.
Maintaining Your Network
Getting followers is step one. A follower who never sees your shares is worth nothing. A follower who regularly engages? That's a potential repeat customer.
Share to your followers consistently. Like their listings sometimes. Comment occasionally. Send offers to likers. These actions keep you visible and build actual relationships.
When to Unfollow
Unfollowing is housekeeping, not rudeness. Cut loose:
- Accounts that didn't follow back within a week
- Accounts with no activity in 60+ days
- Obvious sellers (they're not buying from you)
- Bot accounts (gibberish usernames, empty closets, weird follower ratios)
- People outside your target market
A clean following list means your shares and engagement activities actually reach people who might respond.
Managing Large Follower Lists
Past 50,000 followers, manual management stops being realistic. You need tools that can segment followers, identify who engages most, and prune dead accounts systematically.
Track your follower-to-sale conversion. Gained 5,000 followers last month but only 10 sales from new customers? Your targeting isn't working. Numbers without conversions mean nothing.
Follow Strategy Mistakes to Avoid
After seeing how thousands of sellers approach following, clear patterns emerge in what fails.
Following Too Fast
2,000 follows in an hour is a red flag. Even without a formal warning, you're clearly not targeting anyone. Most of those follows are wasted. Slow down and you'll get better results with fewer clicks.
Targeting Inactive Accounts
An account dormant for six months won't follow back or buy anything. Check for recent activity first. Recent shares, likes, purchases tell you someone's actually using the app.
Ignoring New Followers
Someone follows you? That's interest. Share your closet to them. Check what they've liked. Maybe send an offer on something they'd want. Quick engagement with new followers increases your chances of a sale.
The Follow-Unfollow Cycle
Some sellers follow thousands, wait for follow-backs, then mass unfollow to keep their ratio looking impressive. Short-term it might pad numbers. Longer term, people notice. And once you get a reputation for that game, it sticks.
The follow-unfollow game builds hollow numbers and tanks your reputation. Genuine engagement beats vanity metrics every time.
Measuring Follow Strategy Success
Follower count by itself means nothing. What matters is whether following leads to sales. Track these things.
Metrics That Matter
- Follow-back rate: What percentage follow you back? 20-40% is typical for targeted following.
- Follower engagement rate: How many actually engage with your shares? Track likes and comments.
- Follower-to-customer conversion: How many followers eventually buy something?
- Sales from follower activity: Do sales come from follower shares or from search and parties?
Follow-back rate under 15%? You're targeting wrong or following too many sellers. 100,000 followers but minimal engagement? Your list is packed with ghosts.
Adjusting Your Approach
Review monthly and adjust. Competitor targeting flopping? Try party participants. Brand-specific following killing it? Do more of that. What works depends on your inventory and who buys it.
When something converts followers to customers, write it down. Systematize it. Good data transforms random following into something repeatable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people should I follow per day?
500-1,000 targeted follows per day works for most sellers. Higher than that usually means sacrificing quality for quantity. Start at 500, only increase if you can maintain good targeting.
Does following really increase sales?
Indirectly, yes. Following builds your follower count, which means more people see your shares, which can lead to sales. Every link in that chain has to work. Strategic following plus consistent sharing plus decent listings is the actual formula.
Should I follow other sellers?
Generally, no. They're competitors, not customers. Exception: networking for sourcing tips or bundle deals. Just don't expect sales from those connections.
What's a good follow-back rate?
20-40% when targeting active accounts. Under 15% means your targeting is off. Above 50% is excellent and means you're finding highly engaged users.
How do I find buyers to follow?
Love notes mean they've purchased before. Small closets, recent activity, party engagement are all good signs. Following people who follow competitors in your category works well too.
Is auto-follow safe?
With proper settings, yes. Realistic speeds, randomized timing, staying well under daily limits. Tools with actual targeting beat random mass following by a mile.
Building a Following That Actually Converts
Make your follow strategy actually strategic. Random mass following wastes time and builds audiences that ignore you. Targeted following of active buyers in your niche builds a network that supports real sales.
Figure out who your buyer is. Find where they hang out on the platform: competitor closets, brand pages, relevant parties. Follow at a pace you can sustain. Then engage those followers through sharing and smart offers.
Automation can help if manual following eats too much time. But targeting quality still matters. You're not chasing the highest follower number. You're building a network of people who actually buy things.
Poshmato's smart following features let you target exactly the right accounts while keeping your activity safe and natural. Try it free for 7 days, no credit card required.