You feel you’ve tried everything that other people suggested to you or the things you read online, but there is still no sign of your Instagram growing. Instagram can be a platform that helps you grow if you understand how it works and what helps to expose your content to more people. Although, what works for others doesn’t necessarily need to work for you. There are a few general rules that CAN help with your growth, but you have to invest time into it!
Instagram has currently a lot of new updates and it’s constantly changing its algorithm, so you really have to pay close attention to things that work or don’t work for YOUR account. Building a community on social media requires consistency, creativity, but mainly showing up. If you just post now and then, spend minimum time on the platform, and expect your community to grow, it won’t work. If you’re however showing up but you still don’t see any growth, here are 3 reasons why it might not be working for you.
You’re Talking to the Wrong People
Do you know who you’re talking to? Who do you want to target? These are two basic questions that you should know the answer to. If you want to build your community, you first have to go through the one that you already have. Are your followers active and engaged, or do you hardly get them to answer any of your polls or questions? Go through your followers and people that you follow and do the spring cleanup. If there are people that never engage with your content or people irrelevant to your brand, get rid of them. They are just blocking space and your content is showing to the wrong people who won’t even engage with it.
If there is no engagement on your post, there is a lower chance that it will be exposed to more people who are not following you yet. Get clear on who you want to target and write your content with having in mind your audience. You are not writing it for yourself but for them. Point out some pinpoints and things that they might struggle with and show them you have the solution or suggestion on how to resolve it. You can also connect it to your personal experience, which will make it even more relatable. If it resonates with them, they will want to save or share it, and this way your content will get to a wider audience. The more people will see it, the higher chance of your community to grow.
Show up as You
What I mean by that is to show the real side of you. People are done with perfection and the best way you can get the new people into your community is by being YOU! Authenticity is going a long way and Instagram Stories and Reels are great for showing your personality but also providing value. Prompt your audience to share your content or to tag their friends. If you have relevant people there, their friends will be relevant to you, too!
Another way of showing up is by doing engagement. This could be reaching out to your ideal clients by either DM-ing them or commenting on their posts. Not by being salesy, but by creating a relationship and connecting with them. Engagement is one of the biggest things you can do to grow your community on Instagram, so by putting yourself out there people will notice and see your profile.
When doing engagement, engage with the competitors’ profiles too! By commenting on their posts, their followers can discover your profile and that’s a win for you. Their ideal client is probably the same or similar person, so this way you’re exposing yourself to more eyes. You can also engage with competitors’ followers or people who engage in their posts, it’s a shortcut to finding the right people.
You’re Not Using Relevant Hashtags
You probably already know how important it is to use relevant hashtags, but what does ‘the relevant hashtags’ actually mean? Many people are looking only at the number of posts under each hashtag which is important however, that’s not the only thing you should pay attention to.
What’s important when you’re choosing hashtags is how many posts per day there are under each hashtag, how many people you’re competing with on a specific hashtag, and what’s the potential reach if you rank on it. You see, hashtags are not just keywords, it’s an important element that you have to understand, to know how it works. Fortunately, there are quite a few different apps/platforms that can help you get these metrics, and one that works pretty well is Flick. There is a free and also paid version and it gives you a lot of helpful information about how your hashtags perform. You can also search hashtags on it to get all the above information like reach and competitor score, and it also suggests similar hashtags.
The last reminder around hashtags is to browse hashtags your competitors and your ideal clients use. This way you can find hashtags that will make you more visible to the people you want to attract.
Conclusion
3 things that many of us know about but underestimate the power of are about basics. Know who you’re talking to and adjust the way you’re talking to your ideal clients. This is both through your posts and the engagement you do on other profiles. Before you engage, ensure you have only relevant profiles following you to keep engaged and active people on there and get rid of the rest. People who engage are more likely to share your post, so it can get to more people.
The second way of growing your community is about showing up as you, being real with people, and also doing genuine engagement through DMs and comments. The way you engage will determine whether people will want to know more about you.
The last part is hashtags. Using relevant hashtags and knowing what relevant means can really make a huge difference.
What are your thoughts on these 3 reasons I mentioned? Let me know.
