Time To Grow Your Instagram Following
Coming up on over a dozen years old, Instagram has grown to become one of the biggest social networks in the world. Being both the 7th most visited website in the world and the 9th most-Googled search term. Behind Facebook, it is the most downloaded app in the world and in terms of growth were only behind Tiktok last year.
So it's no wonder that businesses have started utilising the influence that Instagram now has on the global stage to start growing their digital reach and growing their brand. But just like other social networks, there are ways to grow your Instagram following and to grow your audience.
To start with you need to know why you are going to start using Instagram for your business.
- Is it to spread awareness of your brand?
- Are you looking to build a community?
- Or are you looking to grow sales?
You need to know what your goals are so that you can measure how successful your business has been on Instagram and it also gives you that motivation and a key goal to work towards. And like everything, first impressions matter.
It's for this reason your bio needs to get straight to the point. You only get 150 characters and so you don't want to be waffling on. Give a quick description of what your business does, what industry you're in and what products you sell.
Most importantly include some contact information in there so people know how to get in touch with you should they want to know more about either your business or your products/services.
Be consistent to grow your Instagram following
As is the golden rule with social media in general, you're going to want to be posting consistently. You don't want to post every once in a while as people will start to disassociate their interest with your brand and may even forget.
The right times to post will all depend on your audience. Typically you can do some research to find out the industry peak times that you're in when it comes to audience.
The algorithm behind Instagram also looks at how someone uses Instagram and who they look at the most and tailors what to show them accordingly. But if you're hardly posting at all, you're barely going to come into the equation.
Engage with your followers on Instagram.
As we have mentioned in another blog Increasing Engagement In Social Media, it is very important when it comes to social media to ensure that you are driving as much engagement as possible.
When it comes to Instagram you're going to want to ensure that you are engaging with your Instagram following as much as possible. And post content that drives conversation and asks your followers to engage with you as a business.
Experiment with different types of content
You may also want to start experimenting with different types of content. On Instagram, there are a few ways to post content.
You have the standard way of posting videos or photos to your page which will appear on other people's feeds. You also have a store feature and more recently you have the IGTV (Instagram TV) option.
The latter is very effective in directly engaging with your followers, answering any questions they may have and also announcing new products/services that you have.
You are never going to get the right strategy to master Instagram for your business straight away. Like everything, trial and error will help you to understand what works for your business and what doesn't.
There is no set rulebook of what works for all businesses. Depending upon what industry you're in and who your audience is, the strategy you need to take can differ hugely.
Instagram however is an under-utilised digital asset that many businesses can take advantage of to grow their brand and start communicating directly with their Instagram following and building a community.
It is far, far more than just a social network where you post photos and videos. As you start to experiment on Instagram, analyse how you're doing after each attempt. You'll eventually begin to understand what works and what doesn't.
In summary
There are plenty of tools that can help you understand the analytics behind your business's Instagram account and may even suggest beneficial changes that can help increase your reach, growth and engagement when it comes to your Instagram posts, eventually and hopefully resulting in increased sales.
If you want to know more about how social media can help grow sales in your business and help your business grow, let's have a chat.
I work with businesses of all sizes from across the country in a variety of sectors to understand how the priceless digital asset of social media can help catapult their businesses to the next level. It is one of the fastest-growing and most effective ways of marketing your business and getting your brand known and exposed to potential customers.