I think I've FINALLY got the hang of Instagram. I've been gaining around 100 followers a week alongside a decent amount of engagement on posts that is increasing as my account grows. After seeing a lot of complaints on Twitter about horrific Instagram engagement, I thought a blog post about the tips and tricks I use to help beat the Instagram algorithm might help some of you out!
Be active
By this, I mean posting content regularly and following a loose schedule. You don't want to overdo it as multiple posts a day can become quite annoying. I would say anything from one post a day to one post a week is good but obviously, that's just personal preference. What I have noticed is that the more engagement you have on RECENT posts, the more people are likely to see your next Instagram post, so it's important to not leave it too long before posting your next photo.
Engage with other accounts
This is probably the biggest tip I can give you! Increasing your engagement with other accounts 100% helps to grow your Instagram account. By engagement, I don't just mean liking and commenting on photos, but also following new accounts regularly. You can't expect people to follow you if you don't follow new accounts yourself. If you engage with other accounts, people are likely to then go and look at your account and engage back.
Share your Instagram posts on social media
Notify your Twitter followers when you upload a new post on Instagram. We all know people are more likely to see Tweets than Instagram posts because of how the algorithms work so sharing your posts on social media will increase the amount of exposure they get, hopefully increasing your impressions and reach on Instagram.
Use hashtags and locations
Yes, admittedly, hashtags aren't as useful now as they used to be thanks to the horrific changes that have been made to Instagram over the past couple of years! You can now follow hashtags though and I'm assuming that once more people start using this feature, hashtags will make a big difference again. Using hashtags increases the number of people who are likely to see your account, even if that's not a huge increase. The same goes for using locations. Whenever you can, add a location to your Instagram post as it means people searching up that location will see your post, further increasing the impressions number.
Keep track of insights/analytics
If you have a business account you can already track your insights through the app, but if you don't, I recommend looking for some sort of analytics app. Instagram Insights tell you when your followers are most active on Instagram. This is the best time for you to upload a photo as more people are using the app so more people are likely to see it.
Work with the algorithm
We can't change the algorithm, (as much as we might want to,) but we can work with it. One of the big things about the algorithm is that the more engagement you get on your posts, the more people your next posts will get shown to. Therefore, the number of likes and comments you get on your posts is crucial to growing your account. Something that helps with this is Instagram pods - I know some people aren't a fan of them, but if you're in the right kind of ones, they can be really helpful. All the Instagram pods I'm part of aren't strict and we don't feel like we have to comment on all posts. They do still increase engagement though and I've even made quite a few new friends through them. If you want to join an Instagram pod, leave your username below and I'll add you to one!
