background picture via pinterest
Why start now?
There are many good reasons why you should start taking Instagram seriously if that’s something you’re interested in.
As of around September 2022 Instagram pushes smaller creators instead of people who are already successful which makes now the right time to start if you’ve been contemplating taking your Instagram account more seriously or starting a new one.
However, algorithms change so you shouldn’t solely rely on that.
Instagram is a great place to share your passion and connect with like-minded people with whom you can connect and exchange information. Let’s say you like to draw, you can start an Instagram account where you might show your drawings, post fanart, tutorials, etc. This allows you to connect with other artists where you can help each other grow or just simply make friends.
Creating content by filming, photographing and editing gives you skills that are incredibly useful in a lot of areas of life. Especially nowadays as social media, our phones, and technology in general increasingly take up more and more space in our lives.
We use technology at work, chat with our friends, look at what they’re up to on social media, and so on. We consume more than we actually create. The internet is a great place but it can also lead to addiction because it releases so much dopamine. If we don’t want to be radical and delete all our social medias because they’re eating up all our motivation, we can introduce a rule: consume as much as you create.
MY JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM
Let me tell you about my Instagram growth journey. The first time I actively started posting on Instagram was when I was 14 or even 13 and to be honest, if I look back on it I was way too young. I didn’t know what I was doing and the videos I posted are now videos I’m embarrassed by.
I was always interested in social media, Instagram in particular. I started many fan accounts, quotes pages, and many more. It was just for fun and I would never really stick to it and I didn’t see any results because I didn’t know anything about strategy and algorithms. At 16 I neglected all my accounts and focused on school, and friends but still regularly consumed social media, especially TikTok and Instagram.
At 17 when I lost many of my friends right before summer break I got into posting on Instagram again. I was bored and convinced I needed a glow-up. Around that time the lifestyle trend “that girl” gained a lot of popularity and I hopped right onto the trend.
I created an Instagram account named thatgirlsuccess to motivate myself and others in the process. My account was one of the first on the topic and has grown about a year later to 131k followers as of right now.
It helped me through my last year of high school and allowed me to connect with people with the same mindset and similar goals. Over the last year, I learned a few tips and tricks to grow on Instagram, and will share what I observed.
5 THINGS TO BE MINDFUL OF
- your first 1000 will take a while
Unless one of your first reels goes mega-viral there is no chance you will be super successful right away. There are tips and tricks to speed up that process but I observed that many accounts hit their first 1000 followers after about two to three months maybe even more. So don’t be discouraged if your account isn’t blowing up right away.
- It will take time and effort
Creating content and finding the right hashtags, captions and formats will take time and effort. It takes a while to find out how everything works in the niche you want to dive into. If you don’t know what a niche is don’t worry I will explain it later on.
- Ask yourself if you want to make money or not
If you want to make money off your platform someday create a plan in which way that could be possible. It depends on the type of your account and how profitable it will actually be. In that case, it is helpful to show your face if you want to attract brand sponsorships.
Take a look at your ROI (Return On Investment). Are your plans realistic?
If it’s just a hobby for you then that point will not affect you at all.
- The algorithm
Instagram’s algorithm changes over time. These algorithm changes will affect your account’s growth from time to time. Generally your account’s growth with never be linear there will always be spikes and dips. Don’t let that discourage you. Most likely it’s not your content just the algorithm.
- Consistency
It is the key to growth not only on Instagram.
Be consistent. This means posting regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day if that’s just not possible for you. But three times a week for example.
It helps to batch-create content whenever you can make time for it so that you just have to post it on the days you assign it to.
OVERALL TIPS TO GROW YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
Now let’s get into what you’re all here for. The tips and tricks.
Let’s categorize them into four categories: planning, account, creating content & posting.
planning
- niching down
Posting within a niche means focusing on one specific topic or interest.
A niche on Instagram, for example, would be memes but there are a million meme pages already out there so to succeed you’d have to niche down to get more specific. Like relatable memes, fandom memes, and so on.
If you want to break into the lifestyle niche you’d have to niche down to a specific lifestyle.
Niching down allows you to target people more specifically and eliminates competition because it is unlikely that your niched-down interest is oversaturated if that’s the case you should be more specific.
In my case, there were no or not a lot of that-girl Instagram accounts but it was already trending wildly on TikTok which meant there was demand but little competition. I got very lucky and it might not be the case for your interest but niching down helps downsize your competition.
However, in 2023 the trend also pivots towards personality instead of just value and niching down can include multiple interests that can be developed later that make will make you create a ‘personality’.
- get to know the algorithm
I feel like I mentioned the word algorithm a thousand times before but it is so crucial.
Know what types of content are doing well right now, what the preferred metrics are etc, and adjust accordingly.
You can find videos on youtube that speculate on algorithm changes and if you already have an account take a look at different formats on your account or similar accounts and evaluate what is working and what is not.
- different formats
Personally, I have only experience with reels, posts, and stories on Instagram. Because stories don’t have a large impact on growth I will focus on the other two.
Post both videos and photos. Don’t only post photos because that might work for a few people but to get reach videos and reels are a much better way to get started and grow. We see on TikTok that short-form content releases a lot of dopamine that is very accessible due to complicated algorithms that show you exactly what you want to see with only one scroll.
Even if I’m not the biggest fan of what this type of content is doing to our motivation it is the type that many social media platforms and people prefer.
I will have more specific tips on each one of these formats later on.
- target audience
You might ask yourself: What ratio of photos and videos should I use?
