Instagram Following:
I don’t know if 6 weeks is enough time to test a method but I tried it and it worked. Although, I am not where I wish to be, but, the difference is clear. Several weeks ago, I read about how to increase social media following on one of my various favourite social media experts website. So, after digesting the knowledge, I decided to try it out myself.
This is actually the first time I am religiously paying extra attention to building my following. Just like every blogger, I post pictures and use the popular hashtags with hope to attract more people to my page. But, after reading the article, then I made a decision to test it out. I gained over 800 followers in 6 weeks [If you follow me closely on Instagram, you must have noticed]. So, I thought, why not share with you guys to try out too and let see how it goes. Let’s get straight into it:
- Location in stories: According to social media experts, adding your locations in stories help boost your reach and gain local followers. For 6 weeks, I tried to add my location on 80% of my Insta-story. Not to make it very obvious or expose your location to avoid any sort of risk. I minimize the location tag to the smallest and add it to a corner of my story no one will pay attention to cos it’s almost invisible.
- Re-shape your bio: See your bio as the first 5 minutes when you meet someone. They said: the first impression last longer. This is the first focus section spotted by anyone visiting your page. So, I reworded my bio and added the major things I want people to know me for which is related to my blog, personal details and important information for an easy contact. I am not saying you must do the same but you want to give people something interesting about yourself to look out for.
- Don’t use censored hashtags: I first heard about Instagram banned hashtags at The Blogger Point London Hangout weeks ago and I can partially confirm it can be part of those things stopping you from gaining new followers. So, during my 6 weeks test, I only used chains of popular hashtags in 4 posts. To my results, the pictures with popular chains of hashtags got fewer likes and engagement compared to posts without hashtags. So, most popular hashtags are censored by Instagram. According to Inc.com, use hashtags with less than 10,000 posts for effective return.
- True niche hashtags: This, I can testify 200% grew my following. In 6 weeks, 5 major accounts reposted my pictures which attracted the type of following I aim to gain. 3 “Black/Melanin girls” promotion pages and 2 “Muslim” pages. This is because I used between 3 to 5 hashtags that correspond to my niche and also made my pictures “High-quality” as I noticed the pictures on these pages are of high quality [I had to step up my picture quality and editing game for this one] – Again, this kind of contradicted ‘popular hashtags’ but you just have to be very specific with the particular post.
I hope you’ve been able to gain few things to test out yourself from this post and I hope you enjoyed reading.
Please, don’t forget to leave your thoughts below in the comment section [+ Blogpost suggestions]
Featured post by Maryam Salam (Blog – www.fashionbydaisy.com | IG: @itsmaryamsalam)
Maryam Salam 