Instagram is a great platform, and perhaps I’m biased as it’s my favourite platform, but it has a lot of potential if you know how to use it well. Many people are able to make their living off of Instagram and garner a lot of success from it – as someone who has been able to organically and consistently grow an account my own, I’ll give you a few tips on how to up your Instagram game and grow your account successfully too.
Keep up With Trends (Mindfully)
Keeping up with trends is a great way to stay relevant – make a calendar for your content and keep up with the news and what’s happening. Although, a word of caution, ensure the trends you follow are relevant to you and your brand, as you could run the risk of losing your identity if all you do is rely on trends to sell your business and yourself. Use it as part of your strategy, not the entirety of it. Understand your audience and the kind of trends they’d be into, and then go from there when it comes to deciding which wagons to hop on, and which to wave at as they go by.
Interact With Your Followers
It’s incredibly important to interact with your followers, after all, the point of social media is to build a community around your brand and yourself. Respond to them if they comment or message, allow your personality to shine in your captions, open a conversation with them and allow them to get involved in your account and your brand. People may like the content you produce, which is what might make them follow you, but getting to know you personally and developing a loyalty to you is what will have them stick around.
Know Your Brand
Knowing your brand is vital for your marketing regardless of whether you’re using Instagram or not, it is integral to selling yourself and your business, and this applies on Instagram as well. It will allow you to decide what your audience is, how to approach them and even what trends to follow. Without a clear idea of what your brand is, you’ll be lost. So, sit down and figure out what you want from your account, your business and why – that way you’ll know exactly who to aim for and what to aim for.
Reach Out
It’s no good just posting and waiting for people to come to you, as they’re all very likely doing the same. Sometimes it pays to be the one who makes the effort – comment on others’ accounts, like their content, share mutual people’s content. I’ve found it a big success when opening up to other artists like myself, sharing their work and such. Not only does it build a loyalty for you, but you may inspire some others to treat you the same way. Again, social media is all about interacting with people, so why aren’t you?
Quality and Consistency is More Important That Quantity
People talk a great deal on Instagram about algorithms being piled up against them, that no one sees their work because they need to post more. From my experience, this isn’t strictly true.
Did you know that I refuse to post on Sundays? Did you know that it’s also made no difference in terms of my growth?
This is because I am consistent in my posting schedule. My followers know when to expect a post from me and in many ways, anticipate it. I’ve learned when my followers are mostly active and have created a schedule around that.
I also ensure my posts aren’t blurry and that they’re framed well, fitting Instagram’s ratio – there’s nothing worse than an image that’s been cut off in the wrong place…doing this is a rookie mistake when it comes to Instagram.
Don’t Ignore Hashtags
Hashtags are still incredibly important on Instagram, and using the correct ones is as important too. Do a bit of research on which hashtags will work for you and consider using less popular ones – as you’re more likely to top them, even if not as many will see your content, the few that will are more likely to see that content as it won’t be drowned out. Do a bit of looking into what hashtags you want to frequent before using them – Instagram even has a handy tool that allows you to see what hashtags your mutuals follow too. Take advantage of it!
