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instagram

How To Optimize Your Instagram Photo To Increase Viewership

by shedboy71 13th December 2019

Hello and welcome to this video tutorial where we cover on Optimizing Your Instagram Photo To Increase Viewership.

In this article, we are going to learn two main things which are:

The technique of taking beautiful photos of an object or person
How to edit your Instagram photos with a photo editor app

Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing site where users can take pictures and share them either publicly or privately on the app. In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for US$1 billion. Instagram then grew by 23% as a result.

There are as many as 500 million active users every month as of June 2016 and it’s not going to stop there. This would indicate that Instagram is here to stay
for the long haul.

As Instagram is a photo driven sharing app, the strategy here is to get as many views on your uploads as possible and this is done primarily through optimizing
your photo.

Normal and bland photos do not quite do it these days because everyone is doing it and audiences get desensitized. A normal bland photo could easily be ignored and overlooked just by scrolling through.

Photos would need to be taken creatively and have visual cut through over the noise created by other photos and this is achieved through photo optimization.

So first, let’s cover taking product photos. The most important part is to understand that photos are used to communicate your idea and your message – be it your brand message or your campaign message.

For example, if your brand identity or the business that you are in represents fun, progress and youthfulness then you could consider posting photos of the beach, road trips, parties and the like.

Similar if your brand has the elements of authority, leadership and poise, you could consider uploading photos of people in suits and ties, gala parties, wine and other similar associations.

The point is you need to be sure of the 3 key words that represent your brand or business to have these strategies and tactics to work its best for you. Now back to optimizing your photo.

The first thing you need to take note of is the background. Find a nice and clean background for your product. Less is more.

The purpose of having a background is to make your product standout and grab the attention of your audience. It is okay to have a clean and simple background because the spotlight is on your product.

Also, you can consider having contrasting colours as your background. For example, your product is bright yellow in colour, a plain black or white background would be the best choice. You don’t want to bombard your audiences with too many colours on their Instagram feed.

Next, is the composition of your photo.

A good composition makes a huge difference in your photos.

First thing to take note of is the “breathing space” of your photo. Imagine if you walk into a store room that is small in size and packed with stuff, you will definitely feel cramped up as there is very little space for you to move around.

A composition in a photo works the same way. Leave sufficient “breathing space” in your photo so that your viewers get the message immediately unless cramped up photos is intended and it is part of your brand’s expression.

The way you place your product is important too. There are two ways which you can consider; organized or casual. In organized, place your products in the middle of the frame to make it the focus point. You may also consider placing your camera on the top of your product to create a top overview. This is primarily used as a product profile shot. It is clean, neat and has a simple background.

In casual, it is an extension of organized where you place the product in its natural setting and as how it is intended to be used. For example, a product like a bed sheet is taken in a room set up, just like how it is supposed to be used. The tricky part is that you don’t want to overdo it and make it look messy.

Different angles communicate a different feel in a product shot. High angle shots creates a dynamic feel to a shot, products that are tilted towards the camera creates an inviting feeling and products taken from above produces a modern and contemporary look.

As a general rule of thumb, you can always use “The Rule of Third” for your photo composition. The Rule of Third is a technique derived from the use of early grid systems in composition.

It divides a medium into three parts both vertically and horizontally, creating an invisible grid of nine rectangles and four intersections. The primary element within a design is then positioned on an intersection of the grid.

Next up are photo editing apps that will help you with designing and editing your photos.

VSCO is a favourite in photo editing app. It contains over a hundred filters and settings that people are able to use to create a unique photo.

There are four kinds of filters in VSCO with different settings that will bring your photo to the next level.

First up is the analog filter named “A4”in VSCO. This filter turns the colour of your photo into brown-like warm tone giving it a vintage feel.

Next, is the mood filter named “M3”. This filter gives a hint of sepia tone to your photo and creates a nostalgic feel. It gives the illusion as if your photo is captured from an old movie and you can always adjust the setting to suit your objectives.

If you are more towards a black darker tone, this “street etiquette” filter does the job. It is named as “SE3” in VSCO and it changes the photo into a darker shade, giving an intense feeling to your photo.

