Wondering the way to manage your Instagram followers? You are not sure what it means to manage followers on Instagram?
You’ve come to the right place.
Managing Instagram followers means:
- Interacting with your current followers consistently
- Growing your Instagram following and gaining new followers
- Maintaining a happy, engaged community
- Following or unfollowing other Instagram accounts
- Blocking trolls and handling spam
Jump into this post to know more strategies to make this easier and more effective.
The way to manage Instagram followers efficiently and effectively
Maybe it’s your very first step on the platform and want to get more Instagram followers. Or perhaps you already have a large following and need to improve how you interact with your followers.
No matter where your brand is at, these 10 ideas will allow you to manage your Instagram followers.
Publish high-quality, engaging content
To keep the current followers interacting with your brand — and to engage new followers — be selective. Publish only thoughtfully selected, appealing content that showcase and reflects your brand.
For example, take the time to:
- Choose high-quality visuals that are reflective of your brand, its targets and its values
- Create infographics or designed elements
- Edit your photos to look as professional as possible
- Use Instagram presets so your Instagram account has a consistent feel and look
- Write great Instagram captions
The outdoor brand Cotopaxi posts a cautious collection of pictures which might be inspiring and related to its general vision and values — to get people outside and to “do good” — even if its products aren’t shown.
Same with Dove. As well as posting pictures and video, the beauty brand creates enjoyable, graphic elements to change up how its followers interact with the account.
To make posting great content a little easier, create a content calendar to arrange the planning, creation and posting of your content.
Interact with your followers to build up a sense of community
Take the time to be social! Manage your brand’s Instagram followers by entering into conversations with your followers and creating a sense of togetherness.
Reply quickly to questions and comments
Don’t leave your followers’ comments and questions unanswered. Interact with what they’re asking. And make sure to do so in a timely way.
Olympic National Park’s Instagram account is an effective example of this interaction. Sometimes, the brand reply a question with an informative response. Other times, it shares in its followers’ excitement by commenting back. And other times, it simply likes a comment made by a follower.
Write captions that encourage interaction
Reese’s Book Club usually asks questions in its captions. Its followers then reply in the comments. There’s a conversation between the brand and the followers, that means it’s an opportunity to show your business’s personality. Plus, back-and-forth dialogue adds a personal element.
Encourage mentions and hashtags
Your caption can even encourage followers to use your Instagram content to interact with their friends. Using hashtags and mentions can hep to expand the conversation and create a sense of community.
When the outdoor brand MEC launched a social media campaign in a week that encouraged its followers to remember their favourite camping memory, it also inspired users to tag their friends who were there. This brings people together — and might even earn your brand some new organic followers.
Respond to direct messages promptly
If followers engage with your brand using a direct message, keep your followers excited by responding quickly. Don’t wait for days or weeks to reply a question!
Simply, these are canned responses to common questions. To pick a canned response and reply to a follower’s direct message, just type the one-word shortcut. Then the entire canned response will auto-fill.
You now can make replies even more effective and efficient with Hootsuit. You may assign replies and follow ups to different team members. This ensures that all direct messages get answered.
Welcome new followers
In case your brand is new to Instagram, manage your followers with a welcome message. This is a personal introduction to your brand:
That being said, it’s not realistic to personally welcome each new follower if your account has thousands, or hundreds of 1000’s, of followers.
If you have already got a large following, take the time to incorporate an introductory Instagram post into your content calendar to welcome new followers. That post will explain who you are, tell your story and what you hope your followers will get out of your social media interactions.
For example, the fitness influencer Michaela North has more than 38,000 followers and more than 2,500 posts on her Instagram. Regardless of having a healthy following, she recently shared a personal introductory post to create connection with her new followers: