These 5 Social Media Marketing Steps Boosted my Instagram to 10K Followers
Cliché or not; it requires consistency, quality, and engagement. I would have never thought that I’d reach this infamous milestone. We always doubt if the countless hours spent building our online presence will genuinely lead to hard proof of concept. It hurts to even think about the amount of time that has gone into building my page. This does mean however, that I can help you save some time. The lessons I learned from my countless mistakes will hopefully guide you in your quest to build an engaged following on Instagram. I don’t want to waste your time, so let’s get into the details right away.
1. It’s not necessarily a bad habit to follow-for-follow at the start (0–3K)
The first 1000 followers are infinitely harder to obtain than the next 3000. Like an investment and its interest that compound over the years, your Instagram page will grow exponentially. This means that it’s important to understand you won’t see mindblowing growth right away. To counteract the inorganic nature of Instagram these days, it may help to follow others in your industry. Please note that with follow-for-follow, I don’t mean going to an influencer’s profile and following their whole audience. It’s likely that you’d be banned, and it wouldn’t even provide you with any decent results. My advice is to find pages where your target audience spends their time. Then, instead of adding a page’s followers, you follow those who engage with their posts. I can confidently say that this is one of my most effective tactics for small pages, and truly a digital marketing secret that few manage to make the most of. You’ll only receive engaged, active followers and your page will be flushed with new traffic.
2. There’s a skip card that lets you jump thousands of followers
This skip card is (you probably feel it coming): Reels. I’m also sick and tired of hearing it all the time, but I have to confirm that it does work. Unfortunately, reels only became available when I was already over 6K followers along the way, but I’ve tried it out on other accounts. As long as you can produce or source engaging short video clips, you’re set up for success; especially if you manage to incorporate what you do and what your profile is about. Then, in combination with hashtags such as #instagramreels #reelsvideo you can obtain thousands of views and visits, even when your follower count is at 0.
3. Nothing will work if your profile isn’t optimised
Sometimes I get sick of myself being a grid perfectionist: that is, I always want the profile and its posts to look visually appealing. There are many debates about whether this is an appropiate way to spend time when marketing in the online world. In my eyes, people who say it doesn’t matter couldn’t be further from the truth. We always talk about how first impressions matter, and to be honest, when I visit a page and it looks poorly put together, I tend to scroll away. Users have a short attention span now more than ever, so it is crucial to catch that attention right away. Here are a few things you can check:
- Make sure your posts follow a general branding/design
- Write a clear and relevant biography
- Choose an effective profile picture (bonus tip: if the page is in any way related to you as a professional or creator, use a photo of yourself with a coloured, even background. You can make one for free on pfpmaker.com)
- Post to your story regularly and group your stories into highlights
4. It’s obvious, but you need to stay active
This means not only posting regularly, but also engaging with your followers by responding to comments and reaching out to other users. The algorithm notices this and will promote your page to reach new audiences. You can also do this through responding to DM’s in a more engaging matter. Seek to build connections. Not only will this propel your page, but you’ll also develop a valuable network with opportunities for collaboration and learning. You’ll be most successful if you learn to take inspiration from others and apply it to your own work. If you’re interested in this, you should read Austin Kleon’s ‘Steal Like an Artist’ and ‘Show Your Work’. These are great reads for Instagram entrepreneurs and creatives, but also for those working in an organization. It often helps to showcase behind the scenes content and ‘works-in-progress’ to illustrate how you get to work.
5. Sometimes you need to remove followers to gain followers
Don’t let bots follow you. Don’t buy followers. More followers could be killing your page. I’ve actually written a whole article about this before, also here on Medium, so feel free to check it out. Here is a short excerpt that describes the main concept:
“If after uploading your post it performs well by receiving comments and likes, the algorithm will classify your post as engaging and show it to most of your followers. If whatever you published does not do so well initially, it will be shown to a smaller percentage of your followers.”
This means that just because you have many followers, doesn’t always mean that you’ll reach a lot of people. That is a shame, because usually our goal is to reach as many people as possible. So, be wary of fake/inactive followers and try to avoid them. Sometimes this even means that you go through your follower list and remove some accounts. It may seems strange or counterproductive, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Both for you and for your page.
Proof is always an important idea in social media marketing. Since there are so many factors to consider, we can never truly identify what matters most, but we can make educated guesses based on thousands of posts. It helps me develop my research if you leave your comment! Together, we can decode the algorithm, build our presence, and learn how to make a living in the digital world.
