Tips for More Organic Growth on Instagram
More and more people are starting to say that organic growth on Instagram is a thing of the past. In the wake of the Facebook takeover and the removing of likes, it seems that the platform is heading in the pay to play direction – if you want visibility, purchase ads. Organic growth on Instagram isn’t gone yet, however. The following tips will keep your feed growing.
Hashtag Usage
There really is an art to using hashtags. People hashtag everything in sight with the most popular tags. They don’t understand that they are making their posts impossible to find. The thing about hashtags is that they should directly relate to the size of your feed. If you run a feed with 200 followers, don’t use a hashtag which has 2 million posts. Think of it this way – if a short person walks into a huge crowd, what happens? You lose track of that person quickly. Hashtags work the same way; if a small feed uses a big hashtag, it will get lost. A small feed doesn’t have the “strength” to remain visible in the sea of big hashtags.
Action
As Instagram is a social media platform, there is much to be said about being social. You want to keep your followers engaged. All too often you see posts with plenty of likes but no comments. engagement is key in keeping your posts relevant. Post captions that ask followers for input. Use the Instagram story toys like polls and quizzes. And make sure you respond to as many comments as possible. The more engagement you can produce, the better.
The way to build strength when you have a smaller feed is to rank in lower hashtags. Use a tag that has 50,000 posts as opposed to 1 million. You will have a better chance of being seen and of ranking for that particular tag. The higher you rank, the better. I will put together a hashtag specific post in the very near future.
Content is King
Post. A lot. If you want to ensure that your content is seen, you will have to post plenty of it. Instagram favors people who use all of their toys, so make sure you post multiple stories per day. Also, carousels are not a new feature, but the did increase the number of slides from three to ten, so use all ten. You should consider going live once per day as well. Though it seems like a lot of posting, it isn’t that bad. Stories aren’t hard to create and neither are carousels unless you are creating infographics, posting your artwork, or anything else that takes some time to create.
Keep up with the Joneses
Follow other people in your niche, particularly those who have a lot of engagement. Look at what they are posting, look at their hashtags. Build similar strategies based on their posts and if they are the same size as you, you may even use the same hashtags they use. Also, be sure to comment on their posts and on the posts of others in your niche. Post relevant, meaningful comments. People see these and will visit your feed. People who see these comments will be more likely to click on your feed than they would be if you post something generic like, “great post!”
Instagram may not have the organic reach of say, TikTok but it is still very possible to grow your follower base organically. Just remember the HACK method – Hashtag usage, Action, Content posting and Keeping up with the Joneses.
Author: Donnell Peavy
