In about 6 months I went from 5k to 10k followers on Instagram (May 2020-November 2020 “ish”), so today I’m sharing some of the things I implemented to foster this growth!
Disclaimer: There is no big “secret” to growing your Instagram account. At the end of the day, it just takes dedication, planning, and HARD work!
Posting consistently
This means that you need to be on Instagram EVERY day (even if it’s just your stories…but preferably your in-feed)! You can’t expect to grow on a platform if you aren’t using it consistently. Once I began posting daily on my in-feed AND my stories, that is when I saw a significant amount of growth. The key to posting consistently is batching and planning out your content in advance! I was most successful with posting daily when I planned out my captions and my photos for the week in advance. This saves so much time in the long-run because posting in real-time is NOT the move. P.s. If you don’t know how to show up consistently (and with QUALITY content and VALUE) for 500 followers, you won’t know how to do it for 5,000 followers.
Relevant hashtags
Use relevant hashtags, and change them up often (you will need to research captions for your niche to do this successfully). You also want to have a mix of hashtag sizes (some big, some small). Pro-tip: branded hashtags are a good way to get brands to notice you! You can find these by checking to see which hashtags brands follow.
Storytelling
Make sure you are storytelling in your captions! People love stories, and you want to give your audience a reason to stay around—you are the expert of being you…so just be YOURSELF! You should be sharing a piece of your story in every post. For example, a few pieces of my story include my relationship, physical therapy school, and my experience as a black woman. Get clear with WHAT you want to share and WHY you want to share it. I promise this will change the game!
Authentic engagement
Engage with your audience: reply to ALL of your comments, invite your audience to share their story too, reply to DMs, interact with other creators in your niche, post story polls, all of the things! Engagement is so important for you to maintain your current followers, so the relationship with your audience should be a two-way street—no one likes talking to a brick wall!
Utilizing all Instagram has to offer
Make sure you are utilizing ALL of Instagram’s features (i.e. reels, stories, guides, IG TV, etc.), especially their new features! For example, reels is Instagram’s latest feature, so a lot of people have grown by incorporating reels into their content strategy.
Remember to have patience friends, it is going to take time to grow as most people don’t “blow up” overnight! What tip would YOU add to the list?
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