How to Grow Your Instagram
One of the most common questions I get asked from people is how to grow their social media accounts. I'll be the first to tell you that this doesn't happen overnight, I was posting on Instagram for about 3 years before it really started to grow, and I wasn’t able to go full time with blogging until 5 years later. So you'll need to be patient with the process and also have a goal in mind.
If I’m being honest, there isn’t really an incentive to having a large following unless you’re trying to grow a brand or somehow monetize your social media. So for me personally, I started my Instagram in 2012 as basically just another Facebook, I posted random things that I thought were pretty or funny. Eventually, I got into bodybuilding, so I started to share my workouts, meals, progress pictures, etc with a few hashtags and I noticed my following started to grow (to about 5K) and I started getting inquiries about personal training. So in 2015, I started to purposely grow my social media with the goal of being able to get out of the Army and go full time with personal training.
Although I was getting clients this way, I realized I was putting myself into a box of only showing workout stuff, even though there were so many other passions and aspects to my life. So I ventured into the lifestyle realm and started sharing my clothes, travels, etc and realized that blogging and being an “influencer” can be a full time job as well, and it quickly became my dream job. I’ll go more in depth with my personal story in another post, but I put together a list of some of my best tips (and things to avoid) that I’ve noticed on this 5 year journey.
THINGS TO DO:
Create Quality Content- Like I said above, the main reason to grow your social media is to help grow a brand. So take the time to figure out what your brand is and try to create content that represents that. If you want to be a travel blogger, you should try to post different places you’ve visited and share insights or tips. If you love fashion, share your different outfits and how you style different things, etc.
Once you have your idea of the type of content, make sure it’s high quality content. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if you’re trying to grow your following, no one wants to see a dark blurry picture of your sandwich you had for lunch, or a full family photo album that should have been put on FB for family to see (again this is only if you’re trying to grow a brand; if it’s just a personal page post whatever you want). People are more likely to follow accounts that look aesthetically pleasing and either inspire, motivate, or at least give them ideas. Also keep in mind that your page becomes your portfolio to brands, so your content should be clear and crisp and have a nice aesthetic to it for a brand to think it’s worth investing their marketing budget into.
Consistency- If you want your following to grow, you need to be posting content consistently so that it can be seen by more people and also keep your current audience engaged. If I’m on the lookout for cool new places to travel, I’m more likely to follow the travel blogger that is posting new pictures every day than someone who rarely posts. People are also more likely to come across a brand new picture under a hashtag or location than they are to come across a picture from two weeks ago. Every time you post it’s an opportunity for someone new to find your page. I typically try to post one picture every day, or sometimes two if I’m on a trip or I’m posting a “filler picture.”
*Filler pictures are scenery, food, decor, etc that are nice to break up the selfies/people pictures in your feed. They tend to get much lower engagement on Instagram, but they make your feed look really nice and I personally love pretty scenery pictures.
Engagement- If you’re trying to grow on social media, it helps to actually be social. You should of course respond to the comments on your own page that people took the time to write. But it also helps to comment on other pages. It can help with networking to eventually become online friends with the people in your industry, but it also helps to have your name/comment seen by other people that follow that person.
Hashtags- There's a love/hate with hashtags, I personally think it makes a post look cheesy to have a ton of hashtags in the caption, but they're necessary in order for strangers to stumble upon your page. An easy trick that I do is leave 1-2 (if any) hashtags in my caption, and then I'll leave a comment under my picture with the rest of the hashtags. I keep notepads on my phone that have all of my hashtags ready to go for different types of photos (like ootd posts, food pics, travel, etc). When I'm ready to post my picture, I just copy and paste the hashtags from my notepad into a comment. If you never use hashtags, you’re limiting your account from ever being discovered by people who don’t already follow you.
Location- Like hashtags, posting the location of your photo is another way for people to find your page. If it's a public place, like a venue or restaurant I'll post the actual venue as my location, however if it's somewhere close to home or where I'm staying I'll usually just tag the city so I don't have to worry about creeps finding me. The location tagging can also help you work with venues if they notice you giving them free publicity, and it can also help with collaborations in your city. For example, if a photographer stumbles upon your page and sees you're clearly in such and such city they might reach out to work with you. I personally search locations before I visit a place to find cool spots to go to, and have followed aesthetic accounts that I came across while looking at the location.
Common Look/ Aesthetic Feed- To make your page look aesthetically pleasing, it's smart to use the same editing style or filter for all of your photos. I’ll put together another post about editing, but just remember your account doesn’t need to look like everyone else’s; find an editing style you like that works with your photos and stick to that to keep your feed consistent. Individual photos matter more to people already following you, but for everyone else, they’re going to look at your page and judge your feed to decide if they want to follow you. So try to keep it aesthetic.
Tagging- Similar to using hashtags, another way to get your page noticed is by tagging the companies in your photo. For example, I typically tag all of the brands I'm wearing, restaurants or venues my photo was taken at, or bigger shoutout type pages (like fashion inspo pages, tattoo pages, etc) that fit the genre of my pictures. That way when people look at that page's tagged photos, they'll come across yours too. And if your post is good quality, the pages that are tagged might repost your photo on their page, gaining you more exposure.
