How I went from 1000 to 16 K followers on Instagram in 6 months
Ok… Yes, it probably helps to post photos like this title photo to gain more Instagram followers. But there are more things you can do if you want to grow your reach on Instagram that have nothing to do with posting a photo showing some skin and a bikini.
But why would you want to do that? Does it really matter for your business if you have 200, 2K or 20K followers?
Yes, it does matter!
For me as a blogger it is an essential channel to get collaborations with brands, tour operators or tourism boards. Why? Because they profit by my followers as well. But they will only want me to tag them in my photos and will be willing to give me something in return if I have a big audience that matters to them.
Having more followers will enable you to get more collaborations that will a) help you reaching even more people b) make you earn more money and c) give you the chance to sell your service and have more clients.
I am going to give away my five tips that I used to grow my Instagram audience. In January 2016, yes just six months ago, I just had about 1000 followers, and it took me a year and a half to get to that first 1000! As soon as I started using the following tricks, I was able to grow faster than I ever expected.
#1 Use hashtags
Hashtags are super important! Your potential new audience (and clients!) is searching for YOU and their only way to find you are hashtags. Be careful though, don’t go overboard! 10 well chosen hashtags are enough. Using too many hashtags will make you look desperate. Try to find relevant hashtags that aren’t used by everybody (eg. #beach, #sunset, ecc. vs. #beachesinsicily #italiansunsets) and that are targeted to the people searching for exactly your product or service.
#2 Post relevant photos
If you are a travel blogger like me, it makes sense to post only your best travel pictures. Nobody is interested in your breakfast, the outfit you party with or your cute little pet. I ask myself every time before posting if I would like it or even leave a comment if it wasn’t mine. If you don’t say ‘hell, yeah!’… Keep the photo for yourself!
#3 Check if the photo fits to your gallery
It’s a sad, but a true fact: Even if you love the photo and you say ‘hell, yeah’ thousands of times, not every photo fits into your feed! Perhaps it will fit next week. But if you have been posting four photos that are mainly blue, it will create distraction to post one where red is dominating.
#4 Comment on others photos
No doubt: commenting on others photos is extremely time consuming! But it’s worth it. So start searching for blogs of other people in the same industry and comment, comment, comment! But please: Leave only relevant comments that make others want to get to know you. You will see that they get back to you as well as other commentators. Here is an example of a relevant and a not relevant photo:
No go: Hey, nice pic!
Good: Oh wow, I’ve been to this place last year and now that I see your photo, I realize how I miss that place. I would love to go back. Thanks for sharing.
#5 Follow your competitors followers
We have them all- competitors that have more followers than we do. We look at their stats every time we are on Instagram. And it seems like there is nothing we can do: Their account gets more and more followers while we are in front of our iPhones waiting for the followers to come, right?
NO! Stop thinking like this right now and start following your competitor’s followers and liking their photos. If his audience likes his gallery, why shouldn’t they like yours?
You want to grow your audience as well? Start today following my 5 tips and see the outcome tomorrow! Because it works, just watch your numbers grow…
Yours,
Follow me here, as well:
