When Kevin Storm and Mike Kreiger launched a photo-sharing app in 2010, they would not have perhaps imagined that it would have a billion active monthly users or be acquired by Facebook. Instagram has evolved from a platform where you share memorable moments of your life, favourite quotes, and life mantras to a branding, networking and marketing tool to power businesses.
Initially, it is exciting as your post gets a few likes but this can turn into disappointment, as your account garners nothing more than that. Digital media experts state that it is the first 10000 followers that are the hardest to achieve. Here are some ways you can attract genuine followers on Instagram.
Enhance your profile
Optimise your profile with an attractive profile picture and an interesting bio. You have only 150 characters so make the most use of it. Add your hobbies, interests, professional skill and relevant hashtags and even out the space with emojis and line breaks.
Use hashtags intelligently
Hashtags make your post easily discoverable so make use of relevant hashtags. The follow hashtag feature lets you discover more hashtags relevant to your post. Do not use the same set of hashtags for every post as this can be considered as spamming by the Instagram algorithm. Unique hashtags can be used for marketing campaigns.
Be active
Digital Guru Neil Patel likes over 1000 posts a day, and you can incorporate this technique as well. Engage with the audience in the form of meaningful conversations and we don’t mean just a ‘beautiful’ or a ‘thank you’. The hashtagging feature can be used in comments as well.
Interesting captions
Rather than creating a single line caption and a big chain of hashtags trailing behind, create an interesting story behind every photo and place the hashtag next to the related word. For example “In love with the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning #freshlybrewedcoffee” can be written as “In love with the smell of freshly brewed coffee #freshlybrewedcoffee in the morning.
Consistent posting
There are brands that upload 30 pictures a day while others just 3. Consistency is the key here and not the number of posts. So stick to a regular number of posts as per your time rather than post 20 pictures one day and then disappearing for 2 weeks. The rule of the thumb is to post one picture a day.
