With a reported 300M users, Instagram is now bigger than Twitter and yet many small business owners aren’t actively using it to engage with their following or potential customers. Here are my 6 simple solutions to increase your following.
- Follow people: Yes really! If you want to make a mark in your niche area follow others in it! Use the search facility to find people you like/admire/engage with already.
- #Hashtags: Use hashtags relevant to your image and your business genre. I search hashtags all the time. Recently I posted a photo of my daughter alongside #ChristmasJumperDay and decided to see what others were wearing to which I found a jumper my son would LOVE so I messaged the Instagrammer and located and bought one. Just think this could have been your product!
- Be consistent: Post images regularly. Doesn’t have to be daily but every 6 months is not very appealing to your followers and you won’t get noticed or make a lasting impression.
- Drive traffic to Instagram: Don’t upload the same images to your website and blog straight from your camera or phone if you have shared them already on Instagram. Instead use the embed facility to add a HTML code to your site, this way you encourage readers to look and interact with your Instagram feed.
- Share, share, and share: I post images on Instagram and then share them on Twitter and my Facebook Business Page. However, don’t always do this in one hit! Spread the sharing throughout the day or later in the week so you are continually hitting a different audience.
- Interact with others: The clue is in the description “social media platform” be social. Like, comment, and share others’ images as well as just your own. Make yourself engaging and likable.
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