If You Build It They Will Come
So, you’re entering content like crazy on your Instagram account, and yet your follower base is stuck. Why? What are you doing wrong?
So, you’re entering content like crazy on your Instagram account, and yet your follower base is stuck. Why? What are you doing wrong?
You’re scratching your head wondering what steps may help you get moving in the right direction. The size of your following helps your account show up in feeds, increase your brand’s exposure, and reach/attract new and current customers.
Below are some tips that should help you move your Instagram account to improve your followers quickly and effectively.
1. Use Hashtags on Instagram
Hashtags are extremely important, more so if you’ve just launched your Instagram for Business account. Sounds simple but you’d be surprised how many don’t do this. Conduct hashtag research to determine tags your competitors use often. Then, experiment with your own branded hashtags, trending tags, and those of large to small size. Here are a few guides to use hashtags wisely from SproutSocial and Hootsuite.
2. Post to Instagram Regularly
Please be consistent when posting to your Instagram feed at least once per day. Posting regularly boosts your appeal to Instagram’s algorithm, it favors accounts that post content consistently. More importantly, make that content interesting, engaging, and something you’d want to see pop up in your feed! Your posts rank based on how much engagement they receive; the more the better. If you need more ideas, here are ideas you can try on Instagram.
3. 80/20 Ratio
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule in marketing? It recommends publishing entertainment and educational material 80 percent of the time and sales content 20 percent. No one wants their feed spammed with sales content, so don’t do that to your audience!
4. Post-High-Quality Images and Video...or nothing
You post regularly. Your content is fun and engaging. So why isn’t your Instagram following growing? Your photos and video quality may need improvement. Test out short videos captured on your smartphone. Make good use of Boomerangs. Use filters, professional portrait settings, and good lighting to snap professional photos.
5. Instagram Stories and IGTV
Instagram is constantly growing to include more ways to engage your audience. Good thing because you never want to post more than three times per day on your Instagram for Business feed or you will overwhelm your following. To increase your posting frequency, utilize Instagram Stories and IGTV.
IGTV allows you to post videos up to 60 minutes in length—essentially creating a Youtube channel within Instagram’s interface. Instagram Stories enable you to add shopping links, hashtags, and engagement tools to attract more followers and deepen customer relationships. Because Instagram Stories last 24-hours, it’s best practice to post only four within that timeframe. Less is more!
6. Post-User-Generated Content
Engage with your audience! Sharing user content gives your followers a sense you really care what they’re sharing. Search your branded hashtags to see if Instagram users talk about you. If you see a photo of your product or service, reach out to them through a direct message to tell them they will be featured. Always appropriately attribute photos and videos to the creator by tagging them in your post too.
7. Instagram Business Account
Instagram for Business comes with free Insights. Log in to see when your posts gain the most traction, if men or women engage more often, the age of your demographics, and much more. From there, make adjustments to your overall strategy to improve reach, engagement, and grow your Instagram following. You might need to make simple tweaks like the time of day you post. Following the data will help you know where to spend your energy on improving your account.
8. Paid Media
Extend your reach and drive more traffic to your profile page with paid Instagram ads. Ads increase your exposure a ton—and your chances of attracting more followers. Just make sure you don’t start running ads until you’re posting daily to your Instagram account—with at least 30 days of posting under your belt.
9. Take away
Instagram following is important, there’s no doubt about that. However, it’s easy to look at Instagram and place all of the value on the number of followers. That’s only one piece of the puzzle. You also should monitor website traffic, profile clicks, the number of engagements, and how passionate your audience is about your brand.
About the author
Hi, my name is Rick and I thank you for reading this article!
I explore to learn new stuff every day and here I will share all my experiences and thoughts with you.
You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram. :)