The last filter that I’m going to introduce is named as “G3” which is a portrait filter. This filter gives a sunny warm tone to your photo and it is very suitable for outdoor photo shoot.

Five Minute Guide to Becoming an Influencer

by shedboy71 25th October 2019

An influencer is someone that has the power to influence (doh). More specifically, that means someone that can encourage sales of a product or service, that can help to direct the general conversation around a topic or idea, and that can set trends.

Online, this tends to be the Instagram star, the YouTube creator, or the big blogger. These are the people we turn to for online content, whose opinions and intuitions we trust above others.

Understandably, big businesses want to work with influencers. They recognize that they offer the opportunity to not only increase awareness, but also to gain endorsement from someone whose opinion matters.

A successful influencer can earn as much as $1,000 per 100,000 followers on a given account, and if they promote their own products, then they can stand to earn even more! So, the question is, how do you go about becoming an influencer?

Starting Out
The first thing to do is to decide a niche, decide the type of content you want to create, and start getting to work building that.

Where do you begin?

The answer is by picking the niche and your “mission statement.” When choosing a niche, you might be tempted to presume the best strategy would be to go for the most popular niche with the most searches and broadest appeal. The problem with that approach is that it is likely to mean facing a huge amount of competition. Moreover, with a fairly generic and broad target niche, your content will likely fall into the same category.
That’s where the mission statement comes in: knowing what you are going to bring to the table that makes it different. Who precisely are you aiming your content at? What is the ethos of your business? What are you hoping people will learn from you? What sets you apart from the competition?

This often comes down to choosing a sub niche. For instance, you might not just be a fitness brand, but rather a “fitness for over 50s brand.” Similarly, you might not just blog about comics and films, but speak specifically about Marvel comics and films. Or maybe you’ll speak specifically about 60s comics.

Great examples of unique niches that still have broad appeal include: • The Art of Manliness – A blog all about being a “man” with a very old-timey feel to it • Nerd Fitness – Fitness but for nerds • T-Nation – A strength and fitness blog that focusses a lot on the lifestyle of being a serious heavy lifter By finding your own specific niche this way, you sidestep a scenario where you’re up against huge competition, and you create a brand with a stronger identity. This will also create easier marketing opportunities, as you’ll know precisely who your content is for and what they’re looking for. The next step is to make sure that your logo, your photography style, and even your website will fit the same tone. Ideally, you want someone to look at your Instagram account or website and know instantly what it is about and whether or not it is really for them. For example, this might mean designing your website in a specific way.

Targeting Web Design at Your Specific Niche

A lot of web designers seem to be under the false impression that they can just “cut and paste” effective web designs across any site. Research shows which colours are most likely to illicit clicks and which are most likely to keep visitors on your page, and we all know where visitors expect to find their links and their logos. For this reason, we will tend to go about web design in a relatively formulaic manner regardless of the intended use. This is a mistake though, as web design should always reflect the intended purpose of the site: a business site should be different from an online magazine, which should be different from a personal website.

Likewise, web design should also vary depending on who it is aimed at. If you build a website aimed at the general public, then you should aim to make your website look like it was aimed at the general public. If it is aimed at dog lovers, then it should look like it’s made for dog lovers.

A great example of this is the site “Menprovement.” This is a site aimed at men that teaches them about power, success, and getting women. The website is black in many places with white text. This is considered bad design by most standards, but in the context it works well. The same is true for the site T-Nation which is aimed at hardcore bodybuilders as mentioned. This one uses black and red.

But both create a certain “feeling” in the reader. That feeling makes them seem as though they’ve found something secretive and powerful, something masculine. This has a HUGE impact on the way they perceive what they’re reading.
Creating your web design based on what you know about your niche is a great way to ensure that your site will have a great chance of being a hit. People with the same taste in hobbies will often have the same taste in colours and designs, so using this information you can create a site that they enjoy looking at. Let’s see how you can go about achieving that.

Think About the Niche

First of all, you should think about how you can include elements of the niche itself in your design. If someone is a fan of trains, then they’ll probably appreciate a web design that incorporates trains into the look and feel. Don’t do this at the expense of clarity, or logical navigation, but otherwise alluding to your chosen niche is only logical and will help communicate the topic of your site to visitors.

