Last week I hit a whopping 30,000 followers on Instagram in a relatively short amount of time. I always feel so overwhelmed when I hit big milestones & grateful that anybody would want to follow little old me.
It blows my mind how so many brilliant things have come my way from using an app on my phone & something that started as purely a social media account/hobby is starting to become a career for me.
I do get asked quite often HOW I have so many followers & to be honest i’m not entirely sure why people chose to follow my account but below are my top tips for using Instagram to it’s full potential. These are based on my experience & things i’ve learnt from being an ‘Instaaddict’.
1. Let people in – isn’t it incredible how we feel like we actually know somebody from following them on social media? I have so many accounts that I personally follow & feel like the people behind them are friends. If I went for dinner with them tomorrow it’d be like old friends catching up & I could chat about things they’ve done recently, their families & so on. Let people into your life, show your personality & you’ll soon find they’ll love you for it.
2. Always post pretty – sure, we all like to make our snaps look perfect & a spot of artistic creativity/styling is involved in many (yes I make my husband move his feet whilst i’m taking a picture because nobody would want to see those awful hairy beasts) but keep it real at the same time. Make sure each snap is of good quality with the right lighting & is ‘instaworthy’ (don’t post for the sake of posting).
3. Keep a theme – people follow me for interior & home inspiration so when I post a picture that doesnt fall under that category I always expect a lesser response. It’s all about finding your niche & it helps if this is something you are passionate about.
4. Use hashtags – these are a brilliant way of getting people to your page & to interact with. If i’m looking for inspiration i’ll look through hashtags & find accounts that way. Think about who you want to reach out to, who’s in the photo, where the photo was taken etc.
Don’t go crazy on these though as nothing is more of a turn off than seeing #follow4follow #instagood etc etc…be relevant & not spammy. I’ve recently started putting my hashtags in a comment rather in the caption to make it look neater whilst still attracting visitors.
5. When? – How often should you post on Instagram really depends on you however i’d usually say that you’d need to post regularly enough to keep people onboard (so a few times a week) to a maximum of a few times a day (3+ times a day may seem excessive to some). Spread them out & think quality NOT quantity. .
6. Engage – it’s SO important to engage with followers to create that lovely sense of community that Instagram is well known for. I try to respond to questions left in comments & read every one of them. I make an effort with those that I notice are always supportive of me & try to build relationships.
7. Filter – I always stick to using the Valencia filter as I find it’s the most flattering, in my opinion. I like to have the consistancy of this affect. Make sure you edit your photo’s to show them off in the best light.
8. Snowballing – i’ve found that when it comes to increasing followers, it’s like a snowballing affect. The higher my number of followers, the more people find me & follow me. It grows slowly at first then suddenly starts taking off & in the space of a 1 year (January 2015 – January 2016) since I did my first ever blog post, it’s increased by a crazy 27,000.
9. Privacy – my account is public which is something that I have chosen to do & others may not understand why i’d want others knowing whats going on in my life. I’m a pretty open person & don’t post anything too personal (unless you think a photo of my kitchen is going to cause issues) so don’t see a problem with it. If however you are posting photo’s of your baby then you may want to think twice about this but just be aware that less people are likely to follow you when they aren’t sure what it is you’re going to be posting about. Nobody wants to follow an account then realise they only post pictures of cats when they are a dog person.
10. Ask yourself why – why do you want to be popular on Instagram? If you are a business or a brand then of course it’s vital to build your following considering Instagram is now the second most popular social media network (second to Facebook) but the number 1 influential social marketing tool & is evergrowing. If you are an individual then having 20,000 followers on Instagram isn’t really going to bring anything to your life realistically.
‘Being famous on Instagram is basically the same as being rich in Monopoly’
Love, Charlotte x
Very real blog and valid points. Thank you for reminding me and prompting to review my focus for IG-ing
No problem at all – IG is fast becoming the most influential social media platform so it's really important to establish yourself on there! Good luck x