How To Explode Your Instagram Growth Organically
From April to July 2020, we started an internal project to learn about the Instagram algorithm and grow our Instagram followers. Initially, our content on social media was made up primarily of our branding projects and case studies. This got us from 0 followers to about 250 Followers in over two years.
However, this was not the kind of results we wanted to be getting from our social media. And so, to multiply the attention we were getting, we made three significant changes that resulted in our growing our following from 300 followers to 6000+ in just three months.
STEP ONE: Value-Driven Content
There was a massive gap in our market. The majority of the branding agencies and profiles on Instagram all posted excellent design work to showcase their expertise and land clients for their businesses. But we realised, close to nobody was giving real value to their audiences.
So instead of being just like everyone, we switched up the content to give our audiences the practical steps, tools, guides, templates, and tactics they need to increase their branding and marketing efforts in the digital space.
We used this content type known as carousels. They are ten single image slide decks that teach a specific idea or share a particular solution to a problem. Using carousels on Instagram is a fantastic way to teach complex concepts fun and interactive and entice your audience to engage with your content.
Doing this brought attention to our page because this is the kind of content that gets a lot of Likes and Saves. And these metrics are excellent indicators to the algorithm that people love your content and your profile.
STEP TWO: Prioritising conversations
Aside from putting out helpful content into the marketplace, we also made the content very interactive. You can do this by using a Call-To-Action (CTA) that encouraged comments and DMs. Doing this is also an excellent indicator to the algorithm that your audience love your content. However, it does something even more powerful.
Encouraging comments and direct messages from your audience trains your audience to become slightly more invested in your brand, a comment at a time. And an engaged community on social media, specifically Instagram, causes the algorithm to push your profile to even more like-minded audience members through hashtags, the explore feed, or Suggested For You spaces across Instagram. Once you start hitting these places, growth is inevitable.
STEP THREE: Consistency
Creating content and engaging with your audience is not easy, especially at the beginning. We spent hours creating posts and not getting much interaction and attention at the beginning. This low upfront reward is why many people never stick to this plan long enough to see good results.
So the team planned out a 90 Day Content Plan. In this plan, we were going to post valuable content for 90 days straight. We were going to reach out and make connections all over Instagram with like-minded profiles. And we were going to reply to every comment and dm we got. Engagement on the Instagram platform ranged from 1 to 2 hours daily, and it took around the same time to create a carousel post for Instagram.
These were the three things we used to explode our engagement on our social media, and we currently use the learnings and the same format to help our clients do the same for their business with different content types and procedures.
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