Instagram is an amazing platform to get seen by many people. It can also help you generate blog traffic.
The best way to get this traffic though, is to get the swipe up feature on your stories. This can only happen when you get to 10,000 followers. It is also then when you are usually classed as an Instagram influence.
In this post, I’ll be sharing with you how to become an Instagram influencer to both benefit your blog and earn money. (Brands like to work with Instagram accounts of a larger following.)
How can I grow my follower count?
Followers is often a quick way to determine how famous someone is on Instagram. The bigger the follower count, the more famous someone is. This aspect however, is often the most difficult to increase.
Look at others’ likes
Go on your home feed and scroll down to a photo from someone in your niche. It’s better if they have a bigger following than you.
Go down the people who have liked their photo and like several photos of theirs. For example, if I was the liker of the photo you choose, you’d like maybe 6 photos of mine.
I do this often and usually those people like my photos and more often than not, follow me too.
Message your new followers
This is often a way to keep your followers rather than a way of gaining them. That being said, you can gain followers through word of mouth and being nice can help that.
My biggest advice for this one though, is to be specific. Don’t just message and say “hey, nice account, thanks for the follow.” Make sure you compliment a specific photo or something. Be personal! Instagram is about connections.
Obviously DMing everyone will be difficult as you get more famous on Instagram but it’s nice to keep it up as long as possible.
Provide good quality photos
The first thing that people will see when they go on your profile, is your feed. Make it cohesive and pretty.
People will follow for your content, they want to see photos they love on their home page. Try a preset, this is a filter you’ll apply to all your photos so they all fit the theme you’re after.
Also, make sure to write longer captions. It makes you seem more than just an account and helps your readers connect and relate more.
Try and make the captions interesting or funny. It makes your audience captured and they’re then again, more likely to follow.
Why not read my blog post on how to perfect an Instagram theme.
How can I get more likes?
Likes are a show of engagement. Brands mainly look at engagement when looking for influencers to work with.
What’s the point of working with an account of 100k if they’re only getting 100 likes, if there’s an account at 5k who’s getting 500 likes?
It’s easier to get likes than followers though you’ll be glad to know. These tips should work straight away too!
Promote it on your stories
Instagram loves accounts that post on their story regularly. Having photos to promote can help with that.
The most common way of sharing a photo is sharing it on your story and maybe placing a sticker over it.
Why the sticker? So you’re not giving away all the photo. This’ll make people intrigued, they’ll then click onto the photo and are more likely to give it a like. You’re already on the photo, you may as well like!
Post photos of yourself!
I always find personal photos get more likes than my flatlays.
These posts allow your followers to connect and see the face behind the blog. That’s why my Instagram has featured a few more personal posts recently!
Try it out and see how it goes!
Engage!
Spam your followers! If you like a significant amount of your followers’ photos, they’re likely to return. Or, they’ll at least return one!
Comment on other’s photos too. This is an easy way to show your appreciation for their work but also an easy way to make friends.
If someone asks a question in their caption, answer it! Sometimes, it’ll lead to a conversation and soon enough, you’re friends!
Having friends on Instagram is incredibly important! It’s a guaranteed like and comment on every new upload.
Start an engagement pod
This is very easy and a great way to get likes!
Gather some people in your niche and create a group chat. Every time you post, you’ll send the photo to the chat. Everyone in there will then like and comment on your photo.
This is great for the Instagram algorithm. It shows that your content is valuable and will then be pushed out to more people. If it’s not too much hassle, see if everyone will save it too as that’s even better for the algorithm.
However, it’s best to have these group chats on another social media form as Instagram see the groups as “cheating”.
Hashtags
Hashtags are incredibly important for getting likes! It gets your photos seen by more people and if they like the photo, they’ll give it a like.
The best strategy I’ve found, is to tag a few relevant ones (most relevant) in the caption, but then tag more in the comments.
Aim for hashtags with under 100k photos, this means you’re more likely to appear on the “top” tag rather than the “recent”. Therefore, you’re even more likely to get seen. Some people don’t look at the recent tab so if someone clicks on that tag, your photo will stare them in the face.
If you’re featuring a brand (e.g. outfit photo), it’s a good idea to see if they have a certain hashtag. Use it! You may get reposted on their page. This not only means your photo will get more likes, but you’re likely to get more follows too. If they don’t have a specific hashtag, just tag them anyway! You never know what will happen… This has actually happened to me with the brand Lounge.
It may just launch your profile and make you famous on Instagram!
I love posts like this, I’ve been trying to build up my instagram for a while now so I’m definitely going to give some of these tips a go!
X
Yay I’m so glad! Xx
There are so many tips here, that’s awesome! I find that engaging with creators in my niche is the best way to find new members in my audience. Hashtags are so hard to work with, I have kind of given up on them right now – one day I’ll pick it back up!
Thanks for sharing your tips 🙂 x
Julia x
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Thanks for reading! Xx