Think About the People

At the same time, you should also examine what you know about your typical viewer. You should have an idea what kind of demographic your niche appeals to for instance – if it’s action films then you’ll get mostly young (not exclusively), while if it’s Bingo you might get mostly get older women. Using this information, you can then design your site for that group – young males might enjoy a more modern looking website and are likely to be tech-savvy so shouldn’t need hand holding through the navigation. Older women on the other hand are more likely to struggle with technology and more likely to appreciate a more classic and more ornate looking layout.

Think About Your Identity

What’s important though is to avoid becoming an amalgamation of related images. While you should allude to your niche and cater for your audience, you should also make sure that you have a strong brand of your own and you should look at ways of making that clear throughout your site. Of course, coming up with your logo itself might also require you to have a look at your niche and how you can work within it.

Applying This Logic to Social Media

This same logic applies to an influencer using social media. For the YouTube star, you should think in a similar way when creating your thumbnails for instance, and also your editing style. The YouTube channel Captain Midnight does this expertly by having clear yellow thumbnails on every video, and by using clips from old and humorous Marvel films in between “scenes.” Consistent tweaks like this set a tone and create excellent consistency across the brand.

When you do this, you create a strong sense of who your brand is aimed at and you ensure that your audience knows what to expect.

For social media accounts, you should think carefully about your logo – does it express what your account is about – as well as the style of image that you upload and the type of language you use. Be consistent and make sure it is all aligned with your mission statement, your brand, and your target audience.

Why This All Matters for the Influencer

So why does this all matter for an influencer? The answer is that a successful influencer is someone that has a clear voice, a clear audience, and SOMETHING TO SAY.

Too many creators will build a website in a niche that they know nothing about – fitness, money, dating – and will then hire writers who also know nothing about the topic to fill it with content. They’ll use a generic design, and they’ll write broadly on the topic without aiming for anyone in particular.

How many times have you seen articles like: “How to get six pack abs” Or “How to earn money online” Or “Tips for talking to women” These posts are so overdone, so generic, and so unexciting that they won’t get any traction.

The same goes for just sharing randomly any picture to an Instagram account that vaguely relates to your niche.

But if you really know and love a topic, then you’ll be able to say something genuinely NEW on that subject. And you’ll be able to say it in a way that speaks directly to the right audience – that gets them excited for what you’re promising and that is new and intriguing.

How about: “The Secret of Pro Bodybuilders – How to Increase Androgen Receptors” Or
“How to Make Money Online By Selling Courses for $1,000+ CRAZY RESULTS!” Or “Is Emotional Intelligence Lacking In Your Relationship? Take This Test to Find Out”

These posts aren’t for everyone, but they are things that the right person will really respond to. They are things that have some kind of emotional reaction. They are NEW things that people who are interested in those topics might want to find out more about.

For an Instagram account, the equivalent is posting images that show hardcore bodybuilders with chalked up hands and chains hanging off their neck – or posting images of couples reading together in the evenings and gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. Again, this strong “style” will be off putting for some. But that is a good thing.

Try and please everyone and you’ll please no one. If you want to be a thought leader, you need to lead.

Your Personal Brand

If you do all this and you create a personal brand, where you are living the lifestyle you are promoting, then the people who respond to that will start to follow you. If you then engage with them, and if you continue to live the lifestyle that they want, they will begin to listen to you. And at that point, you’ll be an influencer.

Perhaps the hardest part then, is making sure that your persona in your images, blog posts, and videos will gel with the lifestyle you’re pedalling. That means you need to become a role model. The good news is that you can use a little Hollywood magic. You can post old images for instance, meaning you can take a whole bunch in a batch and then share them. You can use a little careful editing of your images, and you can use things like quotes and stock imagery to further help sell the idea.

But at the end of the day, the best way to create a personal brand and to become an influencer, is to genuinely be the person you want to promote. And to do that, you’ll need to create a brand that is true to you, and that speaks to your values.

