How to grow an authentic following on Instagram
The key word of 2019 for Instagrammers is Authenticity. That’s why their algorithm was programmed to push publications with more engagement, leaving behind superficial numbers such as the followers. Yes, you read it right! Now it’s time to focus on authenticity and grow an audience that truly relates and engage with your content. Let’s learn how to do it in 3 quick steps?
- Develop a strong aesthetic
- Make good use of IG tools
- Watch out for your community
1. Develop a strong aesthetic
Your Instagram profile is essentially your homepage on the platform. It provides you with space to share a little information about you!
IG bio: This is your business card, but on instagram. Your description should be a brief information about yourself, your content and explanation to your audience on what’s the subject of your influence on social media within 150 characters.
Profile Picture: Every time you leave a comment, answer a dm or like someone’s post on Instagram, this is the only thing people will see about you without knowing who you are, and it should be welcoming enough for other people to want to check your profile. That’s why this is one of the most important parts of your Intagram aesthetics — and that’s how you become instantly recognizable!
The link in your bio: Instagram doesn’t allow you to add links to every post. Instead, you only get one link and that’s the one in your profile, so it gives you the chance to drive some traffic back to your blog (if you have one) or even add other useful links that you might want to share. Be sure it works or you’ll get your community crazy!
Your content: What’s important is to focus on creating content that aligns with both your audience and your goals, so you don’t feel it’ such an obligation and it doesn’t alienate you. This starts with defining your content pillars. There’s no hard and fast rule for the best angle to take when it comes to your strategy: it varies from account to account. There’s no right or wrong on this, as long as you keep it consistent.
Whether it’s IG stories or posts, you can find a whole world of opportunities and worth subjects for your audience and yourself, always matching your style and shared content.
2. Good use of IG tools
Authentic brands are creating better relationships by humanizing their campaigns, and that’s what they want from influencers! One way to do this is by posting photos that are not too digitally altered. For example, try avoiding digital distortion or faking places or things that are actually not real. IG has lots of very useful resources to keep updated and tracked your account and we encourage you to use them, but be careful with that! Not all tools to automate will be attracting fake followers, but it can happen. The key to growing your Instagram account is to post nice images and videos, and target potential followers and engage with them on a daily basis, along with great story telling. The best is to find a mix of automation and ‘by hand’ to be the best strategy, which you can reach by planning your posts in advance with a content calendar app, editing just the necessary on a photo to keep your IG aesthetic equal, but keeping your communication real with your followers. Besides, you will be more conscious of your community and more touchable if you mainly do it on your own.
3.Watch out your community
To keep your relationship with your audience as authentic as possible, you need to be authentic yourself. Don’t engage in any follower acquisition schemes. Use your own compelling, well-thought-out imagery. Post often. Use hashtags that you’ve researched before hand. Reply to comments. Comment on other relevant profiles. Create stories. You have to spend the time to get the reward. They will be very happy to see the receive your feedback!
If you want followers, you need engagement. If you need engagement, you need to create content that will motivate that. How can you motivate that? Think of your user’s intent. Why do they follow you on Instagram? If they’re looking for entertainment, don’t offer boring stories! Track your best posts regarding statistics, find out what they have in common and consider publishing more content like that.