That depends on your target audience. What kind of people consume the content you offer? If they are older they might prefer carousel posts and video posts and spend more time on the explore page than on reels. If they are younger they’re probably on the reel tap a lot.
Knowing your target audience tells you more than just what formats to use.
Gender often plays a significant role in how you might structure content or how you write captions and stories.
account
- business/creator account
The first thing I recommend if you haven’t done it already is to convert your Instagram account to a creator or business account. This will give you access to more creator tools and analytics which reveal important information like the number of saves and shares as well as the number of impressions and where these came from (profile, home, explore, etc.)
- username
When choosing your username avoid too many underscores, points and numbers rather add a letter twice or not at all. It seems more professional and memorable to an audience.
- structure your bio
Make sure your bio looks clean and organized.
My bio looks something like this. The emojis follow a color scheme and I’m telling you information about my account.
You could add a bit more personal information than I have and maybe include a call to action like “follow for more” or “click the link for…”.
- name
You can see I used as my name “that girl aesthetic” which wasn’t intentional when I created my account but had a huge impact on my growth. Whenever someone would look for that-girl content in the search bar my account would pop up because I had the keyword in my name. This might not work for every niche but if it’s a themed account then it makes sense to include a keyword instead.
Creating content
- Quality and Quantity
Focusing only on quantity is not a great strategy, focusing on only quality is a better one but still not ideal because if your content has high quality but no exposure it has no chance to grow.
The ideal would be a combination of the two. Quality content that can be produced to post at least three times a week to maintain relevance and consistency.
- solve a problem/need
The harsh truth is: no one cares about you too much, they are looking for content that fulfills their need and so are you.
Their need could be motivation, inspiration, information, entertainment, etc.
If your content provides that they might leave a like, comment, or even follow you to have their needs met in the future, if it’s no longer their need or fulfilled they unfollow which is nothing personal.
- get inspired by others & follow trends
Don’t copy other people’s content. However, go to similar accounts in your niche and see what’s working for them. Get inspired by these types of content and add your own twist and make sure it can be easily distinguished from the content you’ve taken inspiration from and if it’s too similar credit the person in your caption for the inspiration.
Secondly, follow trends and make them your own. Catch up on trends and write down every single one then highlight the ones you can recreate in your niche, create content and make sure to post it when the trend is still relevant but not oversaturated.
Follow events as well that could be seasons, holidays but more relevant for you releases of tv-shows, music, or other forms of media. Good examples were the release of Euphoria, Stranger Things, and Taylor Swift’s new album “Midnights” which were not useable for me in the wellness niche but in many other niches.
Posting
- relevant hashtags
Hashtags are an efficient way to get exposure. With hashtags, it is important that you don’t only use the hashtags with the largest number of posts in your niche. Be sure to use less competitive ones and change them up as you grow and make sure they are relevant as well.
Another tip I heard is to change up the hashtags for every post because Instagram might see posts with the same hashtags as spam.
- engaging captions
On Instagram follower engagement matters whether that be comments, saves, or shares. Choosing engaging captions with a clear call to action or even a question invites and reminds the viewer to engage with your content.
- share to story
By sharing your post to your story you initiate the first engagement with your new post, it gets more exposure because sometimes it just happens that your post doesn’t land on the home feed of some of your followers. You can also add some relevant hashtags to your story and put the post on top so the hashtags are not visible anymore to get more reach.
- mutuals
Social networks are called social for a reason. They’re a great opportunity to meet like-minded people so don’t be afraid to reach out to people whether they are mutuals (you both follow each other) or accounts you like and who knows how that simple conversation evolves.
Comment on your mutuals posts and comment useful things. Do not just spam emojis under every post because that does not help their engagement at all. If you engage with other posts they most likely will return the favor which helps you grow.
SPECIFIC TIPS FOR REELS AND FEED POSTS
POSTS
- shareable content or saveable content
As I touched on before saves and shares are important engagement metrics. If your feed posts have some sort of value to the viewer they might get saved, shared, and even shared to their story which gives your account extra exposure.
Questions you can ask to know if your content is shareable or saveable are:
- Does this bring value to the viewer’s life (in form of information for ex.)?
- Why would a person save this?
- Would I share this? To whom?
- Carousel posts
With carousel posts, it is important that you keep the viewer scrolling through most of the slides because this is engagement as well. Another tip is to use the most clickable and eye-catching image first incase your post lands on explore.
REELS
- keep them short enough
People’s attention span is relatively short and many can’t and won’t sit through a thirty-second to two minute long unedited video.
Keep your videos under twenty seconds and if you’re talking in that video make sure there are no ‘ehms’ and unnecessary breaks left.
- Keep them engaging
Make sure you capture the viewer’s attention right away with text on the screen or a great opening line or question. Now that you got the viewer’s attention you have to keep it not giving them a boring break to scroll by making sure your video is interesting at all times.
- Follow trends and trending audio
Reels are the best place to follow trends. One look at your reel tap is enough to identify what is trending on reels. Save these trends in a folder and recreate reels according to your niche. Use the trending sound. You can identify trending sounds by the arrow pointing upward on the sound page.
- Good quality
Good camera quality is always a plus when creating videos but for short-form videos, you most likely don’t need the best quality. However, the quality should still be decent.
Knowing your niche and your target audience with creating content with viral potential are great starting points but remember it will often take a while for Instagram to trust you and start recommending your content.
Be patient and consistent and you will see results in the long run.
Don’t give up! I know you can do this!
If you have questions feel free to message me on my Instagram @herwellnessdiaries_
