Are you finding yourself losing more followers daily than you are gaining? Are you looking to grow your Instagram authentically whilst having engaging followers? Instagram 2020 can be challenging, with the ever-changing algorithms, shadow bans and follow blocks left right and centre – but with these simple top five tips and tricks, you’ve got a starting point!
Engagement
Firstly, you can’t EXPECT post engagement without giving it yourself, you can’t expect Instagrammers; whether they follow you or not, to engage on your posts if you are never engaging back.
Set aside some time daily to like posts, whether these are on your home page, explore, a close friend or a stranger – make sure you’re liking, saving and commenting a meaningful comment on some posts. You will get this in return!
Posts
Do not, I repeat DO NOT post for the sake of posting. If you have nothing to post; don’t do it! This is more likely to lose you followers as they’ll see your posts and realise you’ve posted for the sake of it, people don’t want this! You’re better off posting something meaningful or helpful every few days rather than a pointless post daily, or more than once a day!
My top tip for posts is to create longer captions, but make sure the first sentence is eye catching to catch the attention of your audience! A longer post may seem too boring and you don’t want to read that much text… but when the first sentence is eye-catching that’s when you’ve caught them and they will stay on your post for longer as they are reading a longer caption which then works out for the algorithm! However, you need sentence breakers; I use Planoly so I am able to create gaps between each paragraph so although the caption is long, it’s not too wordy which would put any reader off.
Use the MAXIMUM amount of hashtags (30) per post, this will allow your posts to be seen further which will then gain you more followers as they are seeing your content without even following you; and if they like what they see, they’ll go ahead and hit that follow button! Utilise this as much as you can!
DO NOT USE third-party apps
You may think it’s a great idea to have an app that shows you who has unfollowed you, who doesn’t follow you back etc – it really isn’t. Instagram can catch you out as this is known as phishing, you’re theoretically using a bot to find these unfollowers to then unfollow them, this can cause a number of problems for you such as shadow banning, being blocked from your account, or follow blocked, it really isn’t worth it!
Stories
Always make sure you’re utilising stories; especially if you’re not planning to post that day! More and more people are watching stories and this means that even if your posts aren’t showing on their home page, your stories most likely are and from your stories they can then visit your profile and engage with you there.
There’s not a lot you can’t do in stories; from tagging, question sticks, polls – there are so many ways to engage with your audience, even creating a long post every now and then where the viewer has top hold to read is an excellent advantage for you as they are on your story for longer! The more people on your posts and stories for longer = Instagram more likely to show your posts and stories to a broader audience.
You can also slyly hashtag in stories (By slyly I mean you can hide them) if you don’t want anyone seeing hashtags clogging up your story post, you can shrink them so small that they become invisible! But then your stories will be visible to those who follow the hashtags you use.
First impressions are the most important
Is your grid aesthetically pleasing? Do you have an eye-catching bio?
The first thing people will see when they visit your page is your bio – make sure it says something that will make them want to continue on your page, but then when they scroll down onto your feed… you want that to look eye-catching too! Instagram is all about the pictures, you want photos that a clear, good quality, and the most common for Instagram – all the same style/filter. You are more likely to follow someone with an aesthetically pleasing grid and with meaningful, funny or helpful captions than a grid which looks like a hurricane has been through it with random posts multiple times a day that isn’t beneficial to the audience in the slightest.
Make sure you’re Niche is clear; whether this is fashion, beauty, motherhood, home etc – make sure this is clear in your bio so people know what to expect when they visit your page.