Alright friends, here we go. The Truth About Growing Your Following. The no-bulllsh*t here’s how to do it, there’s no short cut, no easy answer. If you want it, you better work.
ahahah wow that made it sound wayyyyy more intense than it really is. There are three factors that go into growing a feed, your content, your engagement level and your engaging. These are all intermingled and you cannot have one without the other unless you miraculously went viral.
Factor One: Your Content
This is the foundation of your growth, you put up good content with relevant hashtags and you will get followers. It might only be one or two a day to start, but if people like your content you will get traffic no matter what.
Now, I know a lot of people say put up content that YOU like and people will eventually follow. This is bull… you might LOVE your content, but if you are stuck at 100 followers and doing everything you are supposed to (consistent posting, hash tagging, engaging etc.) then it’s time to change your content.
On the consistent posting, you have to post consistently. In reality you should be posting once a day. People have said that you can post 2-3 times a week and keep followers engaged with stories, but in reality companies will pay you the big bucks for feed posts. If you can’t convert in your feed, you won’t be able to monetize.
Growing a following can be difficult, unless you’ve been in the game from the beginning, or are one of those who have all the luck when it comes to discovery. It’s a slow process, which anyone can do, you just need to be realistic about how much work you need to put in.
You need to keep a consistent theme. Consistent editing, main colours, sense of style etc.
Factor Two: Your Engaging
You have to engage. There is no way around it you MUST MUST MUST engage with others. I would suggest 2 hours minimum. And you must engage every day. Generally I would suggest everyday for 2-3 weeks and once you see your engagement start to rise beyond the baseline you set the first few weeks you can ease off but I seriously don’t recommend that. Keep going until you have doubled your average likes + comments from your starting point… then ease off.
You also need to engage with the people that like and comment on your photos as well. I recommend setting aside time everyday to respond to the people who have commented on your posts, go through their feeds and like their posts, and engage with the people who watch your stories.
Factor Three: Your Engagement Level
Effectively your engagement level means the amount likes and comments you are getting on your posts. The higher this is, the more likely you are to have your posts boosted onto the explore page (or so the rumour goes). In reality, the more likes and comments you receive, the more popular people will think you are. Hence, they will be more likely to follow you
Your engagement level is also a good indicator to brands that you have an audience that will convert into sales.
All of these three factors are clearly intertwined, you can’t have one without the others.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and it gave you a bit of insight into what it takes to grow an instagram following!
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xoxo Steph
