How NOT to grow your Instagram Following
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Of all the many Social Media platforms available, Instagram has long been my favorite as it's the best way for me to show off my images and adventures. Plus, it's also the best way for me to see the incredible images that others create and the wonderful places they live or visit. Though I've been active there for many years and I have about 1850 posts (hi-quality ones, in my opinion), I've yet to attain anything akin to Insta-fame.
The reasons for wanting a large following are multiple. Yes, there's a selfish aspect of validation in it. I'd love to have thousands of folks telling me (via a Like or Follow) that my images are cool but more importantly than that are the monetary reasons. A huge following means that you'll have more traffic to your site, the chances of sponsorship are increased, and you'll have more eyeballs to which you can show off new projects or products. So, yeah ... I'd like more followers.
There are countless blog posts and YouTube videos that share the best tips to grow your Instagram following:
- Proper use of relevant hashtags
- Tagging of locations, other users, and commercial accounts
- Commenting on other account's images
- Post at times of highter traffic
- Posting a consistent theme (yoga poses, drone images, landscapes, etc)
#Hashtags
My method of finding the better hashtags is rather simple. I'll add some of the obvious ones (#nature, #downtown #portrait) but I'll also seek out other, effective ones. In the search bar, I type in one of the hashtags that I intend on using and look at the posts using that same hashtags. Look at the most popular images and copy/paste the hashtags that they use. Not all may apply but you'll find niche tags that you hadn't thought of, tags that other users follow to find cool content. You may add up to 30 tags per post so have at it but if you don't want all those hashtags messing up the cleanliness of your caption, try the 5-period trick. You'll find it and other great #hashtag info on this blog post.
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Tagging
The simplest of them. If your friend is pictured, tag them. If you're a foodie and posting an awesome meal, tag the restaurant or cafe. If you're at a theater watching a play, tag the theater, the artists, the playwright or even the publishing company. You've just created content that other businesses and brands will be happy to acknowledge because it makes them look good and they may even share your post.
Commenting
This is the one that is most vexing to me because it's effective but it's also such obvious, ingenuine baloney! Ideally, commenting on others cool images is a good thing and I'm happy to receive a genuine compliment or leave one for others but that happens less than the phoney comments that are left in order to create the all-powerful "engagement". Sometimes, I even get self-serving comments like "Loving your page! Please leave a comment on my latest post and let me know what you think of it! :)" A quick look at the random comments on popular posts will show you rather quickly who is leaving comments hoping to get a comment or follow in return.
Yes, engagement is great and it can be a great metric to gauge the success of a post but be authentic about it.
Posting times
The importance of finding the best times to post has become less important in the past 2 years. Instagram has begun using an algorithm that helps to deliver relevant content to the individual accounts based on what Instagram thinks that you'd most like AND what they want you to see. Still, though, there's still truth and merit to some of the older information on posting times. Check out this post that has some great info if you wanna see if times/dates of posts matter. I still follow a few of the guidelines in there and it helps a bit. I get more attention for posts
Consistency
This is the rule that I follow the least, how I'm NOT getting new followers. Some of the more popular accounts that I follow post images that have great similarities in their content; landscapes, fashion, or wildlife. They'll go on creative streaks where they'll have weeks worth of images that show images all within a narrow slice of the photography spectrum and this is very popular for all their followers. Naturally, it's also a great way to garner new followers that follow that topic and perhaps even get sponsorships from brands within that market.
I'm pleased to say that as long as I've carried a camera in earnest, I've captured all the things presented to me and I've posted the best of them on the danscape account; landscapes, theater, puppies, nudes, urbanscapes, drone images, and more. While I may have a consistent qualiity to the images and my own consistent style, the images are far too varied for me to attract followers who simply want to see clouds or sunset.
For better or worse, I don't expect to ever have a huge amount of followers. Though the personal/artistic validation would be nice, as well as the possibility of sponsorship, I think that I'd rather focus on producing imagery that pleases me ... and hopefully you, too. If you're not already doing so, go follow me on Instagram at @danscape!