I started my Instagram account in November of 2017. Since then, I have grown my following from 0 to 1,200 followers, filled with people who genuinely interact with my content and who I have gained real friendships with. Even if no one cares or wants to know, I decided to write down my strategy (though it’s more like a set of steps I took regularly). Although I can’t guarantee that if you follow these exactly, that you’ll have the exact same results that I had. But I can guarantee that you will find amazing people and love that you are interacting with awesome content daily.
Many people, especially those just starting a business account, choose to post multiple times a day. That is so awesome that people are able to do that, but it was never feasible from the beginning for me. I have always been about quality over quantity – I would much rather only post once a day if that means that I’m super happy with the content I’m putting out there. And I just don’t have time to create really great content multiple times a day.
If I had more time and was able to create good content for multiple posts a day, I would. Every time I post, I get a bump in followers, because a lot of people are finding my post and following me from that. But posting multiple times a day isn’t necessary, especially if you’re only focused on posting a bunch of times a day out of obligation, and not focused on creating your best content. Quality > Quantity.
WHEN TO POST
Do I have a strategy as to when I post? The answer is sometimes. A lot of the time, I just post whenever I have content ready or whenever I remember to. Sometimes, I’ll look at the insights of my followers (able to be accessed because I have a business Instagram) and see what time my followers are the most active and post then. I don’t have a great strategy for this yet, mostly because I haven’t seen a big jump in likes or anything at a certain time.
CHOOSING CONTENT
Choosing what type of content to post is something I try to plan out at the beginning of the month. My main content strategy is switching between my different lettering mediums, not putting two of the same type in a row. I also try to switch up colors so all colors are balanced in my grid; for example, I don’t do two black and white images/lettering after one another. It will depend on your content, but I think about what I want to see in other profiles, and I don’t like getting bored by the same type of content over and over again.
If you haven’t heard it before, it’s totally okay to use all 30 hashtags. In fact, it’s recommended. At the beginning of my business Instagram, I only used 5-10 hashtags per post. When I bumped it up to all 30, I really noticed an increase in engagement.
The hashtag strategy I use is all about using a variety of “hashtag densities.” I wrote a blog post with my fail-proof instagram tips a few months ago, and I go into detail with what exactly that is. In terms of what hashtags I use, I focus most of my attention on ideal consumers of my content. I have a bunch of hashtag groups, that I use for all posts with certain content, and then I do photo or video specific hashtags.
So where do I put my hashtags? I did my hashtags in my caption for majority of my time, and I recently changed to start putting my hashtags in the comments. I recently did a poll and question on my story about where most people put their hashtags and why – and I got answers that were completely split down the middle. Some people have always put it in the comments, with no reasoning as to why (except for that it looks better), and it works great. Some people put it in the caption, mostly because you are able to edit the hashtags if you want (which you can’t do in the comments). Now that I’ve switched, I’m testing whether or not it makes a difference – and then I’ll come back here and report on my findings!
Unlike hashtags, which I often try to reach consumers of my content, my strategy from the beginning was to interact with everyone, not just my target audience. This included “competitors” (if you want to read about how I feel about that word, check out this blog post), local businesses & bloggers, beginning letterers, brands, other crafty people, and pretty much anyone who I connected to on in the eyes of my business.
When I engage, I try to both like and comment on posts that I like. I never post only emojis (because I kind of hate when people do that on my posts, so I don’t do it on others’), I try to post at least 4 words in the comment, if not more.
I try to post in my stories once a day at least – most of the time more than that. I like to utilize stories because it’s a fun, more personal way of connecting to people. Basically, I love watching stories, so I like to post them too. Sometimes it’s as simple as posting about recent blog posts or posts on my feed. It’s best when I have behind-the-scenes shots, or other fun content, but it’s not always readily available – which is why it’s helpful to post on my feed once a day so I can also post that in my stories if I don’t have anything else.
In addition to posting, I also interact with other stories as often as I can. This is actually how I have developed so many personal relationships with other people over Instagram. Whether they reply to my stories or I reply to theirs, it starts a personal conversation which can lead to a friendship.
On my favorite podcast, Misses Ambitious, they talk often about whether or not you need to show your face to post in stories and be successful. Their answer is no, and I agree. I rarely show my face, because I’m not super comfortable showing it all the time. I, instead, show video of what I’m working on and talk while I show it. If you aren’t comfortable showing your face – don’t. It will not effect your engagement, I’m sure of that!
Do I follow the algorithm? Not really. It changes so much, I tend to just ignore it. Sometimes, if something makes a lot of sense – I’ll follow it or try to integrate it into my strategy. But it’s mostly just a guideline as to the best possible way to make the most out of Instagram – it doesn’t mean you won’t get any engagement if you don’t follow it.
Even though I’m specific about my strategy, I don’t take it too seriously. I focus on what I like to post. I don’t post to get likes or followers, I post to show my work and hopefully start some discussion. It’s usually obvious what my followers like to see the most (and what they maybe don’t like to see) – but I don’t let it effect how I feel about what I post. As long as I’m happy with my content, it doesn’t matter what will bring in the most likes.
If you didn’t notice by what my strategy focuses on, I’m all about building relationships and community through Instagram. If your goal is to get followers as fast as you can, probably don’t follow my strategy. But if you want to truly participate and be a part of the community, and have fun doing it, my strategy could work for you!
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