How many times have you we heard and seen other accounts tell you, “grow your following like this or like that, do this and do that?” TOO MANY TIMES am right?
These are just some of the questions I get and I’m sure you can relate?
Staying consistent is difficult and based on the latest instagrams algorithm it is a never ending battle. Quality over quantity is important as lately Instagram wants you to consistently put up posts that are valuable. Valuable to your audience, valuable to your business. Posting randomly or using the same image several times, causes more hard to your account and eventually Instagram bots will recognize that and push you even further down the spectrum.
Remember the people who follow you are real people who want to learn and know more about you. Stock photography is just not going to cut it.
Community engagement is my biggest stress here. Your community is what support you, knows you, learns from you, buys from you and helps you. No matter how big or small you are, your community will always be there for you. Your community is your audience.
Call to Actions is a great way to engage with you audience too. Be smart about them – “Drop an emoji below, How do you feel, Can you share some advice?” are just some of the CTA’s you could use.
I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked this question “can we buy folllowers”?
YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE NOT A REALISTIC NUMBER OF HOW SUCCESSFUL YOUR BUSINESS IS. STOP BEING SO PARANOID OF HOW MANY FOLLOWERS YOU HAVE, IT IS JUST A NUMBER NOT THE DEFINITION OF YOUR BUSINESS.
Last year, I conducted an experiment as so many clients have said to me, can I just not buy followers? I wanted to prove to them that buying followers does nothing for your business but increase a number. How I joined the experiment that legit caused me to gain 2k+ followers overnight (plus how much it cost). Three of my closest friends, who all run marketing agencies, partnered to join as we wanted to explore and teach our clients what we have been through, and it did not work. We partnered in a paid giveaway (we did not run it; we paid to be a part of it).
The cost was $500 per person and used a company called Ever-growing Social, as our industries are very vast yet operate on similar models and therefore we felt, to give this experiment its true shot, we would participate and see what the results says for themselves. The aim behind this, was to to determine is the number of customers who visited our profiles from our Instagram when we used paid organic growth, advertising, bots and partnerships and click bait… With the silly season just around the corner, we could expect advertising sales to rocket, businesses to utilize all avenues to gain traction and revenue. So this experiment was ideal… here is what we learned:
So, Bot-produced followers might boost engagement on the surface, but they don’t care about your business. They won’t buy merchandise or talk about you to their friends.
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The bot can’t discern who might follow you back.
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People can tell we used a bot and were put off by it.
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Our targeting wasn’t quite right.
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It unfollows too quickly.
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If someone doesn’t check their Instagram every day, they would have missed the bot following and unfollowing them.
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We each gained 1k followers but lost 500 followers over a period of 6 months.
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was it worth it, hell no…
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don’t be fooled but those click bait titles.
So as a marketing professional, elbow grease makes the difference. Building a brand on social media isn’t about getting more followers than everyone else, it’s about getting into a niche market and building connections with real people that appreciate your product and—most importantly—are willing to spend money on it. Organic interaction with users is the only way to learn about your followers and define your niche in the market.
So become more visible and comment and answer those DM’s. Liking their comment with a heart truly means nothing. Comment and leave a story why you like it. Actively engage with your followers and what interested them to your page and how you can offer your services.
Reach out to new businesses and request what they do and find out if there is an opportunity to participate with them? You never know, it could lead to potential work and other recommendations.
Join giveaways, do your own, challenges with others or on your own.
I hope these tips give you some insight and help you along this journey, please share, and comment below.