The best part of this is that as you strengthen your brand and build your following, you will also go on a journey of selfimprovement in order to become the best version of yourself. Your audience will be there every step of the way with you, and as they see your transformation, they’ll believe they can do the same.

Tips On How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Business

by shedboy71 25th September 2019

Instagram is really nothing more than a massive photo album with content from users around the world. Instagram has more than 750 million members that are active on the site, which is more than Twitter. This means more and more brands are discovering how to use Instagram to gain more followers and share their brand message.

If you’re not convinced that Instagram would benefit your company, consider this, users of Instagram are buyers. There have been numerous studies done that show them in the last five years alone, Instagram’s network has grown in purchasing power by customers, and it will only increase more.

When you put images and pictures on Instagram, you can pitch sales to them without much effort on your part. Customers head to Instagram and other social media sites for a variety of reasons, what you need to focus on with your business is purchasing power. When you focus on this aspect of Instagram, it can help you convert uninvolved customers into sure clients.

As opposed to the other social media sites that you can utilize for your business, Instagram is wholly comprised of the visual appeal element. Exploring the use of Instagram to grow your brand will force you to think about the visual component to your brand.

Many businesses overlook this aspect and rely on stock photos to share their visual story. While this might work when you are first starting, as you further define your brand, it may end up deterring you from your goals.

If your brand is built on authenticity, you need to consider budgeting for a few professional photo shoots that capture the true essence of your brand. Photos that are unique to you and your company will only reinforce what your brand is to your target audience.

Growing Your Brand and Business with Instagram

While Instagram might be a newer way for businesses to promote their brand, it has already become a favorite platform for many. Whether it’s from an exciting interaction point of view or promoting one’s brand in a more straightforward way, the efficiency of the site shows that both have been grabbing the attention of nearly everyone.

If you are making use of social media to reach your customers, Instagram shouldn’t be ignored.

Recent studies have found that Instagram is 15 times more efficient in attracting customers and marketing a business, compared to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. You can’t ignore the fact that a simple photo sharing application has emerged as one of the critical sales channels today.

Incorporate Your Site Link to Boost Traffic

With Instagram, you have many opportunities to lead more traffic to your company site. Your Instagram profile is the one place where your connections with other members are interactive, directly under your name and description at the highest point of your page.

Within this area, you can post a link to your business site or a landing page for your products. Keeping a link to either of these two places can help you boost targeted traffic to your site.

Use Audience-Targeted Hashtags

Hashtags, as we’ve touched on before, are an excellent way to showcase your ideas, concepts, and conversations in a group. It’s also an easy way to look for people who post on topics that you may be interested in exploring further.

By using suitable hashtags in your updates, you can find an easy way to reach people showing an interest in your products. The best way to ensure maximum benefit is to use hashtags that not only give the details of your photos and business but are also famous on Instagram and are actively searched for by people.

To find the most appropriate hashtags for your business, you can use a free online service like Websta or Iconosquare, which provide a list of relevant hashtags based on your individual needs.

You can make efficient use of these types of lists to find the best 10 to 20 hashtags that are related to your brand, business, or products. This way you are able to get the most suitable hashtags for promoting your business.

Ensure You are Using the Right Filters

One of the most significant issues that people face is not being aware of the way Instagram filters may affect the engagement of the audience.

Generally, people post what they find attractive, and most of the times these posts turn out to be nothing more than filters that affect the overall interaction on the site.

A recent study released by TrackMaven showed that a number of images on the site that incorporated the Mayfair or Inkwell filter received more likes and comments.

Since the target audience differs from business to business, it is recommended that you experiment with various filters and use an Instagram management tool to check the filter to see one will be the most popular for your particular business needs.

Post at the Right Time

As will all of the social networking platforms, you need to post your content at the right time. According to SimplyMeasured, an analytics company, the best time to post to Instagram is on Wednesdays between 5 and 6 p.m.

When scheduling your posts; you want to be sure you are aware of when your target audience will most likely be online and on Instagram. It helps you in judging the best time to post and act accordingly.

One of the best websites for choosing the peak times for increasing engagement is IconoSquare, which give an optimization report based on one’s participation and posting history in the past.

