Long time no see. Some may remember me from a year back, when I was a semi-active poster on here, although I never did add much value. I recently started checking back on this forum, and many things have changed. I always like giving back, so I hope this can help some of you.
Why Instagram?
You probably saw the headlines when Facebook bought out Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and you might have been thinking
. Some might have wondered why, and here it is: Instagram has
consistently shown large growth, high levels of user engagement compared to other social media and an exceptionally powerful and emotional way to spread content to followers (possible customers).
Although outdated, this graph shows the crazy amount of growth Instagram experienced during its acquisition by Facebook. Today, it's nearing 160 million users.
Getting Started...
Get the app. Follow the instructions. Duh. No need to walk you through this. Although, you must decide if this will be a business type account or your personal brand type account. In this guide, the ideas presented are geared toward a business type account.
After you have the account, here's your to do list:
Post 10-15 of your BEST pictures - People will not follow boring accounts. This will be easy if you already have hi-resolution pictures of your products or other great pictures that could relate to your business. If not, get snapping. Remember, all of your pictures do not have to be exactly what you are selling. Branch out. If you sell dog feed, anything in the realm of pets is good for posting, especially cute puppies and kittens! If you sell vacuum cleaners, beautiful pictures of homes are a great choice. ONLY POST YOUR BEST PICTURES.
Follow 50 accounts - This is the limit Instagram lets you follow in, I think a day? Anyway, once you follow that many, it stops you from following any more for a period of time. Search hashtags related to your business, which will lead you to people that have recently posted a picture related to what you are selling. Follow 40 of these people, who hopefully will follow you back, giving you a small follower base to get started. For the last 10, find accounts of relatable businesses or people (the producers) for idea generation, and to check out who is following them.
Connect your Instagram to your other internet stuff - If you already have acquired a follower base in any other internet region such as social media, blogs and your business, connect the two! This will increase your Instagram follower count and also lead your new Instagram followers to read your blog and buy your stuff.
Once that is done, you are free to start on the most important thing:
Building Your Followers
This is the main bread and butter reason to have your Instagram account. Build followers, and get as many of those followers to become customers later on down the road. I will outline the Slowlane and the Fastlane methods; the difference between them is by time consumption. Don't just pick one, you will need to work with both methods.
"Have to do" Slowlane activities:
Post GREAT pictures regularly - The key to retaining followers is consistently posting relevant, emotion-triggering pictures that your followers will love. Over time, you should create a general theme for your account, which will help you get followers that are interested in that specific niche. Always experiment with the filters Instagram provides, to make sure you are posting as beautiful picture as you can. Figure out what all the buttons do, so you can become familiar enough in the future to know exactly what will look best for different pictures, saving you time in the long run.
Use good hashtags, but don't spam them - Everyone knows too much of a good thing can make it bad. Hashtags are great for getting your pictures seen by others. But users who use up the Instagram limit of 20 hashtags per picture are generally seen as spammy. A good rule of thumb is 0-3 hashtags per picture. You can find out which hashtags are the most popular on many sites, but I would advise to only use these when explicitly relevant to your picture.
Post at the correct time - Generally, the best times to post a picture are mornings, 7-9:00, when people are getting up, heading for work and school and get stuck in traffic, and also 5-6:00 in the evenings when people come home and relax for a bit. The best days to post will be Friday-Monday, as people get pumped for the weekend and then want to see what people did on the weekend. The middle week is good also, just not on the same level. As your follower base grows, I recommend connecting your account to Statigr.am, a free Instagram management website. They will give you daily reports on all of your Instagram statistics and also are excellent for comment management. One of their statistics will tell you when is the best time to post for your account.
Be active on your account...to a point - That like button, and especially the comment button must be your friends. People will be ecstatic if someone with a major number of followers likes their pictures, comments on them or follows them. Since this can be automized (we will be getting to that), don't spend much time here, since your time can be used for other, better things.
Optional Slowlane Activities:
Mass commenting and liking - This can really help you gain followers, but it is really just a numbers game. A certain percent of the accounts you like or comment on will check your account, and a certain percent of those will actually follow you. I have personally tried this on many occasions, and it's a fact that people like comments better than likes and repeated likes and comments better than a 1 instance. Using that data, your best bet would be to comment on 2-3 pictures per user. As stated earlier, this can be made Fastlane, which will free your time up for more important things.
Fastlane Activities:
Having your virtual assistant like and comment of photos - I personally do not have one, so don't take my word for the cost-effectiveness of this, but if you can hire a cheap, trustworthy VA, I can see possibilities. You would just have them like and comment of hundreds of pictures an hour, with specific guidelines on what to say, and on which pictures to focus on.
Paying for a Bot - If you do a quick google search for "getting more Instagram followers" there will pop up many sites that sell "followers" that are just fake accounts. That is a complete waste of time since we want real, active people to follow us. They key is to get a bot to like and comment on pictures for you. I found 2 reputable websites that I tried out. Instgress.com and Instamacro.com both are web-based bots you can try for free (Instagress gives you 3 days free, Instamacro gives 3 hours), and they will like pictures and comment on them. A percentage of the recipients will come back and like your pictures, comment on them and maybe follow you. Here's my take on both of those: Instagress is more open. It lets you see what its doing as its doing it. You can customize its actions way more than Instamacro. But it also conducts its actions much slower than Instamacro. On Instamacro, I haven't tested it enough to know how exactly it works, but I get the idea that it will like many, many pictures. It also gives you results faster. Whether that is a good thing is yet to be found out. As for pricing, I can't say. Instagress gained me 140+ followers in the 3 days it was working which would normally cost $2, and Instamacro gave me 16 in the 3 hours and you can buy a whole day for $3. Since it is relatively cheap, I would advise to test both and see which one works better.
Crowdsourcing, CTAs and Contests - These three C's will help you reach more people using the followers you already have. Crowdsourcing means using pictures that your followers or others have taken of something relating to your business such as your product or even the type of thing you sell (bike shops would crowdsource bike pics). Make sure to pick great pictures from people with a reasonably large amount of followers, 10,000 or less. Mention them in the caption, with a quick "Follow this cool person" blurb in it will give you a high chance of having them do the same for you. CTA's can be inserted into a pic using the caption, where you can call people to like (double tap), comment, or mention somebody. Contests can be created where you will give something away for free to the winner of the contest. All you have people do is post a picture in the theme you want and hashtag it with the special hashtag you want people to use in the picture. All the followers participating broadcast your account and hashtag to their followers!
Before we end, make sure not do any of these:
Remember, the Fastlane mindset is to provide VALUE. If you don't provide value to Instagram, you won't receive followers, and new customers. Pay your dues. Be active and producing. And Instagram will give you love back.
Why Instagram?
You probably saw the headlines when Facebook bought out Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and you might have been thinking
. Some might have wondered why, and here it is: Instagram has consistently shown large growth, high levels of user engagement compared to other social media and an exceptionally powerful and emotional way to spread content to followers (possible customers).
Although outdated, this graph shows the crazy amount of growth Instagram experienced during its acquisition by Facebook. Today, it's nearing 160 million users.
Getting Started...
Get the app. Follow the instructions. Duh. No need to walk you through this. Although, you must decide if this will be a business type account or your personal brand type account. In this guide, the ideas presented are geared toward a business type account.
After you have the account, here's your to do list:
Post 10-15 of your BEST pictures - People will not follow boring accounts. This will be easy if you already have hi-resolution pictures of your products or other great pictures that could relate to your business. If not, get snapping. Remember, all of your pictures do not have to be exactly what you are selling. Branch out. If you sell dog feed, anything in the realm of pets is good for posting, especially cute puppies and kittens! If you sell vacuum cleaners, beautiful pictures of homes are a great choice. ONLY POST YOUR BEST PICTURES.
Follow 50 accounts - This is the limit Instagram lets you follow in, I think a day? Anyway, once you follow that many, it stops you from following any more for a period of time. Search hashtags related to your business, which will lead you to people that have recently posted a picture related to what you are selling. Follow 40 of these people, who hopefully will follow you back, giving you a small follower base to get started. For the last 10, find accounts of relatable businesses or people (the producers) for idea generation, and to check out who is following them.
Connect your Instagram to your other internet stuff - If you already have acquired a follower base in any other internet region such as social media, blogs and your business, connect the two! This will increase your Instagram follower count and also lead your new Instagram followers to read your blog and buy your stuff.
Once that is done, you are free to start on the most important thing:
Building Your Followers
This is the main bread and butter reason to have your Instagram account. Build followers, and get as many of those followers to become customers later on down the road. I will outline the Slowlane and the Fastlane methods; the difference between them is by time consumption. Don't just pick one, you will need to work with both methods.
