If you’ve just setup your account on Instagram or you’ve had it running a while you may be questioning, how do I increase the number of followers? We all know by now our images need to be optimised and the content relevant for the user so what are the next steps?
Instagram profile page
As users take interest in your posts and your brand they will ultimately come and visit your profile page to decide whether to follow you. This is where your page needs to stand out and grab their interest. Take a look at your profile photo and bio. You have 150 characters for your bio which needs to convey your brand identity and show users why they should follow you.
I would take your time to write the bio, possibly write a few versions in a document and then get others to review it and see what elements stand out or would work better. Don’t forget to also include a link to your website on your profile page.
Use the highlights feature to categorise and save some of your best stories so followers can refer back to these or give new visitors an idea of the type of stories you put out.
New followers or those navigating to your profile for the first time will scroll through your Instagram grid. This is a great opportunity to showcase your design skills and show a bird’s eye view of your offering. You will see many accounts show off here either spelling out a certain message or joining a product together through several posts. This is a great way to play around and be creative.
Consistency
The Instagram Algorithm wants to know that your account is still active so posting often and consistently will send that signal. New Instagram followers wont just appear by themselves you need to be putting content out there to attract them.
If you have a current following take a look at the timing of your posts and how your followers are interacting with them. If you can see a pattern of certain times and days they interact well try to keep posting at these times to increase the engagement.
There are different types of content you can be posting as well. It doesn’t always have to be a polished post that goes out, think about reels and stories which can be unedited videos of your product, service or place of work so followers can see the individuals behind the brand.
If time is an issue with posting consistently try using a scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite so you just need to sit down once, create your content and then schedule it into one of these platforms which will publish the posts on the days and times you set.
Go beyond Instagram
Don’t just rely on your audience finding you themselves. Look at your audience on other channels and your customers do they know you have an Instagram account? You need to look at ways you can promote your Instagram account outside of the platform this could be via your email subscribers or face to face customers for example.
Try linking channels together. If you have a promotion on your website use a hashtag with the promotion and then post on Instagram with the hashtag and content relating to that promotion. This is linking the channels together and driving traffic between the two. You can also have a live feed of your Instagram posts on the website so users can see the content is relevant and encourage them to go and check out more of your posts.
Hashtags
Utilising hashtags on your posts can enable you to reach new audiences that are interested in certain topics. Look at the kind of content you are posting and then research hashtags that are relevant. Make sure you look at the content being published under that hashtag and ask yourself would my posts fit in with this? Many people will follow individual hashtags so its about standing out in this group of content, so the user wants to dig in further to your account and interact with you.
If location is relevant for you then tag in your local town or city. This way people looking for things to do or places to visit in that location will see you as a possibility. Also attending events or conferences in a given location can be great to tag as well. This gives people exposure to your brand before the event and will keep you in their mind.
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post but utilising all of these will look spammy! So be careful and select maybe 10 to 15 maximum that work well for your content. Just remember its quality over quantity with hashtags.
Captions
Your image has stood out and grabbed someone’s attention but what about the caption that goes with it, does it explain the image or encourage interaction? Instagram actually allows for long captions up to 2,200 characters which is a lot of content to go with your image.
You have 250 characters before the user has to tap ‘more’ to see the full content, so be mindful of what you enter in this first section and how you can encourage them to tap more and keep reading. This is a good opportunity to talk about your product or service in more detail and ask questions to gather engagement and replies.
Don’t worry about using up all the characters but look at the posts you are currently putting out and see if you could increase what you are doing and explain and encourage further interaction.
If you start to get replies back to these captions and you have a reply that stands out or gives a glowing review you can actually pin that to the top of your comments. This way as soon as someone has read your caption, they will see this comment first where as it may of previously been half way down or at the end of the comments.
Conversation
Once you start increasing the followers on your Instagram account you need to consider how to engage with them and start conversation. Think about the type of posts you are putting out and how you can ask questions, gather opinions or start conversation. You don’t just want to post passive content all the time.
Starting this conversation and increasing engagement will have so many benefits.
· You will keep your existing followers engaged and following you
· Help lead your followers to conversion
· It can attract new followers
· It is a good indicator to the Instagram algorithm
· Create user generated content which can help give you ideas for more content
Interact with others
All social media platforms are about communities and engaging and sharing with others. There are different ways you could do this, one being interacting with suppliers or different companies you work with. Look at the opportunities to tag other accounts into your posts or develop a joint campaign where you can share and tag each other into posts. This will widen your reach, increase engagement and give brand exposure.
Tagging other accounts in stories is also an easy way for them to share your content on their own story. You might try this through a competition of the suppliers’ products or playing games or polls through stories. If its talking about their products in a positive way and helping to increase sales, they are more than likely going to want to help you.
Also look at following other account and hashtags that are relevant to you. Comment and like the posts going out and you will often find those accounts will then follow you back and start liking your posts. This is all meaningful interaction that all social media algorithms want to see. Your followers will also want to see an engaged account and people sharing thoughts and opinions, it gives them more reasons to follow and keep interacting with your brand.
Analytics
Once you are posting on a regular basis and keeping that consistency then look back at the posts and see what the stats say. How often are users engaging with you? What type of content have you put out? Which hashtags have you used?
Analyse these results and see what is working and what is not working for you. You will then know what to carry on doing and what your followers likes, plus what you need to either stop doing or tweak to improvements you can make.
You should always analyse your social media accounts and monitor the progress. What works today may not always work in 6 months’ time, followers and their interests do change, and we need to keep optimising to improve our accounts.
Summary
· Be consistent with your posting and ensure the schedule is realistic and fits around you. This does not mean you have to post every day, once a week would be fine as long as you maintain that.
· Underestimate what you can achieve then if you have time for more it’s a bonus! On my Instagram account I plan to post once at a weekend and a story in the week but some weeks I managed more. This just gives me additional content.
· Have a mixture of content – try posts, stories and videos.
· Look at the quality of your images. I’m no photographer but just trying to make little improvements always helps. I took photos in the garden where it was brighter, I thought more about the background and used props where I could.
· Most importantly enjoy what you are doing. This should not be a chore and should not take up endless time, learn what works for you and make small commitments to get the most reward.
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