With IconoSquare, you get a detailed report in which black circles represent the times that you’re posting, and light-gray circles that represent the level of engagement the posts received in the past.

The best times or the peak times to post are shown by the most prominent light-gray circles, which are calculated based on your followers’ engagement on the site.

Engage with Popular Instagrammers

One of the best ways to grow your community on Instagram is to get a favorite Instagrammer to feature your product on their feed. This is a lot like paid advertising on some of the other sites, because you are charged a fee, which can be in the form of payment or by sending products for review.

To find the most influential accounts in your niche, you can use Instagram’s search function, which requires typing in keywords, hashtags, and company names. After finding and following a large account, Instagram will provide you with a list of similar users who can be followed by you to boost your business.

Before you connect with another user, it is always recommended that you check the account profile of the person. In most cases, you can get an idea of and know if the account accepts product reviews or sponsored posts.

Plus, you might also find numerous users that have a note displayed in their bio that shows their willingness to work with different companies.

If there isn’t a clear indication that a user is willing to engage with different brands, you can email them directly and ask whether they are willing to do a featured review or sponsored post for your business.

Your popularity on Instagram ultimately lies in your hands to grab the attention of your target audience and showcase your business on the site. Instagram’s continuing popularity will prove to be a great way to grow your business and bring more targeted leads to your company site.

Taking Beautiful Pictures And Other Options for Instagram

by shedboy71 10th September 2019

For all you can try and beat the system by approaching Instagram marketing in a smart and logical manner, at the end of the day there is simply no way to succeed without being able to create and share images and videos that people want to see. So how do you go about doing that?

Taking and Editing Better Photos

We’ve already talked at length about the importance of selling the value proposition with your content – of promoting the ‘dream’ that will mobilize your troops to buy and subscribe.

So I won’t go into that in depth here, other than to say that you should consider trying to tell a story with your photos. Don’t just take a photo of a scene or an object, show it just after it has been used, show it in action, or show it in a context that raises questions. Think about the Mona Lisa.

People like it because there’s a story behind it: the smile. Try and get your audience engaging with your images through their thought processes and they will be more effective as a result. Related to this concept is trying to create more dynamic compositions.

Placing objects and subjects flat in the middle of a frame can look boring and flat. Instead, get them to look off into the distance at an angel, or use an upshot to make them look bigger and more dramatic. Think as well about creating depth: is there something of interest in the foreground, middle ground, and background? Where is the central focus point, and how does the rest of the image lead the eye there?

Are there other objects are helping to provide a sense of scale? What is in the background, and what does it tell people about the scene? All these things have an impact whether you are taking a photo of a pet dog, a computer, or an incredible vista from atop a mountain. Lighting is extremely important too.

The best lighting should ensure your subject is well lit, but also provide a little extra dynamism by creating shadows and highlights. For people, ‘Rembrandt Lighting’ means taking photos where light is coming from an angle from one side. This helps to create a more flattering profile.

Don’t shoot directly into the light, and don’t let your photos be over or under exposed. This is where it can be useful to learn just a little about the basics of photography, and the exposure triangle.

You don’t need to be an expert, but knowing your shutter speed from your aperture will help you to create dramatic bokeh effects (a wide aperture and shallow depth of field will let you focus on an item in the foreground with the background blurred out nicely), to capture things moving quickly without too much blur (using a faster shutter speed), and to avoid a picture looking too dark when you shrink the aperture for landscape photography (which means tweaking the ISO thus making the sensor more sensitive to light).

A camera’s ‘Auto Mode’ will do all this for you, but as you advance, learning these basics will help a great deal.

As will experimenting with your camera. Owning a good camera is of course a smart move. This doesn’t need to be extremely expensive, but if you can find a high quality DSLR, then that will serve you well.

That said, the quality of phone cameras has increased these days to the point that you can take some incredible photos that are perfect for Instagram. As you develop, you may wish to invest in other tools as well: such as RGB lighting sticks (which can create some amazing possibilities), a white balance card, light boxes, back drops (particularly for product shoots) etc.

