Instagram is a super good tool if you know how to use it effectively. It's also not as easy as people think. I just post cool stuff and I get thousands of followers.... If it was really that easy everyone would have a large, active and high engagement account.
There are several methods/techniques to get followers, likes and mentions. There are also several ways to make your content likely to "go viral". Although, of course, this depends on several factors and there is never a guarantee that it will go viral. But there are certainly things you can do to increase that likelihood.
What you want are obviously niche followers, people who have a real interest I what you post/do. So as an entrepreneur doing e.g. life coaching, you also want to get people who will follow you and "engage" with your account and as a person. People who are interested in/ looking for life coaching. This of course applies to any niche.
Yet you often see accounts not growing, you may have a few hundred followers, but then you get stuck or the amount of followers decreases. Instagram just takes a lot of time, especially if you don't really/well know how Instagram works.
#1 You are not using targeted (targeted) hashtags for your specific niche.
- Before you cram every post with all kinds of hashtags to grow your account, you need to do proper research on which targeted hashtags are best for your business/ niche. You don't want all kinds of followers, only people who have a genuine interest in what you have to offer. Learn to do research and there is a very handy free tool that can help you do this. I'll come back to that in a moment.
#2 You use the most popular hashtags and/or very general ones like #love #puppy #happy
- You might think because you use these kinds of popular hashtags you get a lot of followers, but this can actually work against you. Even if they are targeted and you get some followers and likes, it doesn't take very long before your posts are no longer visible because there are millions of posts using those kinds of popular and common hashtags. The next tip is to use precisely the medium/ and hashtags that are not (so) popular so that your posts have a better/higher chance of getting into the top 9 section where the people you want see your posts and therefore keep following you. Because you stay on the top page longer, more people are more likely to see your posts. Get more targeted followers and maybe your post(s) will go viral!
#3 You use we few hashtags
- You can use 30 hashtags per post, many people shudder at that and think it comes across as spam. But every hashtag you don't use is a missed opportunity to get that reach. Think of all the millions of people who search on multiple and different (niche) hashtags every day. Even Instagram says this is a very good strategy to employ. If you're still afraid it might come across as spam, use that your 30 hashtags as the 1st comment. This way, your caption (message) stays clean and people can read it better.
#4 You use the same standard hashtags every time
- As with anything in marketing (keywords research, for example, for a site), you have to test and test and test. Because only then will you know what works well and what doesn't. It's good to "cycle" them so you don't use the same hashtags every time. It is useful to make an excel sheet and have between 60-100 different hashtags there that are targeted. And rotate these every so often.
#5 Do not use "branded" hashtags
- Useful to use if you are already a big "brand" but definitely not useful if you are small and unknown. Also, you definitely don't want to promote other brands/ companies/people who are in your niche 🙂 ).
As a final tip of this post, the free hashtag research tool is. Google and go to keyhole.co. When you are on the site you will see this a keywords bar, or rather a hashtag bar. As an example, I used e.g. the "nails" niche. You obviously want to use this for your own niche. It's a handy tool to use and it's free. Should you still get popup to create an account or log in, go into Google's incognito mode and use it that way.
These are 5 tips to avoid the mistakes many people get into, including experienced marketers. Because social media is quite different from SEO/ SEA. Hopefully you will put this to good use to grow your account, because Instagram, besides being personal, is a very good platform to grow your business and get more conversions.
