Information in this blog post was obtained from Hootsuite, Hubspot, and Sprout Social.
Do you want more Instagram followers? There are over 200 million business accounts on Instagram (Hubspot). How are you going to compete with all of these accounts? With that many accounts, it can be extremely hard to stand out and create unique content to catch the viewer's eye. With the right content, scheduled posts, and frequent activity, you can boost your engagement in no time. In this post, we will discuss tips on how to grow your Instagram account and gain followers.
How to Upgrade Your Instagram Profile?
Bio
An Instagram bio is a description of your account and will be one of the first things a user will look at before following your account. The bio can only be up to 150 characters long, so you will want to use those wisely. Creating a bio on Instagram can be a way to attract followers, promote your brand and explain what you are about. Your bio should be short and sweet, the goal is to make users press that follow button. You can include a link to your company's website in your bio as well.
Click here to use the Bio Generator from Hootsuite.
Username
The username is how the user will find your account, tag you, etc. For example, my username is just my name but for a business, you will want to use the company's name as the username.
Profile Picture
When choosing a profile picture a few things should be considered such as the quality of the photo, the legibility, and the logo. You will want to use your company's logo. If there are words in the photo, make sure they are legible.
Posting Content
If you are trying to boost engagement, content is key. You need to post content consistently. The more you post, the more chances to gain followers.
Quality Content
Coming up with Instagram content can be tricky when trying to get users to engage. There are so many posts on Instagram which is why you have to make sure your post is unique and engageable. You should be using all aspects of Instagram, including reels, stories, videos, pictures, and meaningful captions. Sprout Social explains that using Instagram's analytic tools will really benefit your account.
How to Compete with Other Instagram Accounts?
Captions and Tools
You will want to use Instagram analytics tools to observe the engagement of each post, loss or gain of followers, demographic, etc. within your account. This will help you improve your account and know what exactly is benefitting your account. Another thing to do that will help grow your account is to look at competitors' accounts that are successful and try using their posting tactics but in an original way. According to HubSpot, captions are essential, will do wonders for your brand, and can make or break a post. Having a caption that stands out can lure competitors' viewers toward your account instead. For example, posting about a sale or upcoming event that interests your target audience will most likely gather more engagement, rather than posting with no caption.
Trends
When competing for engagement on Instagram, keeping up with trends will help you tremendously. Nowadays there are different trends every week. You need to stay up with the trends and the formatting. Now you can post reels, stories, and videos to attract users. Making sure the format of the post is trendy is crucial if you want to keep and attract users.
How to Engage with Users?
Follows, likes, comments, and shares are all ways to engage with users. On Instagram you can now like comments posted by other people, this is a great way to see what the people are liking and disliking about the post. You can also post polls to your Instagram story which will allow users to engage and form an opinion.
Likes will allow the user to give an impression of a post and let the account know that they enjoyed it. The users can also share the content with other accounts. For example, if a company is having a giveaway, sometimes they will tell users they must post to their story for a chance to win, so I will share the post to my story. This will not only reach engagement to their account but mine as well.
By reading through this blog you should realize that Instagram can use very critical thinking. Using all these tips on how to optimize your Instagram will give you a great start to your account. If you enjoyed this post and want to learn about engagement on another platform called TikTok, check out my colleague's post on SMMU.
Resources
Barnhart, B. (2023, September 13). How to get more followers on Instagram: 15 tips to grow your real audience. Sproutsocial. Retrieved September 18, 2023, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-get-followers-on-instagram/
Forsey, C. (2023, June 22). How to Gain Your First (or Next) 1,000 Instagram Followers - 31 Tips. HubSpot. Retrieved September 18, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/gain-instagram-followers?hubs_content=blog.hubspot.com%252Fmarketing&hubs_content-cta=null&hubs_post-cta=blognavcard-marketing
Hirose, A. (2023, August 2). 10 Instagram Bio Ideas [FREE BIO GENERATOR + TEMPLATES]. Hootsuite. Retrieved September 18, 2023, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-bio-ideas-business/
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