"Have to do" Slowlane activities:
Post GREAT pictures regularly - The key to retaining followers is consistently posting relevant, emotion-triggering pictures that your followers will love. Over time, you should create a general theme for your account, which will help you get followers that are interested in that specific niche. Always experiment with the filters Instagram provides, to make sure you are posting as beautiful picture as you can. Figure out what all the buttons do, so you can become familiar enough in the future to know exactly what will look best for different pictures, saving you time in the long run.
Use good hashtags, but don't spam them - Everyone knows too much of a good thing can make it bad. Hashtags are great for getting your pictures seen by others. But users who use up the Instagram limit of 20 hashtags per picture are generally seen as spammy. A good rule of thumb is 0-3 hashtags per picture. You can find out which hashtags are the most popular on many sites, but I would advise to only use these when explicitly relevant to your picture.
Post at the correct time - Generally, the best times to post a picture are mornings, 7-9:00, when people are getting up, heading for work and school and get stuck in traffic, and also 5-6:00 in the evenings when people come home and relax for a bit. The best days to post will be Friday-Monday, as people get pumped for the weekend and then want to see what people did on the weekend. The middle week is good also, just not on the same level. As your follower base grows, I recommend connecting your account to Statigr.am, a free Instagram management website. They will give you daily reports on all of your Instagram statistics and also are excellent for comment management. One of their statistics will tell you when is the best time to post for your account.
Be active on your account...to a point - That like button, and especially the comment button must be your friends. People will be ecstatic if someone with a major number of followers likes their pictures, comments on them or follows them. Since this can be automized (we will be getting to that), don't spend much time here, since your time can be used for other, better things.
Optional Slowlane Activities:
Mass commenting and liking - This can really help you gain followers, but it is really just a numbers game. A certain percent of the accounts you like or comment on will check your account, and a certain percent of those will actually follow you. I have personally tried this on many occasions, and it's a fact that people like comments better than likes and repeated likes and comments better than a 1 instance. Using that data, your best bet would be to comment on 2-3 pictures per user. As stated earlier, this can be made Fastlane, which will free your time up for more important things.
Fastlane Activities:
Having your virtual assistant like and comment of photos - I personally do not have one, so don't take my word for the cost-effectiveness of this, but if you can hire a cheap, trustworthy VA, I can see possibilities. You would just have them like and comment of hundreds of pictures an hour, with specific guidelines on what to say, and on which pictures to focus on.
Paying for a Bot - If you do a quick google search for "getting more Instagram followers" there will pop up many sites that sell "followers" that are just fake accounts. That is a complete waste of time since we want real, active people to follow us. They key is to get a bot to like and comment on pictures for you. I found 2 reputable websites that I tried out. Instgress.com and Instamacro.com both are web-based bots you can try for free (Instagress gives you 3 days free, Instamacro gives 3 hours), and they will like pictures and comment on them. A percentage of the recipients will come back and like your pictures, comment on them and maybe follow you. Here's my take on both of those: Instagress is more open. It lets you see what its doing as its doing it. You can customize its actions way more than Instamacro. But it also conducts its actions much slower than Instamacro. On Instamacro, I haven't tested it enough to know how exactly it works, but I get the idea that it will like many, many pictures. It also gives you results faster. Whether that is a good thing is yet to be found out. As for pricing, I can't say. Instagress gained me 140+ followers in the 3 days it was working which would normally cost $2, and Instamacro gave me 16 in the 3 hours and you can buy a whole day for $3. Since it is relatively cheap, I would advise to test both and see which one works better.
Crowdsourcing, CTAs and Contests - These three C's will help you reach more people using the followers you already have. Crowdsourcing means using pictures that your followers or others have taken of something relating to your business such as your product or even the type of thing you sell (bike shops would crowdsource bike pics). Make sure to pick great pictures from people with a reasonably large amount of followers, 10,000 or less. Mention them in the caption, with a quick "Follow this cool person" blurb in it will give you a high chance of having them do the same for you. CTA's can be inserted into a pic using the caption, where you can call people to like (double tap), comment, or mention somebody. Contests can be created where you will give something away for free to the winner of the contest. All you have people do is post a picture in the theme you want and hashtag it with the special hashtag you want people to use in the picture. All the followers participating broadcast your account and hashtag to their followers!
Before we end, make sure not do any of these:
- Follow tons of people yourself, while having pitiful amounts of followers. It turns people off from following you.
- Never respond to comments on your pictures. ALWAYS respond.
- Never post low-quality/boring pictures.
Remember, the Fastlane mindset is to provide VALUE. If you don't provide value to Instagram, you won't receive followers, and new customers. Pay your dues. Be active and producing. And Instagram will give you love back.
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