You’ve made a social strategy and you’ve started posting, but you aren’t getting many likes or new followers. How do you improve this?
It takes time and effort to grow a genuine Instagram following who are actually interested in what you post. Unfortunately there isn't a speedy shortcut, as there’s no point in trying to grow your followers with just anyone. For Instagram to be useful to you and your business, you want consumers who will engage with your posts and care about what you have to share. If you're committed, it can be done!
Read on for tips to help improve your Instagram and increase your following.
Regular Posts
It’s important to continually engage your audience by posting regularly and consistently. Brands who do this tend to see the best results.
You need to decide on how often you should post; if you post too often, you could annoy your audience, if you don’t post enough, you could miss out on sales and the opportunity to build a loyal customer base.
This number is different for every brand. It’s dependent on who your audience is and what your business does.
How do you find out just the right number? Look at what your competitors are doing, start there and then “listen” to your audience, analysing their engagement and edit your posting accordingly.
Professional Photography
Instagram is a visual representation of your brand, so it is important to use high quality imagery taken by professionals.
Photoshoots are a big cost, so ensure you know exactly what you’re looking for and provide the photographer with a brief before the day, so you can get the most out of the time you have with them.
Utilise Videos
Videos have become extremely popular and brings the most engagement (views, likes, comments and shares). For this reason, Instagram rewards video posts by showing them to more people.
Videos can be posted:
• to your feed
• in your story - appears at the top of the app and disappears after 24 hours
• live - the audience can engage during filming, appears first in stories and disappears after 24 hours
Videos in your story can be more casual and provide more insight into your brand, #bts (behind the scene).
Quality Hashtags & Geolocation Tags
Hashtags seem to be more popular on Instagram than on any other social platforms. So popular in fact that you can now “follow” your favourites! #handy
Adding hashtags and tagging a geolocation is a simple way to “organically” reach a large and targeted audience, and if it’s compelling enough, they will click through to your profile. Use hashtags that accurately represent what’s in your photo and your brand to reach your target.
Repost
Reposting user-generated content is a great way to encourage users to post about your brand and to obtain more content to post, with little effort required on your part. However, make sure you only repost the best-of-the-best photos that match your feed’s aesthetic and aligns with your brand.
When you repost someone’s photo, it’s ethically essential to give them credit by mentioning their Instagram handle in the caption and tagging them in the photo.
Collaborate
If done properly, partnerships and sponsorships with influencers and other brands can reach a lot of potential customers and dramatically grow your following. It’s important to choose influencers/brands that align with your brand and therefore have followers who would be interested in you.
The cost can range from an even exchange (you promote us and we’ll promote you) or a free product/service to thousands of dollars. It depends on your brand/offering, your influence (number of followers and brand perception), their influence, and what your brief is.
Post at Your Best Times
Discover what days and what times your audience is most active (online and engaging), so you can get the best results from your posts. Best times vary for different accounts, so you need to find out what yours are.
To find this information, go to your profile > tap on the ‘Insights’ button (looks like a bar graph) in the top right corner > scroll down to ‘Followers’ and click “See more” > scroll down to ‘Followers’ and scroll through the days to find when your audience is most active.
Use Analytics
To continually improve your feed, use Instagram analytics to know what posts your followers have responded the best to and find any trends.
To find this information, go to your profile > tap on the ‘Insights’ button (looks like a bar graph) in the top right corner > scroll down to ‘Posts’ and click “See more” > tap on ‘Impressions’ to change the filter to find the information you want.
Hold Contests
Holding contests or giveaways that require engagement (like, comment, follow or tag a friend) to enter increases reach, through the help of both the Instagram algorithm and your current followers. If they like what they see (your brand and previous posts), you will gain new followers.
After the contest is over it’s important to continue to add value with your posts, to decrease the chance of a mass-unfollowing.
Engage Your Fans
Make sure to like and/or reply to comments followers leave on your posts, answering any questions and appreciating any compliments or feedback. When fans post about you, it’s equally as important to like and comment on their posts, showing your appreciation and encouraging further free advertising.
The amount of engagement (number of likes/comments) on each post and percentage of followers who engage with your posts are some of the top major considerations in the Instagram Algorithm for how many people Instagram will show your posts to.
If your post has high engagement, you will be featured in ‘top posts’ of hashtags and geolocations and if it’s very high you could be featured in the Explore tab where you will be exposed to thousands of users.
There are many tactics to increase your Instagram engagement and following, but perfecting them all, or any of them, is hard and time-consuming.
Are you finding that your engagement is much lower than you expect, despite having a number of followers? Learn how you can find out if you might be shadowbanned.
We can look after all of this for you, so you can concentrate on what you do to make your business great, without stressing about something you don’t fully understand or have time for. Contact us today to find out what we can do for you.
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