Instagram Wisdom

1. You’re not posting for you, you’re posting for them.

Let’s say you’re a butcher. You post beautiful cuts of meats, maybe even some recipes. Then one day you see a beautiful sunrise so you decide to share it on your account. DON’T! Your followers are following you because they are interested in meat. They DO NOT like you. Neither are they interested in your life. They liked and followed you because you posted something they were interested in: meat & recipes. Simple as that. Therefore, please DO NOT post your super cool organic dinners, your cat, or even a crushed soda can that looks just like you. THEY WILL UNFOLLOW YOU. Pick one category (meat & recipes)  and don’t post anything else. Try it and you’ll thank me.

2. If they can’t find you they can’t follow you.

Use hashtags, lots of them. Make sure they’re relevant but post a lot. That’s how people who like the type of things you post can find you. Consider it like advertising or SEO; its goal is to get people to your page. Once they are there, if they like what you are posting they will follow you. So to all those who like to use the “I don’t hashtag; if I’m good they’ll follow” argument, stop being lazy. If they can’t find you, they can’t follow you, no matter how good you are.

3. Be friendly.

Comment and like other posts in the same category as your page,  and always respond to messages and comments. Besides for it being simple human decency, it will make people like you and relate to you more as a person and therefore want to like and follow you more.

As a side note, the more you comment and like other people’s posts, the more people will see your name and the greater the chances are for them to click on you. Which is what we want, right? Right.

4. Be consistent.

Post daily. The more you post the more you will be seen. Experiment with posting at different times. Post multiple times a day. See what happens. Do you gain more followers and likes when you post 3 times, or when you post 2 times a day? You don’t want to overwhelm people by being all they see in their feed, so find that perfect balance. (I personally like to post 1–3 times a day with at least an 8 hour space in between. You don’t want your posts to show up back to back.)

I can already hear you saying, why isn’t he talking about the algorithm!? Well, that’s why we have: #5

5. Ignore the new algorithm.

Ignore it! Let’s think about it for a second. All the algorithm does is put pictures your followers like in front of them based on their likes and other cool algorithm calculations. Which means: as long as you post content that your followers like and interact with them (rules #1 -#4), Instagram will push your page to the top of their feed.

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P.S. Need more marketing advice? Give us a call to see how we can help your business thrive: 1-888-977-PTEX.