We know developing a thriving Instagram account can be more than overwhelming – managing one profile on its own is like a full-time job sometimes! Instagram creators wear a lot of hats. You need to analyze your target audience, keep the purpose of your online presence updated, know your strategy inside and out. The list is much longer. You need to come up with fresh ideas almost non-stop, and – that’s even more complicated! – use your psychological knowledge to maintain good relationships with your followers.
That’s why today, we’d like to boil down the most beneficial everyday practices to a handful of practical pieces of advice to help you make up the time!
Here are the most effective habits of people who grow their accounts surprisingly fast. Save them for later as well because everyone needs quick reminders to stay on the right track!
Even if you pick up one or two of those habits, you’ll definitely be on your way to becoming a more effective content creator, as well as better prepared for your profile growth. What are we waiting for?
Analyze your target audience – and your competitors
Who is your ideal follower? Who do you want to attract? What problems are they facing, what can you help them with? Do they have pain points? What sort of posts do they enjoy the most?
When you know the answers to those questions, you won’t fall into the trap of choosing ineffective time-intensive tactics. Always keep in mind that you don’t want to reach random people – absolutely no, honestly it would be a severe waste of time. You want to attract people who may be genuinely interested in buying your services/products (or if you don’t sell anything – people who want to learn more about your interests / the topics you’re an expert in).
Another helpful hint? Keep an eye on what your competitors are up to. How to analyze what they’re doing? Sign up to their newsletters, watch their instastories, keep up with their posts – long story short: observe and take note of what they’re doing and try to do it even better (without being a copycat, of course).
Just note what they pay attention to – most of the time, it isn’t random, and they know something you don’t.
Don’t forget about your strategy.
What is the core of the Instagram strategy? We’re talking and writing about it A LOT, so chances are you already know the answer: specific, realistic, measurable goal. It should be challenging but doable at the same time.
Once you have a goal, you can stick to the plan of how to accomplish it!
If your goal this year is, for example, getting close to 10k followers, it’s good to formulate the steps you need to take in order to get you there. Those steps don’t have to be huge – absolutely no, sometimes hundreds of baby steps give better solutions.
You need to know that the things you’re doing make sense: write down who you need to engage with (maybe some friendly creators from your domain – the ones with a similar target audience?), who your competitors are, what kind of posts you need to create. Conduct research on your niche.
You need to take advantage of every opportunity that is aligned with your vision/mission. At the same time, it’s more than necessary to stay true to yourself (or your brand). Everything you do and create – every post, every instastories makes an impression. They should be consistent, so people can trust you and know what they can expect from you.
Forgetting about following your strategy can be a costly mistake – and it can be more than frustrating, so you’d better prevent it!
Use 30 hashtags and don’t neglect hashtag research.
While earlier advice revolved around polishing your strategy and answering the critical question, this habit takes it to the next step: research your hashtags. Find the ones that match your content FOR REAL.
If you could reach your target audience more effectively, would you?
Now you say “yes,” but we know it – everyday life looks a bit different, and sometimes we tend to choose the easiest solutions, not the best ones. Hashtag research is the part of the content preparation process you should never ever neglect; otherwise, you’re wasting your post’s potential. Literally.
Using the proper hashtags gives you chances for more significant exposure. That’s what content creation is all about – reaching the right people at the right time.
You can use up to 30 hashtags on a post and 10 on instastories – and it’s advantageous to do so. What if you can’t find SO MANY hashtags matching your niche? There are several hashtag research tools that can make your life easier: from our experience, we can recommend IQ Hashtags, as it gives you access to many game-changing features. It REALLY brings together your hashtag strategy – to be honest, we don’t know a quicker way to find relevant hashtags for every niche. You’d love to compile a list of hashtags, but you don’t know where to start from? Go there and try it out (thank us later).
Treat your community well.
Focus on people. When you’re writing a caption, think about who you’re writing to. Use your target audience’s language – if they’re primarily teenagers, don’t use a language that is too official and overly serious. The other way round as well – if your audience consists of busy entrepreneurs, don’t overuse slang expressions because it can turn them off.
Humanize your content. Don’t forget to add those little mentions or fun personal facts that make your posts feel real – like there’s a friendly human behind them, not an emotionless copywriter who doesn’t want to share anything more than technical facts.
Doing the same thing over and over again opens the doors for boredom!
What do you want your followers to do after consuming the content? We bet you’d say: “engage! Leave a comment, and maybe even share what I’ve created!”
That’s a rational wish, of course – but think about what you’re doing after receiving a comment. Do you reply? Or maybe you leave your followers with unanswered questions?
Don’t forget to pay attention and show them that YOU CARE.
Because you do, right?
Your relationships with followers should be mutually beneficial. Inspire, educate, and entertain them – and they will keep coming back for more.
Track the data – analyze your stats!
What is working for you and what isn’t? The principal purpose of analyzing the statistics is knowing which activities you should put more effort into because they’re the ones working in your favor. You also want to know which ones aren’t giving any results so that you won’t be wasting time on them. When you know for sure, you can pack up your things and say goodbye to them because your time is – we can’t stress this enough – precious.
Marketing is all about analyzing! Sure, you need to deliver valuable content, that’s more than crucial, but observing numbers will give you direct feedback on what your audience is appreciating and what they aren’t.
The number of likes itself isn’t the objective indicator; remember about that.
It’s beneficial to track other data – as all the activities can be measured in different ways.
There you have it! If you want to keep reading up on practical Instagram marketing tips, stay with us: new posts with proven solutions and industry secret sauce are coming each week. If you’re taking your social media growth seriously, you don’t want to miss them!
PS. What habits have you formed that lead to the growth of your account? What is working best for you? Don’t hesitate to share it with us – we ABSOLUTELY adore reading your cases. And if you have any questions or doubts – always feel free to DM us on Instagram or leave a comment under our posts!