Are you looking to build an Instagram audience, but the maintenance feels exhausting? You see so many of your competitors with a beautiful photo feed with amazing content to boot! And you start thinking – why doesn’t my Instagram look amazing!?
Lucky for you, I’ve done the heavy lifting for you! I’m going to show you how to grow your Instagram following and take the stress out of running on the social media treadmill. Stick around, and I promise you’ll leave today with tools you can use to revamp your Instagram feed right away!
Overview
Today I’m going to cover some of my top tips for curating and nurturing your Instagram feed. You can click on the links below to skip to any section you’d like to learn more about:
Take the stress out of planning your Instagram content
I have a whole breakdown of how to create a month’s worth of social media content in one morning on my site that I highly recommend you bookmark after that. I need you to know that the content creation process only feels daunting when you don’t have a plan. When you take control and carve out a morning to plan your content schedule, you’ll be surprised how painless it is to build an entire year’s worth of content for your feed. I’m so proud of that, and it always makes me smile every time I hear that a client took my advice to heart and says back, “Jenny, you were right! It was a lot easier than I thought!”
Help your followers find you
Remember the field of dreams? “If you build it, they will come” has never been truer than in our modern age of social media. There are people scrolling through Instagram who are interested in what you have to offer, but they don’t know you’re out there! It’s important to ignore those nagging thoughts that prevent us from being proud and prominent about our passions and businesses and confidently put your message out there!
When you post regularly and use appropriate hashtags, like-minded people will find your page, but you need to help them discover you!
This tip is so easy to ignore! Instagram uses hashtags from posts you interact with to curate your feed with more posts it thinks you’ll like. So if you want the algorithm to put your posts in front of new followers, you need to use hashtags they will likely find on other posts they like!
#love is an example of a popular popular hashtag used in over 1.8 billion posts. That means you’re competing for eyeballs with nearly 2 billion other posts, and using just one hashtag is unlikely to send your post to people who are likely to be looking for more of your content. The key to intelligent use of hashtags on Instagram is to curate trending, general and niche tags up to the maximum 30 allowed. When you combine trending tags with general and niche tags, you target potential new followers instead of crossing your fingers and hoping by using all the popular hashtags.
resource: Holiday #hashtag annual calendar – If you want to expand your social media marketing reach, then the effective use of hashtags is a must! Unique hashtags are the perfect way to get people to notice you and your business, but coming up with them can be a pain. To save you some time (every small business owner’s most valuable resource), I’ve put together this monthly hashtag calendar, with hashtags ranging from the usual (February 14th – #valentinesday) to the downright weird (July 14th – #sharkday)! #have a nice time!
Use social squares to elevate your Instagram visuals
Not everyone has the access or time to plan a shoot every time they want to post an alluring photo on Instagram. But since IG is a visual-first platform, you need to make sure the photos you post convey your message with vibrancy and charm if you’re going to attract new followers. when i found social squares, it changed the game for me! Social Squares is an image site where you get access to amazing images that you can use to add a striking visual to your posts on Instagram and beyond. I use it all the time, and the beautiful, professional photos you can choose from are perfect for attracting attention and getting potential new followers to take another look at your profile!
Invite your audience to interact
Ask your audience real questions! Your Instagram feed is an amazing opportunity to learn about the likes and interests of your most devoted followers. People who follow you on Instagram want the excuse to interact with your posts, so give them plenty of opportunity! Choose relevant open-ended questions that will help you learn about your audience starting with openers like:
- what do you think of _______?
- What/where/who is your favorite _______?
- which one do you prefer?
- Tell me about the last time _____ happened to you!
- Would you prefer…?
It’s okay to jump into the occasional question that only requires a yes/no or one word answer. Those comments still help show Instagram’s algorithm that people are interacting with your content and should show it to more people. Still, these responses won’t offer as much insight into your audience as the previous examples.
Consider hiring a digital marketing team to run your Instagram
If that’s still too much for you to handle, maybe it’s time to consider investing in your online presence. Do this by hiring a skilled digital marketing team to manage your social media scheduling! My team and I know exactly how to build social media using your voice and message to support you and your brand online. As always, I invite you to call me. Let’s discuss how to improve your social media and grow your audience!
My challenge for you
Today, one thing you can do that will make a huge difference in how Instagram works for you is to build a list of hashtags that make sense for your page. Search for the trending hashtags right now. Then choose ten that make sense for your page, and choose ten general tags and ten niche tags.
For the next two weeks, add all of these tags to the bottom of every post every time you post. After two weeks, check your stats and see if you gained more followers than two weeks prior to this little hashtag experiment. I am sure you will see a positive increase in your follower count!
ongoing action steps
- Watch, listen or read my content to create a month’s worth of social media posts in one morning to get started!
- Decide on a color palette for your Instagram gallery. I suggest starting with four colors that you can duplicate in the pattern over and over again.
- Find five images of each of these four colors on Social Squares (or wherever you get your images)
- Write posts that connect to each of these images (again, follow the content plan outline above.
- Include the hashtags you’ve collected in our weekly challenge and add them to each post.
- Schedule your posts simultaneously using a scheduling system (I love Later!)
- Go on Instagram for at least 15 minutes every day and get involved, multiply, and get involved.
My team at Jennie Lyon Digital Marketing Services Inc. And I’m passionate about making social media work for you without doing the work for you! We are more than happy to help you take your business to the next level. Schedule a free call with me anytime. I’d love to see how we can curate your social media and grow your audience!
Links to this chapter:
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