Shooting Great Video

For the most part, all the same things apply when creating the best videos. Video cameras likewise have options like ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. At the same time, you’ll need to keep your subject focussed in the shot as they move around, try to minimize shakes by using optical or digital stabilization, etc.

You should also consider whether you need your videos to be in 4K (which are more effort to work with and will only have a benefit for a small subset of your audience), 25-60fps etc.

Sound and lighting also help to make your content more compelling. Once more though, great video is more about the composition, the lighting, the story telling etc. Even more so than with photos, this is about what you film rather than how you film it. Editing will play a big role here though too…

Smart Use of Filters

Filters are one of the key features of Instagram that set it apart from other platforms and that helped it to grow in popularity in the first place. These are effects that can be applied to photos or videos and quickly make them appear more artistic.

The key to successfully using filters, is not to go overboard. If you tap one of the filters and then hit it again, you can then tone it down slightly by dragging to the left. This is generally advisable as it means the photo won’t look artificial, but can still benefit from a little extra style and punch.

Keep in mind that it is commonly advised that profiles should aim to create content with a consistent look and that translates to over 60% of businesses using just a single filter consistently across all photos. This not only results in a more impactful profile page when viewed as a whole, but also ensures that followers know precisely what to expect.

How to Succeed on Instagram Without Taking a Single Photo or Video

At this point, some marketers might be feeling stressed. If you are a good looking, trendy young person, who is in amazing shape and has a natural charisma, then you might consider yourself perfectly suited to creating fitness photos.

You can take your high quality camera to the gym with you, grab some shots, and be done with it. But what if you aren’t so confident in your looks or you cannot take good photos?

What if you’re not in good shape? Or if you aren’t confident with your camera? In those cases, there are still ways you can generate content for your account. Here are some examples:

Use Stock Footage

Head to a site like Envato Elements (https://elements.envato.com) and you can download stock photos, video, and music – even Photoshop Plugins and Actions. From here, you can then make the photos unique by applying an additional filter layer for example, or by adding text.

A common setup is to post images of people standing in exotic locales and then add text on top that is inspiring or thought provoking. People love motivating content on Instagram!

Share Other Photos

Another option is to repost the content of others. This way, they get a free shout-out and more exposure, and you gain access to a free and steady supply of constant content! If you grow large enough, people will fight to get on your page, using your hashtags copiously!

Photos that you have acquired can be used to create an account as long as you ask permission or check the legality. This way, your account becomes a kind of aggregator of the best stuff within a certain niche.

Drawings

If you are an artist or designer, then you can share your designs on Instagram. There’s also a thriving market for comics on Instagram – one of the last few places where a web comic can be successful in fact.

How to grow your instagram channel and audience

by shedboy71 10th September 2019

In this article we will look at growing your instagram channel and audience.

You’ll begin with your very first post, and from there the most important thing is consistency. If you go two weeks without posting a single thing to your Instagram, then any momentum you build up will get lost. You’ll find that your posts don’t show so highly, and that you lose the subscribers you had previously gained.

How often you post is going to depend on your goals, the nature of your content, and more. But the basic rule for this is to post pretty frequently. The ideal is one to three times daily, and the average for most businesses comes in at 1.5 times daily. You should consider the absolute minimum to be twice weekly, but you should definitely aim to go higher.

In short, posting more frequently means creating more opportunities for new followers to discover your page. Not only that, but it means that your existing followers will feel more engaged with your brand as they keep seeing it come up and keep getting reminded that you exist.

Engagement is absolutely critical to success when it comes to internet marketing. Something else to consider here, is that in one recent survey, it was found that the average user misses 70% of all posts uploaded. That means that if you post an image, then only a subset of your viewers will see it.

Therefore, you’ll need to post twice a day for the majority of your visitors to see at least one post. Going much higher than three times daily though can start to negatively impact on your growth. That’s because some of your images will inevitably be less successful and some of your visitors can end up feeling too bombarded by content.

Choosing What You Want to Be

That is not all we mean by consistency though. Just as important is being consistent in what you upload. What kinds of videos and images? What is the theme? How will you make them look? Aim to have a consistent look AND a consistent tone.

