The Ultimate Guide to Expand Your Instagram Audience
Instagram is one of the largest and most used platforms in the world, giving Facebook and Twitter a tough competition. Today, most brands are harnessing Instagram’s potential to build their customership and increase sales.
Whether you have a business account or run a personal account showcasing your makeup, cooking, or artistic skill, you’d want to increase your reach.
The trick is not only to reach a wider audience but to find people who are interested in your content.
Below, we discuss different practices that help you build a larger following for your Instagram account.
Tips To Enhance Your Instagram Growth Strategy
You can only become Insta-famous overnight if you’re involved in a controversy, or somehow go viral. Everyone else would have to take a strategic approach towards Instagram growth.
Here are some tips to make your strategy a success.
Use Hashtags
Instagram and Instagrammers love hashtags. They’re not only a sure way to make your content discoverable but also help in community-building. In fact, Instagram now allows you to search for accounts using hashtags rather than user names.
Thus, hashtags can prove to be assets for your Instagram marketing strategy. However, you must know how to use them properly.
For example, if you run a makeup account, hashtags like #beauty or #prommakeup are likely to get buried under thousands of other posts with these hashtags. Instead, you should opt for more personalized and specific hashtags.
If you’re confused about which hashtags to use, you can use a research tool like HashtagsForLikes.
The tool helps you find hashtags that are suitable for your audience besides giving you a list of hashtags used by your competitors.
With this information, you can climb up the Instagram ladder and appear higher up in the search results. Although Instagram lets you add 30 hashtags to a post, that’s no reason to fill your whole caption with hashtags.
Instead of going overboard, you should stick to certain hashtags and use them in all your posts.
Even better, you can create a hashtag for your account. For instance, if your name is Mira, you can create #GlamUpWithMira and add it to every post you publish to your account.
Consider giving your profile or post an instant boost with our Instagram services.
Optimize the Posting Schedule
Right now, 347,222 people are scrolling through their feeds on Instagram. That’s a ton of people on the platform at every single minute of the day.
However, not all these people are interested in your content, nor do they all follow you.
Therefore, you need to figure out at which time of the day your audience is most active. If you randomly post whenever you want, your content will go down on the Instagram feed, covered by more relevant content on the top.
The recent shift in Instagram’s algorithm means that the platform now shows content based on:
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Interest
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Timelines
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Relationships
Therefore, if the audience has previously interacted with your account, they’re more likely to see your content on the top.
You need to post when they’re active so that your picture or video is the first thing they see on the feed.
Coschedule reports that the right time to post on Instagram differs from one industry to another. Here are the suitable timings for some industries mentioned in their study:
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B2C Businesses: 8am in the morning, 1pm in the afternoon, and 9pm at night
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B2B Businesses: Noon, 1pm in the afternoon, 5pm to 6pm in the evening, and 8pm to 9pm at night
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Software Business: 11am in the morning, 1pm in the afternoon, and 5pm in the evening
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Healthcare: 10am in the morning, and 2am in the afternoon
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Media: 9am in the morning, noon, and 3pm in the afternoon
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Higher Education: 5pm to 6pm
Although these are the general timings, the right time for posting on your account depends on when your audience is using Instagram. The User Analytics in your business account will give you an insight into this.
You can also check which of your posts do better than others. Try to post all content at the same time as these posts as they seem to be getting more engagement and higher reach.
Also, some Instagram resources generally reach a wider audience since they’re pushed by the algorithm. In most cases, it’s the newest feature on the platform.
For instance, Instagram Reels reach more people than other types of content.
Engage With Your Audience
Kim Kardashian can go without interacting with her audience or replying to comments because – well, she’s Kim K. As a content creator or business; you can’t pull the nonchalant, don’t-care attitude because people want you to engage with them.
So, be proactive in stories and the comment section. Besides replying to comments, you can also like them and give your followers a sense of being acknowledged.
Additionally, ask your audience to interact with you through likes and comments. You can also let them ask you a question on Instagram or participate in polls on Instagram Stories.
Currently, over 500 million Instagram accounts use the stories feature regularly. More so, 57% of the brands believe stories to be helpful in their social strategies.
So, when interacting with your followers, don’t restrict yourself to comments.
Run A UGC Campaign
User-generated content refers to the content that’s created by your followers. Named brands like Starbucks have tapped into UGC to increase their reach and boost growth.
Here’s what you do: you start by creating a hashtag or any sort of campaign. Then, you tell your followers to use that hashtag in their content and share the pictures or videos online.
For instance, if you have a clothing brand, create a hashtag like #YellowIsTheNewBlack and tell your followers to post a picture wearing any yellow clothing item they’ve purchased for you. The best picture gets a 50% off on their next purchase.
One, this will get more people to interact with your account. Two, these pictures will also serve as recommendations, helping you gain the trust of new followers.
Conclusion
Making a place for yourself on Instagram might seem a bit tricky at first since there’s a lot of competition. But if you optimize your content, make it attractive, grab a boost from our Instagram services, and use appropriate hashtags, you’ll soon have thousands of followers.
