There is TONS of information on Instagram marketing and social media marketing out there, and most of it is complete crap. Most of it is about as useful as a Masters in Fine or Performing Arts.
I’m talking about articles like:
- Increase Your Instagram Followers Overnight
- 11 Ways to get more (real!) Instagram Followers
- How to Get More Followers on Instagram: A Guide to Earning Your First 1,000 Followers
- How to Get 300, Real, Targeted Instagram Followers Per Month
At best these guides will give you last years’ knowledge on Instagram marketing, and the “tips” they give? They’re all the same!
You probably know what I’m talking about…stuff like:
- Post Consistently.
- Use good hashtags.
- Post photos at 12 am or 5 pm.
- Write detailed captions.
🚫 NO! WORST ADVICE EVER!! While I’m at it…NEVER buy Instagram Followers!!
Instagram has changed a lot over the past year—getting followers is harder, engagement rates have tanked—but all the advice out there is stuck in the past.
But…we got your back. We are here to help.
We put together this guide to give you our updated knowledge, tips, techniques and hacks that influencers use to build and grow their accounts in the fastest ways possible. To speed up the process, start using what you learn here right away…today! By this time next year your Instagram account will have grown tremendously.
The “Algorithm”
A few years back, Instagram introduced the infamous, the mysterious, “algorithm”. Basically, the algorithm determines what posts you see and when and how frequently you see them. This is the foundation of beginning to hack Instagram and master growing your page.
Social media sites make most of their money by selling ads. Businesses, influencers, artists and musicians all advertise on social media sites. People being on those platforms for long periods of time is an incentive. The more time people stay on those platforms, the more ads Instagram (platforms) can sell. Your job as a business and future influencer is to keep people’s attention. The better you keep attention, the more Instagram rewards you by letting you show up in feeds and the explore page. The things that influence the algorithm the most are:
- Engagement: hashtags, comments, likes, shares, DMs, interacting with stories etc.
- Relevancy: commonly related themes of content you most interact with.
- Interactions: pages and profiles you interact with the most.
- Consistency: how often and how frequent you post.
- Type of Content: Pics, stories, videos. Videos perform the best.
#Hashtags
Hashtags are very important on IG. Use hashtags as a way to be discovered in the top search results. IG lets you use up to 30 hashtags per post. As a general rule, I like to use 10 popular, 10 medium in popularity and 10 not as popular. The goal is to spread them out so that a post can be seen widely across a broad group of hashtags that someone would be searching. For the best results the hashtags must be related to the content you are posting at the time.
Researching the hashtags you want to use is a MUST. You have to see how much traction or how popular a hashtag is before you use it. IG allows you, while typing in the hashtag in the description box, to see the number of times a hashtag has been posted or used. To research a hashtag, I use https://displaypurposes.com. You can also look at the pages of influencers in your niche or influencers that post similar content and see what tags they use. Make sure you see if the hashtag is active on IG; banned hashtags will keep your post from being seen in the other hashtags you use on your post. Once you find the Hashtags you want to use, pick the ones that are spread out the way I explain following. For example, I use hashtags as follows:
- 10 Most Popular (200k – 1 Million+)
- 10 Medium Popularity (50k – 200k)
- 10 Low Popularity (10k – 50k)
Be sure that your most popular hashtag isn’t too much bigger than 2Mil because if it is, it will be overlooked and lost among the other millions of posts.
Using this method will get you on the explore page for sure if you have enough engagement. Remember to always respond to comments on your posts! Responding and being a decent human being will always take you and your business further than an explore page!!
Consistency
Don’t listen to what people say….YOU CAN NEVER POST TOO MUCH!!! Post as much as you can, (as long as it’s not overdoing it). Chances are you probably don’t post and interact enough. Have something on your mind? POST IT! Went somewhere different for lunch? POST IT! Don’t worry about what other people will think about you. Don’t just post stuff in your IG stories too. Your page isn’t an art museum! It doesn’t have to look perfect or pretty! As long as each individual post looks great, that’s all that matters. It’s not exactly clear how much posting consistently affects the algorithm but it definitely puts you in the front of other IG users’ minds and attention. Remember, you are on IG to keep the user’s attention. At the same time, if you post so much to the point of annoying people, you will get less engagement and the algorithm will penalize you for that by not showing your posts as much. Find your sweet spot.
Best Time to Post?
What?!? This is the most popular, misused, incorrect tip of all the tips about IG. There is no such thing as a good or best time to post. That’s like saying there is a good and best time to breathe. As long as you are doing it, it doesn’t matter when you post. Posts on Instagram aren’t chronological, remember….the algorithm. Timing only comes into play when it involves interactions when you post. If your post gets a ton of likes within the first hour, the algorithm will boost your post so it could be seen more. It might even put it on the explore page if it does well enough. When posting stories, it might be best to post when the majority of your followers are online. You can figure that out by checking the analytics which is only available on a Instagram business page. You do have a business page, right?
Content
Creative content is key! Your content doesn’t have to look like a magazine or art gallery in order to get likes. But it should be unique, engaging and you. Your post should draw people in, spark conversation. You want as many comments and likes as possible. You want to get as many followers and as much attention as possible. You can also do skits, cover videos and creative promotional contests. When you gain more followers, companies might reach out to you and pay you to do those types of posts for their products or services.
Extra Strategies and Tips
The number of followers oftentimes isn’t related to the amount of engagement and impact you make. Although followers might be low starting off, here are a few bonus tips that will help boost you in the algorithm.
Location, location, location!. It’s not what you think lol. You don’t need to be in a dope location to post your content; although that would help and be super cool! But, on IG you can tag a location to your content. Doing that will get more eyes on your content if you tag a popular location (city) or if your content is related to the location you tag. You can also search locations to see what’s going on in a certain city or location and what other content creators are posting in a certain area.
Next up, hashtags in IG stories. This might seem like a no-brainer but I just wanted to put it out there to be sure. Hashtags and tagging people (with the “@“ sign) in stories do essentially the same thing as with hashtags in posts. Use them.
One thing that a lot of people overlook is following other people and accounts. Follow people and pages you don’t know! One technique that is successful is following a couple of influencers’ followers on their follow list. Be sure that the influencers or celebrities you are finding followers from is in the same niche that you are in. You can also follow celebrities. A lot of people check to see who a celeb’s new followers are and comment on and like their content. A few people might even follow you.
Like and interact with as many posts as you can. If you genuinely admire or enjoy a piece of content, like it. Be a socially active, good human being. Give free content, tips and advice. If you see someone in your niche that posts something that you have an opinion or advice about, let them know. Just be friendly and make friends.
Cover a song and tag the artist. You might get a like or share from a big account or even better, the artist! Of course you shouldn’t do it if you aren’t a good singer or good performer (unless it’s a parody) but if you are, go for it.
One last thing…run your content/posts as ads. We all have seen that one ad that played before a video with the guy on youtube in his garage with the Lamborghinis. It was super long and most importantly: annoying. Don’t be that guy. Although he gained tons of followers from that ad, I don’t think anyone actually watched the ad in its entirety because it was so long. The goal is to keep attention. People, especially me, have the attention span of a goldfish. 😂 You want to make sure your content/ad is short and sweet, unique, interesting and straight to the point. You will get the best results when running your content as an ad when you don’t try to sell anything.
The Most Important #1 Thing to do to Grow
The number one tip is to do it. Put everything you’ve just learned to work. Now! Right now! Don’t be the person that knows what to do and doesn’t do it. Don’t keep putting it off. Don’t be one of the 90% that starts and never finishes.