Collaborate- Remember, there’s room for everyone at the top. This isn’t a competition, and you’ll honestly have much more success working with other bloggers and influencers rather than getting catty. Creating friendships with other bloggers is great as you have similar interests, and it can also be super helpful to discuss ideas, figure out things you might not know about the industry, and can also help each other grow. If you have different audiences but create organic content together it gives you both exposure to each others’ audiences.
Learn to Say No- This a big lesson people need to learn as their page starts to grow. Your audience will start to trust your opinion on things, and if you start posting some BS because you got paid for it, your influence on your audience is going to start to diminish. I personally think it's awesome to work with companies, but I will only agree if it's products that I actually want and like. I talked about it more in this post, but don’t be so eager to take every single offer that comes your way. I also think it looks tacky when every single post is an ad or sponsored post, it makes me feel like I’m just looking at a billboard.
Be Yourself- I promise you, every single person reading this has something to offer the world. Remember to be yourself and share your passions and interests and you’ll grow a following that cares about you. If you try to copy everything someone else is doing, people are going to see through it and aren’t going to follow a knock off when they already follow the real thing.
Stop Comparing- This can be difficult, but remember that you’re seeing everyone’s highlight reels. I actually never struggled with this until I got out of the Army and went full time with blogging, and it definitely forces me to take a step back at times to get my mind right. It’s easy to compare your journey with someone else’s, but remember, you don’t know how long they’ve been doing it, what their network looks like, etc. But you can control your own. Stay positive, stay patient, continue improving your content, and keep working towards your goals.
Host a Giveaway- Partnering with a company to do a giveaway can be a nice way to give back to your followers and also increase exposure, as people will tag other people on your page. These are best done by keeping the requirements minimal, like following you and tagging a friend or two. When you start getting crazy with the requirements people are less likely to participate.
Stay Classy- Something I’ve seen done quite a bit (especially in the fitness/military industry) is people start to post a lot of risqué content in an effort to grow. This doesn’t make you a bad person, but take a second to really think about what you’re trying to build. Think big picture. If your end goal is to end up in playboy or maxim, go for it! But if your plan is to become an influencer that works with top companies, I promise you it’s going to backfire. Most major companies need to keep their content family friendly and actually have standards to not hire influencers or bloggers who have a certain percentage of risqué content or profanity. I’ve actually worked with companies who picked me for campaigns because I was “one of the few fitness influencers with classy content.” You’re also going to attract the wrong type of audience that makes it hard for you to monetize your account. You’ll have creepy dudes that want to pay for your only fans (another surefire way to limit your collaboration opportunities), but you’re not going to have an audience that wants to support you or purchase your products.
ANDDD THINGS TO AVOID:
Buying Followers- This is a huge No-Go. First off, it makes you a fraud to any businesses that actually work with you. They're paying you as advertising for their brand, which you're clearly not providing since you have fake followers. Second, it's usually pretty obvious to those that know to look at ratios. Instagram usually only has a 3-5% engagement rate, as not everyone checks instagram everyday, some people don’t “like” things as they’re scrolling, etc. But if you have a million followers and only get a few hundred to few thousand likes on a photo...something clearly does not add up. Which makes you lose credibility with actual followers who start to notice. Additionally, most brands are starting to notice this and have created software to check if you have authentic followers. Just remember, literally every single person started at 0 followers. Create quality content and be patient, and you’ll grow your page too.
Following and Unfollowing- This is also a No-Go. Don't be this person. It's annoying af, and typically when people catch on they unfollow you right back.
Posting Too Much- While it's good to be consistent, there is definitely such thing as posting too often. If you post more than 2-3 times a day, there is a 100% chance I would personally unfollow you. If I wanted to see only you on my news feed, I would go to your page specifically. If you're a frequent poster, put most of those pictures on your Insta story or SnapChat and condense your actual IG posts.
Loop Giveaways- Loop giveaways are typically where there’s a huge prize like a car or designer purse being given away, but you have to go follow like 10-40 different accounts that are involved in order to win. These are super annoying and honestly you’re going to lose most of the followers that you temporarily gain from this as they probably only followed you to try to win the prize.
SFS- I feel like these are very forced/spammy when they’re on personal/influencer pages, and I’ve never followed or even looked at someone’s page that someone did a “shoutout” for. I do however repost stuff that people tag me in. So if someone tried my recipe, my workout, bought an outfit I recommended, etc and tags me in their story I’ll typically reshare that on mine. And I typically do those same types of organic, authentic mentions when I try recommendations from other people.
Engagement Groups- This is actually prohibited by Instagram and is also looked for by businesses as fraud. It’s basically a group chat of people who agree to comment on someone’s picture when they post. I don’t participate in these. I am, however, more likely to comment on blogger’s pages who took the time to comment on mine.
Spammy Comments- This is literally so annoying. Stop commenting “follow me” or posting your website on everyones pictures. If you post that, I’m honestly just going to report your comment as spam and block you. Instead, try leaving actual comments that have to do with the photo, and if people like your content they’ll follow you.
That’s it for this post, I hope it was helpful. If you have any questions or specific requests for the blogging series, leave a comment below!
