5 Easy Tips to Build Your Instagram Audience
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Featured blogger photos, clockwise from bottom right: @georgiemac3, @bittersweetcolours, @thetiafox
As an influencer, you already know how to build an Instagram following far beyond the average of roughly 194 followers. But given the wide-ranging audience sizes within the influencer community itself, even influencers with considerably large followings have plenty of room to grow. Consider this example: the difference in followers between the world’s top Instagrammer, Selena Gomez (87.8 million), and runner-up Taylor Swift (84.2 million), is an astounding 3.6 million followers -- a number eluded by even very successful influencers!
But aside from becoming an A-List celebrity with chart-topping music tracks, how do you build your own Instagram following to such a level?
This is actually a trick question.
Before you think about it, here are some facts worth noting:
- - 30% of Instagram accounts are inactive, meaning that the owners of these accounts are only sporadically likely to see your posts.
- - The rate of engagement on Instagram decreases significantly as audience size grows.
If you’re a professional influencer whose income is earned directly from brand collaborations, these stats mean that building the largest possible audience (which is likely to drive up your proportion of inactive followers while driving down your engagement) may not actually be the best overall goal.
It is certainly true that brands look partly at audience size when engaging influencers, but they also want to know that your followers trust you and are likely to follow your recommendations. In other words, brands care less about whether you have 50k followers or 500k, and more about whether these followers will be inspired by your content to become customers. (This is why it’s important to work only with brands you personally like!)
In light of that, these 5 tips for building your Instagram audience are designed to help you change the size and shape of your already large following by adding more engaged, loyal followers -- rather than simply trying to achieve a higher number. Feel free to add your own tips below:
Get (genuinely) social. You’ve probably read many times that the point of social media is to socialize -- but this is especially true for influencers. Your followers might ‘like’ your posts on occasion if you take consistently beautiful photos, but they will only seek you out if they feel a connection to you. This loyalty starts with you. Show a genuine interest in the accounts of your followers (and potential followers). Take time each day to ‘like’ and comment on the photos of at least 10-15 followers that you genuinely like. Do the same for followers of brands you like. This method will not just build your audience; it will also build your influence.
If you want to find great new bloggers to follow, look in the comments of the ones you love already!
Think blue (and white) for more ‘likes.’ The colors you choose make a difference. Did you know your posts will receive 24% more likes if they favor blues over reds and yellows? Your background makes a difference as well, with photos centering on a single object against a faded background performing 29% better than photos with no distinguishable background. Light, sunny posts favoring white backgrounds also fare better than darker posts.
Break out the denim -- posts with blue and white get more likes.
...but this won’t work for affiliate campaigns. If your goal is for your followers to buy the products you post, you can forget everything you just read in the point above. When it comes to campaigns driven by affiliate links, you can make no assumptions about what will drive the most interest. Often times, it’s not the image you expect! Although you want everything you post to be true and authentic to your personal brand, a little deliberate experimenting can go a long way toward finding what style of post will get the most traction. You can only determine this by testing different images -- for example, a watch displayed on a table with other beautiful objects vs. the same watch on your wrist against a gorgeous sunset. Once you know what works best for different types of campaigns, you can do less testing and more implementing!
Choose your brands carefully. Remember that every time you collaborate with a brand, you are influencing your followers. If you feel half-hearted about a brand or a product you’re promoting, that feeling will come through in your post whether you realize it or not -- and you probably won’t be thrilled with the image or your ‘likes’ and comments. If you stay true to yourself and collaborate only with brands you feel excited about or products you particularly love, your posts will perform better, and your relationships with brands will be stronger as well. Your followers, engagement and influence will grow!
Stay curious. When you were first building your audience, you probably read everything you could find about Instagram, photography, brands, fashion, and all other topics related to becoming an influencer. As you grow from novice to real influencer, it can be easy to settle for a routine -- you post on a schedule, you work with the same kinds of brands, you know what kinds of shots work best for you. In order to keep growing, we encourage you to stay curious! Challenge yourself as a photographer, stylist and artist. Research new and interesting brands to introduce to your followers.
A good blogger never stops looking for the perfect background!
Finally, keep reading -- especially about your niche, whether it’s fashion, beauty or lifestyle. Also read about social media itself. Last month, when Instagram switched from a chronologically based search method to an algorithm, influencers who read about it ahead of time were able to change their strategy more easily than those who didn’t. Don’t let yourself get caught off guard. The more you know about the platforms you use, the easier it is for you to respond to changes and continue to grow your audience on your terms.