By Mary Juett from Living A Sunshine Life
Sipping on a cup of tea while scrolling through my Instagram feed is one of my favorite pastimes. I have fun seeing smiling faces, beautiful destinations, entertaining short form videos, and the food, and the pets, and it’s no wonder Instagram has become one of my favorite social media platforms.
What I didn’t realize about Instagram is all of that activity I was doing on it was helping me build my own followers, which as a blogger, is one of the outcomes we want.
Today I’m sharing tips on how to build your Instagram following.
How to Build Your Instagram Following
Be Active:
I’ll start out with what I’ve already told you about. If you want to build your following you’ve got to be active. Check out your feed daily and interact with the people you are following. Follow people back if their feeds are interesting to you, like and comment on people’s images, check out hashtags that interest you, and just have fun. You’ll get your Instagram name out there more and you will become more familiar to people which will get them to stop by your feed or comment on yours more frequently.
Hint: Want to find posts you’ve liked in the past? When you’re on your profile page, click on the settings gear in the upper right corner. Under the account section you should see a section called Posts You’ve Liked, click on it to expand it and there is a full list of all the posts you’ve liked!
Make Your Account Public:
If you are a blogger who wants to be found, you need to have a public Instagram account. If you want a separate one to keep private for pictures of your kids and things only relevant to family and friends, then please make a separate account, but keep your blog account public. You will get less followers if people can’t see the content of the account they’re trying to follow.
Regram:
Want to catch someone’s attention? Share their post on your feed. Instagram doesn’t have this capability currently, however there are apps you can add that will let you share someone else’s photo with credit.
I wouldn’t share someone’s photo of their kid or something personal to their life because that would just be creepy, but if they’ve shared a funny meme or a heartfelt quote and you want to share it with your followers, by all means, Regram or Repost and get noticed!
Use Hashtags:
The absolute best thing you can do on Instagram is use hashtags. You can add them on to the end of your caption and it will help other people find you. Contact an Instagram Marketing Service to find out which are the most popular hashtags for your content. If you include the right Instagram hashtags on your posts, you will likely see higher engagement than you would if you didn’t have any.
When you’re adding in your caption, when you use the hashtag and start typing it will pull up popular hashtags using the characters you’ve added. This is a great way to see how much those tags are used and can help you select which tags you want to use. I suggest keeping a list of popular tags so you can quickly add them in when you’re creating a new post.
A photo posted by Mary Juett | Blogger (@livingsunnylife) on
Using hashtags doesn’t just mean to use them on your posts. Make sure you are checking out your favorite hashtags and finding other people who post to that hashtag or like content under that hashtag. If you enjoy their content, consider following them. This is a good way to find new followers who are interested in similar content as you, which could lead to more followers for you!
Follow Others:
One of the most important things you can do to gain followers is to follow others. Seek out other accounts with similar interests to you. Use the little magnifying glass search icon on your Instagram menu bar to search. You can search by your recent searches, people, hashtags, or even locations.
Follow people who like your images. Follow people who share interesting things. Follow people who are following the people you like to follow. In other words, get out there and make new friends! Don’t follow and run though, leave likes or comments as you go through to let people know you stopped by.
Hint: Remember the settings gear on your profile page I told you about a little earlier? Go in there and you can find a place to easily follow your Facebook friends or other contacts.
Quick Note on Follower apps and follow for follow hashtags: There are ways you can quickly find new followers such as using the copy follow feature on Crowdfire or adding in hashtags where people will find you and follow you in exchange for a follow. If you’re looking for quality followers I don’t recommend using these methods. You’ll get the numbers, but most of these accounts are just in it for the numbers and won’t be following you for your content, and won’t be interacting with you. Stick with quality followers. You’ll grow a bit slower, but the returns in the end will be greater!
Post Great Content:
Finally, make sure you are posting content your followers will enjoy. Keep your images clear and interesting. Instead of filters, I recommend editing by hand to make the most of your photo.
Use your best photography to highlight what’s going on in your life and on your blog. Include photos of your everyday life, such as how you take a break, where you relax, what book you’re reading or what goofy thing your pet is doing. Think about what you like seeing in your Instagram feeds and compare that to what you post.
A photo posted by Mary Juett | Blogger (@livingsunnylife) on
Don’t create posts that look like advertisements. Let your photo tell a story. Many bloggers create sponsored content and need to make sure their content is selling a brand. In the blogging world, a soft sell is usually better than a hard sell. A hard sell is more aggressive and looks like an advertisement. A soft sell is going to tell a story that hints at the brand or product, but gets people interested because they can see themselves using the product.
A quick note on direct sales: If you are a blogger who runs a direct sales business in addition to the blog, consider separating out your Instagram accounts. Most people do not want to be bombarded with hard selling tactics of direct sales and it’s a quick way to lose followers to your blog account even if they love your blog.
Do you have any additional tips for boosting your followers on Instagram? Share your advice in the comments below!
Mary is the optimistic mastermind behind Living a Sunshine Life, a lifestyle blog focusing on the good things in life, including recipes, crafts, fun and, of course blogging. Mary has been blogging for the past three years and loves the skills she’s obtained from it including social media marketing, photography, and content creation. Blogging allows Mary to work from home and homeschool her two daughters, while making plenty of time for geocaching, crocheting, cross stitching, and attending the theater. You can keep up with Mary and Living a Sunshine Life on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Thank you for reading day 21 of my blogging challenge! Make sure to post your article in the Facebook group and if you haven’t joined my blogging challenge yet and would like to be a part of it, check this out!
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Jessica Fancy
January 26, 2016 at 10:42 pm (8 years ago)Love, love, love this! The best thing to do on Instagram is to be ENGAGED. 🙂
Mary, Living a Sunshine Life
January 28, 2016 at 7:01 pm (8 years ago)I completely agree! Even when I’m not posting, I’m always running through my feed and searching through my favorite hashtags. Engagement is a big part of what I love about Instagram!