Instagram could be a highly-targeted, visual marketing channel for your brand and a chance to gain more followers on Instagram that grows with your enterprise.
In fact, over 500 million Instagram users browse the app daily, making it home to some of the most engaged audiences around.
However, like any social network out there, there are right methods to use it, wrong methods to use it, and wise methods to use it.
In this article, we’ll show you the way to most effectively use Instagram to boost engagement and develop a massive following over time—one that’s full of real followers, not inactive fake accounts.
1. Use the right Instagram hashtags
Your purpose on Instagram is to engage your current viewers while also rising your following. Posting new, interesting and engaging images will satisfy the first requirement, however, to start rising you will discover hashtagging your images to be extremely important. Hashtagging your images makes it easy for people to search out your images which are searching for these specific terms.
So which hashtags should you use to gain more followers on Instagram?
Similar to with Twitter and other social platforms, users on Instagram use certain hashtags over others. When you use the right hashtags within your images, you are much more likely to reach new customers and be discovered.
Listed here are the current top 20 hashtags on Instagram according to Websta:
- #love (1,271,692,015)
- #instagood (742,795,562)
- #photooftheday (507,358,504)
- #fashion (487,010,088)
- #beautiful (463,668,566)
- #happy (427,528,663)
- #cute (418,686,470)
- #like4like (417,887,839)
- #tbt (413,049,020)
- #followme (392,011,012)
- #picoftheday (380,504,677)
- #follow (371,102,705)
- #me (348,193,980)
- #art (343,874,151)
- #selfie (337,204,715)
- #summer (324,498,110)
- #instadaily (323,307,593)
- #repost (309,603,537)
- #friends (307,567,075)
- #nature (303,040,276)
When you looked at the list above and said, “However none of these apply to my merchandise or brand”, you are likely correct.
Utilizing hashtags is one thing, utilizing the right tags is a completely different thing.
Popular tags like the ones listed above will likely net you further engagement and likes, but they won’t lead to increased long-term engagement, new followers, and most importantly, sales.
If you wish to tag your images correctly to gain more followers on Instagram, you will need to search out and use the most relevant hashtags. That means doing the appropriate analysis to ensure you’re utilizing hashtags that not only describe your brand but are also being searched for on Instagram.
To seek out relevant hashtags, you’ll wish to use a free online tool like IconoSquare or Websta to begin.
Below, I used Websta to search out relevant, associated and popular hashtags for my men’s accessory brand by searching for key hashtags which are closely related to my brand.
For example, seeking for the hashtag #MensFashion, I was able to pull the following list of further keyword hashtags along with the number of times they’ve been used (popularity).
You may also discover more related hashtags and their popularity when you search for any of your target keywords directly in the Instagram app.
You’ll need to go through this exercise trying different keywords that describe your brand and merchandise, constructing out your hashtag keyword listing as you go.
Remember that Instagram allows for a maximum of 30 hashtags per post. Moreover, the popular words will change over time, so ensure you revisit your hashtag keywords every few months to be sure you’re utilizing the best possible terms to make you can gain more followers on Instagram.
You may also steal hashtag ideas from competitors or similar accounts which have the type of following you aspire to have, however, you ultimately need to create your own groups of hashtags to use that relate to your particular account.
Protip #1: Right here’s a trick that I use for my e-commerce businesses. For every product and product category for my stores, I’ve done the analysis to see that are the most popular Instagram hashtags around these product categories. I come up with 15-20 prevalent hashtags for each kind of merchandise I sell, as well as a base of 5-10 popular tags that describe my brand and product offering overall. Lastly, I also created a listing of popular local particular hashtags that relate to my brand.
For example:
(Brand Keyword Hashtags)
#mybrandname #mensfashion #mensaccessories #mensgoods #fashion #mensstyle #instafashion #menswear
(Product Category Keyword Hashtags)
#bugatchisocks #happysocks #corgisocks #socks #sockswag #socksoftheday #sockgame #sockswagg #socksofinstagram #happysockday #sockwars #funsocks #happysockday
(Location Specific Keyword Hashtags)
#Toronto #TorontoFashion #TorontoFashionBloggers
All of those groups of keyword hashtags are stored in a page on Evernote. This makes it simple and efficient once I’m on the go to post a new Instagram photo, optimized for the most relevant keywords.
I can simply open my Evernote and copy my standard brand, product, and location particular hashtags to post with each image. Some Instagram scheduling tools additionally allow you to save caption templates that you could use to store your hashtag groups.
Doing the work up front of researching, organizing and saving the most relevant and popular hashtags will save you a ton of time down the road, improve your engagement and assist garner new followers.
Protip #2: When you’ve been posting to Instagram for a while and feel such as you’ve missed out on all these chances to construct your viewers by utilizing keyword hashtags, fret not. You may still go back and post a comment with your new hashtag keyword lists and watch the likes and followers roll in.
Using hashtags in Instagram Stories
Hashtagging on Instagram posts are a given, however, you should also be utilizing hashtags in your Stories for the opportunity to gain more followers on Instagram who follow that particular hashtag.
You could use Hashtag Stickers (which might be discovered in the Stickers menu when making a Story) or just hashtag directly in your captions for an opportunity to be featured in a Hashtag Story.
Now that users can follow hashtags, your Stories have an opportunity to be seen by both people who are following that hashtag and anybody who’s just checking it out.
2. Use the right filters on Instagram
Keyword hashtags aren’t the only thing you need to pay attention to. The Instagram community responds to sure image filters more favorably than others. Utilizing these preferred filters can have an effect on your engagement.
Listed here are the 10 current hottest filters on Instagram according to Iconosquare:
- Normal (No Filter)
- Clarendon
- Juno
- Lark
- Ludwig
- Gingham
- Valencia
- X-Pro II
- Lo-fi
- Amaro
TrackMaven did a recent research on Instagram accounts to find how filters affected engagement and found that Mayfair, Hefe, and Ludwig drove the most interaction.
However more necessary than the general Instagram community’s favorite filters are your particular viewers’ favorite filters. Consider this custom graph which correlates filter utilization to engagement from my own Instagram account to get more followers on Instagram:
You could use IconoSquare to review the performance of your own ID to understand what is and is not currently working for you.