How To Grow Your Instagram Following.

In the last 3 months I have grown my Instagram following by 150%, from 2000 to nearly 5000 and I keep getting asked about it, so I thought I would distill the changes I made into a blog post.

Growing an Instagram following isn’t just about vanity metrics or hashtagsponsoredcontent, its about growing a loyal audience who will become paying customers and advocates of you and your brand. It’s is not the be-all-and-end-all, but it can be a great tool and also really helpful in adding kudos to your brand.

Instagram is really having a *moment* having recently hit 1 billion monthly users - which is nothing compared to Facebook’s 3 Billion, however, I don’t know about you, but I feel like life is a bit ~nicer~ on Instagram.

If Instagram is a community, then Facebook is now a megatropolis, and I know where I would rather spend a rainy weekend.

Before finally ‘nailing’ my Insta. I have to say I did a bunch of courses, ranging from people teaching tactics that were 5 years out of date, to advice that the only way to grow is to join an engagement pod - NO THANK YOU!

One course that did really help me was Lucy Sheridan’s Good Gram (I don’t know if she will run it again - sorry!) It helped me see that I could grow an audience through using legit tactics - that still work! And gave me the impetus to take a fresh approach and spend some time on it. 

I hope this will do the same for you.

It was really important to me that I was growing an engaged, loyal following and I was enjoying the experience - not a slave to the ‘gram or getting anxiety because I hadn’t posted at 7pm. And by using the tactics I mention below, I feel like I have achieved that…

So here are my top tips to focus on:

Mindset:

First thing is to change your outlook on Insta. You are part of a community and whether that is online or offline, you want to be a good community member.

Don’t be like Carol that turns up to the village supper club without the trifle, or takes her bottle of pinot home because it hasn’t been opened. Please, don’t be Carol.

Being an upstanding member of the community on Insta is about much more than remembering the trifle. It’s about supporting your community - like, comment, share and engage with their content. Show them that you appreciate them spending their time following you. This is so simple and yet so effective.

Hashtag research:

Ok this is what has made THE biggest difference to my growth. Here is a step by step of how I did it. You will need to set an hour aside to do this but I promise you it’s worth it.

How to:

• Choose your obvious hashtags. So for me it would be ‘small business’ or ‘marketing’ - both of which have millions of people using them each day. Using these means you will never get seen, let alone make it onto the coveted Explore page.
• Go to the search icon on the bottom and type in your obvious hashtag. You will see a whole list of relevant hashtags come up. Select one that has under 50k uses.
• Once you select it, you will see associated tags come up along the top bar. These are your hashtags!

You can use up to 30 per post and I recommend you using all 30, so do this as many times as you need to! Now save them in notes so you can access them easily, or for extra points add them to your keyboard shortcuts.

Top tip: If you’re using 30 hashtags, I would recommend using 20 under 50k, 5 which are 50-500k and 5 which are around the 1 million mark. This will give you the greatest chance of getting seen - by the right people.

Post more:

I have been posting 3 - 4 times a day during this growth phase. Yes it’s a lot and yes it takes time, but I can see the difference in my businesses - plus I love interacting with people, so it’s fun!

So post more - but there is a caveat in that it has to be quality valuable content.

Understand your content pillars and stick to them. Remember that you need to make people FEEL something whenever they interact with you.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself with this though, the next section will help you discover what is and isn’t working for you.

Insights:

The insights you can get even on Instagram itself are so powerful.

This is how I use them:

On post insights: The insights link directly below your post will show you loads of info but I am particularly interested in if people are saving and sharing. These will both get you great reach and you will see it in the reach stats. I also keep an eye on the bottom section which is how people found you. If you do make it on to the holy Explore page, this is how you will know!

The following insights can be found by going to your profile menu and selecting insights: (if you have a biz account):

Content: weekly I check which posts are performing well (I only ever measure engagement), make a mental note and do more of that. This will really help you build your voice and style as you see what people are liking and sharing.

Activity: I check this briefly to compare to the previous week

Audience: I check this to see when my audience are online and overall growth. 

Please, please make sure you are posting when your audience are online and don’t post and ghost. Stick around for at least 20 minutes to engage with people commenting - this will make SUCH a difference to your growth, it’s worth making sure you have time free after you are posting to do this.

Ultimately, Instagram is a business and wants it’s users to stay on the platform for longer, it’s how they make their money - through ad spend.

If you are creating content that makes people stay on longer and use it more by commenting and engaging, they will reward you with extra reach.

It really is pretty simple.

I feel like I have cracked the code to using Instagram in a way that makes me happy and has a positive impact on my business, I really hope this help you too! :)

Come and follow me and let me know!