One piece of advice that is shared fairly often, is to try and make your images look as consistent as possible on your page. That means that you should have a particular style that you stick with, and you should aim not to vary too greatly from that. Take a look at the feed of a particular photographer that you like, or a fitness brand.

What you’ll notice is that all their pictures use a similar filter, that they are composed in a similar manner, and that they’re on the same topic. Sticking to just one topic is absolutely essential.

This is why it’s so important to have a business account that is separate from your personal account. If you don’t, then people who follow you for your fitness pictures/motivational quotes/business advice, will quickly get fed up of seeing photos of you in the pub or photos of your dog. That will lead to people unsubscribing. This is somewhat acceptable for a personal brand.

If you have a very successful blog or YouTube channel and people are interested in you personally, then occasionally showing a little bit of your lifestyle and personality won’t hurt. On the whole though, you should absolutely aim to post predominantly on the precise topic you have chosen.

Think about your target audience – the demographic you will ultimately be selling to. What are they interested in and what will they respond well to? And think about what you are passionate about. There are lots of angles you can choose for most niches, so pick the one that speaks to you AND your audience. Then stick with it.

Growing Your Audience – Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks

At this point, you should now have a business account that you are posting high quality pictures to on a consistent basis. Simply doing this will not guarantee success however, as at this point we still aren’t really providing an audience with any way to find our page! There are a few different tricks then that can help you to ensure that your Instagram account isn’t just a great one, but one that grows organically.

We’ll talk more about promotions shortly, but for now these are some easy things that you can do regularly to ensure you see consistent growth.

Description

Instagram marketing is a form of content marketing. For those not in the know, that means that it’s all about bringing more people to your page by providing them with value. Typically, we think of content marketing in relation to posting to a blog, but in fact it simply means providing some kind of value via content in order to encourage people to listen to you and to keep coming back.

Usually, that content is going to be advice, entertainment, news etc. In the case of Instagram marketing, things get a little different. That’s because the main value you provide is particularly abstract: it’s ‘inspiration’.

How can you quantify inspiration? Keep in mind though, that this isn’t the only form of value you can provide through Instagram. Just as important, is how you provide entertainment and information – which you will do via the description. The word limit for Instagram is huge: up to 2,200 characters! That means you can get away with writing a short essay or story.

The image in this case is the hook, and the text then provides information and entertainment, along with context for the image that provides even more value. A great example of an account that does this is @LondonHistorian. As the name suggests, this is a British account that posts historical content about London.

A follower or user might see a picture of London that catches their eye because they like history, architecture, England, London etc. But they will then learn something by reading the description, which will make them feel as though they got something from the interaction. Keep in mind too, that a lot of growth on Instagram is the result of word of mouth. So provide tips, information, stories, and more and you will offer more value from your posts.

You don’t need to write an essay every time, but a hundred words is ample to get something of value across. Oh and another tip: ask people to share, follow, and subscribe. It costs nothing and if it leads to a few more actions, then it’s more than worth it!

Mentions

Also: consider mentioning businesses and users in your descriptions. You can do this as simply as using the @ symbol in your post and typing the name out. If you trained at a particular gym, then mention the Instagram account of that gym. If you went to a particular commercial location, then mention that business too.

This will potentially lead to a re-post or a shout-out, either of which can be hugely beneficial! It also has the benefit of creating an association between you and that brand in the eyes of your followers and visitors.

Hashtags

So we’re halfway through the book and we’ve just gotten to hashtags! That’s because it’s crucial to lay the groundwork, but as you can imagine – hashtags are also a HUGE part of what will lead to your success. Hashtags are effectively search terms. By using a hashtag, you can help more people to find your content, and quickly define what your page is all about.

Hashtags help people find your images through search, but also by looking at the suggested images provided by Instagram. Instagram will base these on hashtags that are relevant to the user, as well as the feedback from other similar users.

Here is a quick primer on what you need to know about using hashtags

• Use lots – You are allowed up to 30 hashtags and each one of those could bring in a new viewer searching for something. Think about it this way: each one of your tags is like entering into a lottery. Why would you only enter once if you could enter thirty times for free?

