It’s kinda obvious which social media platform is our favourite of them all, but seriously how good is Instagram?!
This photo sharing app is so easy to use and with over 400 million active users on the app daily, it is a great platform to share common interests with heaps of users from around the globe.
Whether you’re promoting a business or your own personal brand, growing your Instagram account can easily build your network, expose you to opportunities, be a way of promoting your personal portfolio and when accounts begin to follow you, with the constant frequency of seeing and experiencing your content, they really get to know what you are about.
But how do you grow your Instagram?
Here’s our guide to successfully using Instagram to your full potential.
1. Setup of Profile
When creating your account, make it obvious what your content will be about.
When choosing your username and profile picture, ensure its relevant to what your content and posts will be about to make sure that people know what they are going to see right from the get go.
Of course if you’re a business then your username will be your business name or some variation of it with your profile picture being your logo, product or service. If it’s a personal account, then the options are up to you.
Fill in your bio to again, outline what your account is about and what you want people to know from the beginning and link your Instagram to your other social media platforms to carry followers from one site to the other.
Your Posts
The photos that you post are the reason that people follow you, so quality is key!
Post regularly and try to stick to a theme or subject of your account, whether that includes layout, the way you edit, filters used or colour choice to remain consistent. If possible, use natural lighting in your photos and make sure that the images are not blurred (unless intentional).
Captions on your photos help to create context for your images that your followers can relate to, but these days people’s attention span isn’t as good as it used to be so don’t write too much and keep it engaging. To maintain the attention of your followers, try asking questions or give a call to action to give them a reason to interact with your account.
Instagram is renowned for #hashtags so use them to your advantage. Hashtag as much as you want but keep them relevant to your posts and the more broad and simple that they are the more popular and effective they are. Hashtag fatigue isn’t a thing on this platform but Instagram only allows 30 hashtags per post so choose the best ones for your brand and post away!
Instagram posts gain the most traction in the first few hours of posting (as it is at the top of everyone’s feeds) so figure out when everyone is online and post then. We have noticed that before work/school, after school and after dinner are the peak times for us to post because who doesn’t scroll through social media when they’re eating!
Your Activity
The easiest way to grow your following is to build ‘friendships’ on the platform by interacting with accounts that you are interested in and share a similar theme to you.
Liking other accounts photos, whether you are following them or not, will gain some attention from them, but with so many accounts giving out likes like Oprah gives out prizes, it may get lost in the crowd and that is where commenting comes into play.
To grab people’s attention, share a comment on other photos as these will not only be seen by the account itself but also all their followers (hopefully!).
Extra Tips
- Do shoutouts and mention other accounts on your page, and vice versa, to cross promote each other and share followers with one another.
- Don’t be spammy – and by ‘spammy’ we mean post a lot of non-relevant content in one day then be non-existent for weeks afterwards. It’s annoying for your followers to see multiple uploads in one go and think that you’ve fallen off the earth in your hibernation periods, and it only attracts spam accounts and bots that will be inactive and essentially useless in growing your account.
- Love what you post! Be proud of your content and keep it personal as your passion for your account will show through if it’s real.
Good luck with your accounts, and if you happen to have any free time have a scroll through @thevolte and share the love! #shamelessplug
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