How to grow your instagram:

• Relevant Content. Share up to date & current topic/trends that are happening or about to occur. For example, since it’s August then it’s the best time to post about Back to School & End of Summer. It’s even better to start posting about fall. With that being said, try posting BEFORE events occur & being ahead of trends.
• Don’t be annoying. Don’t post every hour or say the same thing over & over. There will be days or more than likely holidays & weekends where a lot is going on and you’ll be posting a lot. I’m referring to Tuesday night where you’re just constantly reposting things that aren’t relevant or tedious. That’s probably one of the quickest ways to get unfollowed.
• Timing. Find when you get a bigger response (using Instagram Business Tools helps) & post then. Or just think about when you’re scrolling to find new things & daily routines for people. So try to post when people first get up, lunch time, getting off work, weekends, holidays, etc.
• HASHTAGS. This is probably one of the most important things. Instagram is the most used social media channel & people find most content through POPULAR hashtags. Also, there is a 30 maximum hashtag limit. Use it. Look for the popular hashtags about what you are posting & use the relevant hashtags that are more commonly used. Always make sure people are USING those hashtags.
• Research. Blogging & growing your blog is a lot of research especially when you first start blogging. It’s can be very time consuming but when you start impacting people with your blog then everything is so worth it. Research is important to stay relevant & keeping your blog growing.
• Plan & Strategize. Not everyone is going to have or use a Planner or a Blog Planner but I would highly recommend using one or just finding something to help you strategize & keep track of everything. I have a full blog post on my Blog Planner but to summarize I have my weekly strategy, keep track of upcoming events, plan blog posts, & keep track of my blog stats.
• Utilize Instagram Business Tools (Insights). Instagram tracks Interactions, Content, & Audience. Interactions including your profile visits & website clicks & Discovery such as your Reach & Impressions. This is broken down for the full week. There are also stats on your Content so you can track insights on your posts, stories, & promotions. Audience tracks your followers’s demographics & most importantly the average times your followers are on Instagram & the days when they are most active.
• Promote. The Promote Tool on Instagram is amazing. The tool promotes your posts to increase your reach by increasing visits, traffic, or promotion views to your Target Audience. This is a tool you do have to pay for but you set how much you set a “Budget” of how much you want to spend & it will show you all promotion options! I have used it a couple of times & I only spent $20 and the overall audience it reached helped grow my followers.
• It sounds cliche but be original & be yourself. If you try to do everything like other pages or blogs then no one will want to follow you because they’re already following the original. Sharing a different perspective and new content/ideas will help you grow.
• Manual Pins. The most important thing on Pinterest is to link your target social platform (Blog, Instagram, etc.) that you want to grow to EVERY pin. Then when your pins are sent or pinned everything comes back to your page or blog. To do this you need upload the image, create your own caption, & add the link.
• Connect & Inspire. Another big piece to growing your Instagram is to inspire and connect with others! The more your blog grows the harder it is to get back to every message & comment (mostly because it get’s lost in notifications) but try to get back to others & take every piece of feedback you can get!