As someone with an eye for everything aesthetically pleasing (but then who doesn't love pretty things, right?) I can easily admit to the fact that Instagram is my most favourite social media platform. With Pinterest breathing on its neck, that is. As I've mentioned in the article about fancy fonts (catch up on it here) visuals sell. Images speak louder than words. It's in fact ever so simple - our brains don't even see words. Words don't exist to us. They are just bunched up letters. When a word enters your brain it's automatically translated into an image. Now it looks pretty obvious why Instagram's so popular, ain't it?
I have only recently sat down with the aim to take my Instagram to the next level. By implementing the following 5 steps I've managed to increase my impressions by 700%, my profile views by 500% and my averages likes on an image more than tripled. All within 2 week's time. Boom!
📸 Don't underestimate the bio
So many times I see bloggers' bios just saying 'blogger' and a link to their blog. There's thousands of profiles like that, aaaah! Imagine your Instagram bio is your blog home page - you want to get across what your blog's about, how unique your personality is & the key is to give your reader a reason to stay (and read on).
📎 Be to the point: say who you are & what you do (e.g. Lifestyle & beauty blogger)
📎 Be creative: use emojis, descriptive words, jokes, puns (e.g. with a penchant for red lipsticks & copper vases)
📎 Add a clickable link: Use bitly or a similar link shortener to track how many people have clicked through to your blog, bitly also allows you to modify your prefix (the part after / ) which increases the chance of people clicking through by 14%!
PS - if you turn your business mode on you it will automatically add your location so you won't have to waste your characters on it👌🏻
Everyone says you need to have a feed style. Is it true though? I say YES. Take high quality images (with the quality of phone cameras today there's no excuse for bloody grainy photos!), edit them (this doesn't mean you have to use a filter, just crop, add some exposure/shadows etc) and make sure they all have similar feel to them. Crisp white & black? That's okay. Colourful like a rainbow? That's okay too. The fact that every blogger has a white dreamy feed doesn't mean you have to have one too. Play around and find the style you're comfortable with, it might even take you a few tries (it did to me!).
📸 Talk to people!
Now this is a big one - it's the part that's the most fun, the most effective but also the most time-consuming. Engage with other Instagrammers - leave comments, like pictures, follow other accounts (now I'm not saying go on a f4f rampage!) - just treat others the way you want to be treated! The more engaged you are the more engaged others become towards your account!
📸 What's the right hashtag for you?
I've never realised how powerful hashtags are until recently. Hashtagging #beauty or #food won't get you very far. You know how many images there are under those hashtags? Beauty has over 135 million photos! That means that by the time your photo shows up it's pushed to the abyss of forgotten and no one will see it. So tag everything that makes you happy with #thehappynow (created by @thehappyhunters; only 2mil posts) or #petitejoys (created by @allieseidel & @rougeandwhimsy, only 600k posts). Explore hashtags by typing in your keyword into the search bar on Instagram & notice the amount of posts they contain! The more refined the most likely you will be noticed!
PS - Again, don't go on a crazy hashtagging spree - people will easily become disgruntled with you if your tags are irrelevant!
📸 Instastories - the safe harbour
Want to post a picture of your kitten but it's from 11pm and half blurry yet still adorable and you just have to share it? Ping it to your Instastories! They will eventually get more refined as people get the grip of them but at the moment they are a bit of a bin for the IRL snaps!
And why am I not telling you how to increase your followers? Because the number of followers doesn't matter (as much as everyone & their cat thinks). Of course - it opens a whole new world of commercial opportunities but if they are not good quality followers who engage with you then what's the point?
Are you going to implement any of these?
If so, leave me your handles in the comments below & I'll have a browse!
Oh, and follow me, doh!
Oh, and follow me, doh!
