6 tips for growing an instagram following

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Mar 23, 2018 / by
6 tips for growing an instagram following

In case you hadn’t heard, Instagram is kind of a big deal right now. With over 800 million monthly active users, the platform is essential for brands that want to stay in touch with their audiences.

However, simply logging into Instagram and posting haphazardly every week won’t get you the results you desire. If you want to grow your Instagram following, it’s important to deploy proven tactics that have worked for others in the past.

1 – Make the most of your bio

As you may have noticed, Instagram doesn’t make it easy for you to link back to your site. However, the best opportunity you have to include a link on your Instagram page is on your bio. Don’t be like most businesses – posting a link to your homepage that you never change. Instead, change it every so often to your latest blog post or another high value page on your site. Some businesses have had great results by sending Instagram followers directly to a lead magnet landing page in order to turn their followers into leads.

2 – Like plenty of images and leave comments

Whatever type of business you have, it’s always a good idea to create a buyer persona document. This specifies the exact type of person who would be your ideal customer, with breakdowns of the person’s age, gender, values, marital status, interests and so forth.

Next, search out relevant hashtags for this kind of individual and then like the photos on their page. Ideally, like a handful of photos and also leave a few meaningful complimentary comments. The secret is to be genuine and human, not come across like a spammer blatantly trying to attract new customers.

3 – Stay consistent

One of the keys to maintaining an engaged fanbase is to post consistent content, both aesthetically and tonally. For example, check out Old Spice’s Instagram page. Everything features the brand’s trademark red tone while the content is typically weird and humorous. You know what you’re going to expect from the page, and the brand never disappoints when uploading new content.

4 – Post regularly

It should come as no surprise that accounts which post regularly generate more engagement. In a 2015 study by Quintly of 5,000 accounts, it was found that the accounts with the most engagement were posting 2 or 3 times per day. Obviously that schedule isn’t possible for everyone, especially if you’re running an online business as a side hustle while you work a day job – but in any case, you should definitely get into the habit of keeping to a regular upload schedule.

Hashtag in the sand5 – Use hashtags

Unlike Twitter, where users can get bored if you keep posting content to the same hashtags, you can dramatically expand your outreach on Instagram by intelligently leveraging hashtags. Conventional wisdom states that you can use as many as 30 hashtags per post, and this works especially well for new accounts that don’t have many followers.

6 – Analyse your posts for engagement

Melyssa Griffin states:

Go back through your photos and see which ones got the most likes and comments — and of course, the least. What clicks with your audience and why? How can you incorporate more photos like that into your feed?

The more regularly you post, the more data you’ll receive. With quantitative data such as likes and shares, you can make assessments into what your audience like. Naturally, feedback in the form of comments is also useful for learning about your audience. Businesses that do the best on Instagram are usually the ones that stay committed to learning about what their audiences resonate with, then delivering as much of it as possible!

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