5 Tips to Grow Your Instagram

 

In 2017, a Super Bowl commercial cost approximately $5 million US for 30 seconds of airtime, thats $167,000 per second! (mediakix) The value is believed to be in the 172 million US Super Bowl viewers (USATODAY)

With more than 400 million monthly active users, 80 million photo uploads a day and 3.5 billion likes daily (searchenginewatch), Instagram trumps the Super Bowl audience on a daily basis. Add two further bonuses; it is free and it provides inherent optimization tools in the form of hashtags so it makes the big spending Super Bowl marketers seem like amateurs.

Yes, hashtags are like optimization tools. They allow you to target your audience more specifically by tagging relevant keywords/phrases for the audience who actively search for the content they want to see. The key phrases there are ‘actively search’ and ‘want to see’. Super Bowl adverts are broad spectrum bulk advertising. They throw the same information over the 172 million viewers once and hope that the small percentage who are interested in their product are actually paying attention to the TV at that time and decide to buy their product next time they are near.

OK, so it makes sense! but it takes a little effort and how do I make as big an impact as possible. Here are some tips that should help you continually improve your instagram following over time:

  1. Be active on Instagram. People follow to see interesting content and the more content you post, the more likely they are to continue following you because you interest them.
  2. Engaging other instagram accounts in a similar area/business as you, especially those with a large following. This helps you learn what kind of content attracts followers and it can also introduce you to their followers.
  3. Frequent posting means people searching at different times of day are more likely to come across your posts.
  4. Use your hashtags. With up to 30 hashtags per post, you can use tags that are specific to your target audience in addition to less specific (but still relevant) tags that help you reach the broader audience or demographic you wish to reach. Be aware that too many hashtags and non relevant hashtags can cost you followers and negatively affect you on other social media outlets.
  5. Finally, check out your instagram competitors’ followers and follow them. They are your target audience and they will be notified that you follow them. This in turn may cause them to check out your instagram profile and follow you back as you are in their area of interest.

Happy Hashtagging