How To Be Insta Famous!
Written by DeeBee (New Zealand)
Who doesn’t want to be famous? Meeting influential people, be adored, loved and recognised who doesn’t want it?
Believe it or not, you don’t need to be talented to be famous; Just need to be interesting&persistent. Not having any skill and willing to make fun of that in a positive way can make you grand as well!
So why wait? Be ‘Insta famous’ following a few simple practices. Because of the pure visual approach, chances of engagement are much higher than any other social media platforms. If you’re pleasing the crowd and sounding genuine, people will like you and follow you.
Three basic things:
The whole Instagramalgorithm depends on three fundamental objectives: Follower | Engagement | Posts
Start with your bio:
Make it short&interesting following AIDA concept (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action). Include personal hashtag which I will explain soon. You can use emojisdepending on the target audience but keep the look aesthetically pleasing.The bio should be an invitation to potential followers to let them know what it is about and suggests them to follow. No one read it through if too long.
Target followers:
Never use those follower exchange apps or buy followers. They are not the real audience they don’t increase post engagement or doesn’t help to break the Instagram algorithm.Make a list of competitors & idols, analyse their post that how they and their follower engage. Innovate better idea. If you can collaborate with your competitors or idols is better. Keep mentioning your icons in your posts when possible hoping that they will leave a comment which will push you into the explored feed. ‘Shout outs’ are a great that way. Reach out for “get featured” option to journalists and other media publications.
Following the people fit into your niche will help Instagram algorithm to understand that your relevancy to your ideal follower because the algorithm links people with the same interests. More follower you have in common with another account more likely Instagram is going to suggest your account to the mind with similar interest. Never follow too many people at a time(200/minutes), you will get yourself banned. Same with likes.
Understanding Insta analytics:
Understanding of Insta algorithm work is essential. Find the best time to post your photo; Finding the best time of the day to post your picture is very crucial. Post engagement happened in the first few minutes anticipate your post popularity to Insta algorithm. Engagement you get in the first few minutes going to decide the size of your audience; Audience grows more prominent with more involvement; what percentage of your follower respond to your post positively or looked at it for a more extended period. The Algorithm is going to show it to another 20% of people you are following. More engagement you get the post will remain on the top of the feed and automatically increase the chances showing it to more people and prospects to get more engagement.You can find out doing trial and error. Post different time of the day and analyse the post engagement. There are a few apps available to do that for you. Public profile works a lot better than a private profile.
Besides finding your followers feed scrolling hours also find their interest very carefully. Find out what the common interest that makes them fall into a group. Don’t follow hundreds of people hoping that they will follow you back and then unfollow them when they don’t, not a good idea.
Hashtag secrets:
Always hashtag your image. Post with hashtags performs much better than without hashtags. An Insta feed goes up after 11hashtag and allows up to 30. I will recommend using 30; use a large variety of hashtags and keep changing time to time to get a new audience.
Consider using popular hashtag from large influencer post to get bigger audiences, but do not use the oversaturated ones. Also, it is crucial to develop personal Hashtag which can be used by you and your follower. It’s like making a brand name. It needs to be exciting or meaningful, so your follower will feel the urge to use it too. Moreover, having your individual hashtag makes you look bigger than you might be. The hashtag should be a combination of words related to your niche or your name or product you are trying to create. Check all your hashtags after posting a few hours to see if you reached the top post section with any of them. Those hashtags can be found in the Instagram search or use hashtag generating apps. Save your hashtag under different groups or category in your notes & every time you post copy & post them accordingly. If you are using iPhone, there is a way of organising hashtag in your phone by setting up a new text replacement in your keyboard setting. Don’t post hashtag in the caption section. Post an image and type the hashtags as the first comment. It will keep your feed nice and clean. The post engagement shows within an hour — practically first few minutes which anticipate the post engagement capacity.
Another way which increases the engagement is geotagging the photo with a correct location. Geotags obtain 2 to 3 times more views which will high your chances of engaging and people from those locations and get more follower.
Feed aesthetic:
Keep your feed aesthetically pleasing. Followers are going to take only a few seconds to decide whether they will follow you or not. More consistent your feed looks more follower you get. Set a specific niche or theme which support your bio. If you are a Singer or photographer people will expect posts regarding that. Stick to a colour palate or photo style. Get creative and find out how you can make your feed unique. If you want to grow, follow only the accounts fall into your category. So, you get connected people with the same interest which will give you more engagement. If you like them start acting like them, that’s the trick, but don’t be artificial but be creative. Don’t consider Instagram as the platform to share your personal story.You can’t get the right audience with low-resolution photos. Get a phone with a good camera or get a professional camera. Take some time and work on your photography skill. Mastering Photoshop or any other image editing software will be an advantage. Use colour to create a deep connection with your brand or self. Brainstorm for ideas, make an effort to make it eye candy. Now be creative but don’t go overboard. Never post content until you are 100% happy with it.
Selfies are in the top position of personal Instagram feeds. ‘#selfie’ is a very popular hashtag. Generally, cool earthy tone like blue, green, beige gets more engagement. Using filter is also another option. “Willow” filter is in the first place, “Normal” is in second.
There are few creative and popular feed style are on Instagram. As an example, ‘The mosaic tile feed’, ‘posting in triplets’, and ‘Checkboard feed’. You can always explore and create new unique ways. It is the first nine images in your feed which will motivate the follower. It's important to invest your time to make your profile looks convincing, appealing & honest. Entirely avoid posting duplicate content.
I will suggest setting up multiple accounts for multiple interests. Post photos with a similar theme or similar usage of the filter. Various theme or filter makes your feed looks messy. When a visitor comes to your page to see if they are going to follow you or not, they see the whole feed. If they see various shapes and sizes, it may not appeal them. Portrait images, in general, receive more engagement in Instagram.
If you still want to connect with your friends & family create a separate or private account. For your main account use a single category.
Plan your activity:
Instagram appreciate and promote “human behaviour”. Be active and engage with the communities. Post meaningful comment on other people posts like you care, sound as you are genuinely concern. Ask a question or start a dialogue. Communicate as communicating with real people. Be open to discussion.If you are posting multiple posts in a day make sure you phase out those post. Don’t just post right one after another. It’s a big no-no. It will look like you are trying to spam the feed.
Cross promotion:
Find a way to send your other social media traffics on Instagram. If you have a FB page or YouTube channel viewer may like to catch you in Insta. If you have multiple social media platform, you might have different audiences in each of them. Merging them and getting the audience to spread across the platforms will help increase your growth.
Nurture your Community:
Most importantly, don’t forget to interact with your existing follower. Ask question or reply to the comment etc.
If you post a photo and you get five comments on first hour, reply each of them, then it will be total ten comments on a single post. That will make it popular post which initially only had five comments. Find out ways to get comments in first hours, announce something like as first 3 to 4 comment get a gift or something limited edition which can grow follower's interest to communicate.
End-note:
Finally, be yourself, be interesting be meaningful. Be relatable. Don’t reflect negativity on your feed. Not everybody is going to like you, but the primary objective is to relate likeminded people. Most of all be an influencer. Make good content with the right part of yourself more people will fall in love with you when your account looks good to switch it to busyness account so you can run Promotions or ads and you could get a lot of money from your Instagram account apart from being famous. Or your business could end up gaining more clients. Well, if you are not interested in money, (who doesn’t) your massive followers