• Choose a balance – The best hashtag is one that is popular, but not overwhelmingly so. Post an image with the hashtag #babygirl and you’ll be going up against 59,533,397 public posts! That means that your image isn’t going to hang around in the search results long at all, and will soon be drowned by the volume of new posts. On the other hand, a hashtag with 10 public posts likely isn’t getting searched much.

Something with 30,000 or so searches will hit that sweet spot of being popular, but also specific. Note that you can see these numbers as soon as you start typing out the hashtags when posting your image or video. Instagram will suggest relevant terms and show you the volume of posts for each one.

• Use a range – As well as having a balanced popularity for your tags, you should also think about using a variety of tags. Including a few massively popular tags won’t hurt and there’s always the odd chance one will go crazy. But by including some smaller ones as well, you’ll

• Be trendy – Think about trending topics (try Google trends at trends.google.com/trends) and also about the most trendy subjects within your niche.

For example, fitness is popular all the time, but ‘functional fitness’ and ‘mobility’ are topics that are currently hot in this field. Likewise, food is always a hit, but ‘avocado’ is winning. There are also common hashtags used within any niche that you can ‘borrow’ for your own purposes. Of course if you can use a trending hashtag that is linked to something that’s been in the news, or the cultural discourse, then even better!

• Be consistent – Consistent use of the same hashtags is a good strategy for communicating what your brand is about to Instagram’s algorithms.

• Don’t use them in your bio – This won’t make your bio searchable through those hashtags, so stick to using only your own branded hashtags here (if any).

Geotag

As well as using hashtags, you should also make sure to use geotags. These of course tag the location that the photo was taken, and that can help a lot of people to find them. To do this, just choose your photo and then on the ‘New Post’ page, click ‘Add Location’. If lots of people attend an event, then they might look to see other photos from that event and this creates another new in-road for you.

Tagging People

You can also tag people, and this is a great way to get their attention – and even to show up on high profile pages (your photo will appear in a separate category on the users’ page. This is ideal if you want to get the attention of a big channel or brand (along with their audience), but it can also be extremely annoying and get you into trouble if you abuse it.

The best advice then, is only to do this if you have a very good reason. If you actually have a photo with that person, then make sure you tag them in it. Meeting influencers face to face as gigantic value for any brand or marketer. Likewise, if you want to issue a challenge, a response, or similar, then consider using the tag. But ONLY after you have considered the spirit that it will be taken in. And only rarely.

Medium and Presentation

You may think that Instagram is all about the pictures rather than the videos, but in fact video posts will receive 38% more engagement than images! So you know what you need to do: get your camera out and film!

Keep in mind that your videos will need to be short (up to one minute, though you can link multiple together) and that you should always choose a good thumbnail from the video that will help to communicate instantly what it’s all about and get people excited to check it out. Other specific formats also work really well.

We’ll get to memes and similar options later in this book, but one good example is Boomerang – which creates a short ‘bouncing’ video that lasts just a couple of seconds. You can download Boomerang from the Google Play Store or iOS App Store. If you’re going for arty, then you could consider using a pictogram – a still image with just one element moving.

For images, consider using a collage. You can make these using Instagram’s own tool (Layout From Instagram) or a third party solution such as the excellent Pixlr. Finally, keep in mind that when it comes to images, taller tends to work better. That’s because the feed is vertical and by using a taller image, you actually take up a larger proportion of the screen and stay on the screen for longer. All else being equal, crop your photos to be tall and slim!

Timing

The time you post your images can have a surprisingly big impact on their success. Research shows that the most popular photographs go out between 10am-3pm during weekdays in their local region (why aren’t people working?). But if you’re aiming at a global audience, then the most successful time is 6pm GMT+0 (11am PT). If you post twice a day, then aim to post during each of these times.

Social

Remember: Instagram is a social media account. That means that it is a form of communication, and it works best when you remember that. Follow accounts, like them, comment on pictures, and be sure to answer any messages or comments you receive. Better yet, galvanize your audience into your own marketing team by running competitions, or getting them to use set hashtags!

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO3uG0dAzb8