Make Instagram Your Best Influencer

Growing your Instagram following can be easy when you know how to most effectively use the platform.

I know people are saying that Facebook is dying, and everyone is moving over to Instagram. They say that you should have an Instagram business page to market your business. I agree. I believe that you should have multiple platforms, but you should definitely assess where your audience is hanging out. If your audience is hanging out on Instagram, I want to give you tips on how to make sure that you are reaching your audience, increasing your engagement, and growing your audience. Make sure you are taking care of our current audience, reach new people and your content is share-worthy. So let's get started!

First, I want to talk about hashtags. I remember when people would make fun of hashtags. Do you recall when Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake did that hashtag segment? They were hashtagging their verbal conversations. Hilarious! Hashtags are definitely beneficial for people that are trying to search for things on social media. If they just click on your hashtag, it brings up all of the posts that have that hashtags. So if you're trying to be found, it is a great idea to use hashtags.

Hashtag Tips: If you're posting to the Instagram feed, it is recommended to have 10 to no more than 30 hashtags (28 hashtags are best) on the first comment after your post. Make sure that your hashtags are relevant to your posts. Switch up hashtags from time to time.

You're probably thinking, "But Vanessa, I don't have time to do hashtags or think of hashtags." That's why I always preach if it is important to you, then you will plan it. Be prepared. Make a couple of different hashtags that you want to use for different categories. If you're doing fitness, maybe have a couple of different groups of fitness hashtags that you can copy and paste from your notes app or Google Docs. I suggest typing on your laptop into Google Docs for ease then copy to your notes app via email. If you are putting hashtags in stories, then have a separate set of hashtags that you're going to be using in stories.

Stories Hashtag Tips: For your stories, it is recommended to have three to five hashtags. When you add hashtags to stories, it gives you a chance to be able to be featured in the stories for that hashtag category. If you follow any hashtags, you'll see the story for them on the top of your feed. When using hashtags in your stories, hide them by making them smaller. There are certain fonts that make the hashtag smaller. Or slide them off the screen!

Don’t forget to use the hashtag sticker that Instagram provides for you.

Let's move on to our feed. It used to be that had to have cohesive, beautiful content. It had to be very consistent with the same filter. If you were doing all white, then it had to be more white and light colors. If you were doing something more bright, that everything had to be bright colors. That is beautiful and all but it kind of gets boring and you just become the white noise of everyone else that's trying to sell something. Put something new in there. Put something unexpected yet that relates to your business. Try a different perspective of your business.

Instagram Feed Tips: Let's say you're an interior designer and you're always doing soft colors or pastels. Show a different side of your artistic talent with bright colors. Mix it up so content sticks out when someone goes to your full feed. When they're not looking at your actual profile, but they're looking through a feed where other people's content is showing up, you could be more visible with something that is eye-catching.

Whenever you're posting to your profile, use videos. Use the carousel feature with videos that build on each other. Don't just post pictures. Mix it all up and keep it interesting for your audience. A lot of times they're scrolling because they're bored. They want to get some entertainment, they're looking for an idea, or they're looking to learn something. You have to get their attention immediately.

Next, if you want to grow your IG following and you want to get more engagement, then use IGTV. I've been seeing more and more people using IGTV and Instagram has been pushing that feature.

IGTV Tips: You can post a video that's a lot longer on IGTV. For those that don’t have 10,000 followers nor the swipe up feature on IG Stories, you can add links to your IGTV posts that are clickable for your people to go to straight to your website. IGTV allows you to do up to 10-minute videos (longer for some accounts). It is recommended that you stay within three to five minutes. If you go beyond that, make sure whatever you're saying is so valuable that it's going to want them to continue to watch. Don't waste their time. Three to five minutes is the happy medium. Anything beyond that, make sure that it's really dang good, okay?

Make sure that you're using your hashtags on your IGTV videos. Also, create an eye-catching thumbnail with text title. Your IGTV thumbnail should be the same dimensions as your IG Stories so create this thumbnail in your IG Stories first then save to your camera roll.

Don’t forget to promote your IGTV video in your IG Stories and use the link feature to connect your story to your IGTV. Your followers will be able to swipe up and instantly be directed to your IGTV post.

Finally, whatever you do, make sure you have a content strategy in place. Download our Holiday Marketing Guide to set up your holiday marketing campaigns with intention. This will give you a higher return on your investment because it teaches you how to create focused, valuable content.

Happy Socializing!

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