When Instagram was launched in 2010, not many people expected it to be more than just a platform where teenagers posted the things they were interested in, the food they ate or the progress they’d made with following exercise goals. Today, it is worth over $100 billion, with 130 million users, 25 million of those being businesses. With hundreds of people creating accounts every day, it can be very difficult for a new account to begin to grow, and the first few months are always the most difficult.
What adds to the difficulty is the fact that there are 500 million daily users, all of whom are posting, gaining followers and likes. With this much competition, it makes sense why many accounts never get the ball rolling. However, if you keep at it, and follow these tips, you will definitely kickstart your new Instagram account’s growth.
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Have A Posting Schedule
One of the key elements to get your new Instagram account off the ground is to post consistently. The best number according to statistics is at least once a day, seven days a week, although more is also good.
Those statistics show that posting once a day for seven days generates 4x as many likes and 26% more followers. Posting more than 7 times per week generates 13x as many likes and around 56% more followers. It’s for this exact reason that having a posting schedule will help to kickstart your new Instagram account’s growth.
Use The Right Hashtags
One thing that is perhaps more important than posting consistently, is using the right hashtags when doing so. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that a post with a hashtag will boost engagement by around 12%, depending on what the post is about.
The second is that use hashtags that aren’t related to your post is actually against the terms of service of Instagram, and will negatively impact the visibility of your post, and as a result, the reach it has.
A great tool to use is Task Ant; it will generate hashtags related to your post, choosing the most popular ones in your niche. Also allowing you to save sets of hashtags to copy-paste the next time you are going to post. If you want to check out a full review of the features Task Ant has give this a read.
Make Sure The Content Is Creative
Because Instagram is a visual platform, posting plain old text, or unimaginative content won’t get you very far. It’s rather simple; good, creative content will be liked and therefore will increase the number of followers you have.
The best thing is that you don’t even just have to post photos, you can also take advantage of IGTV, videos, and Instagram stories. Creative content will get attention, and because most people use Instagram when they’re bored, you’ll definitely gain followers if you generate it.
If you have a product, show how it is used, or how other people use it, instead of just promoting or advertising it.
Promote Your Account On Other Platforms
If you take a look at all of the popular accounts on Instagram, they all have one thing in common; the owners of the accounts don’t just use Instagram. You might be thinking that it is easier for them to use multiple platforms with that level of popularity, but it works in many ways.
If you have a YouTube channel, leave a link to your Instagram account in the description of every video, or include the handle in one of the corners of the video itself. If you have a Facebook profile, leave your handle where it can be easily seen.
The more platforms people see your handle, the higher the chances they will visit your account.
Be Active In Your Niche
One of the easiest ways to kickstart your Instagram account is simply being active on Instagram. You could like other posts by accounts similar to yours, as well as post helpful, insightful comments.
This is instrumental in getting your name out there, as that account may do the same for you in return, which boosts engagement.
In addition to this, anyone browsing the comments might check your account out if they liked the comment, or see that your account is similar. This is great because you will be taking advantage of an existing audience.
If you are interested in even more social media-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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