6 ways to grow an Instagram following

So, your Instagram has been blowing up lately… Congrats! Once you’ve got a solid following, it’s important to nourish your community to keep the follows you have and encourage more to come. Here’s what you can do…

by Randi Zimmerman of Symphonic Blog

Make Sure Your Profile Is Optimized

From your IG handle to what you put in your bio, all of this has an effect on how your followers can find you. With only 30 characters at your disposal, make sure you have all the basics covered. Your name, facts about you, where to find your latest release, and whatever else you feel represents you should all be included here.

In addition, you should treat your online presence as an extension of your brand and a major part of your business. That means good customer service can make or break your success, which also means you should be sure to include a way to contact you or your team (aside from DM’s).

Engage With Your Audience

Building a healthy community online has a lot to do with your responsiveness. Your fans take the time to comment and like your content, so be sure to thank them, engage with them, and show you care about their efforts. Check your inbox as often as you can, reply to Story comments, anything you can do to remain active.

Don’t Ignore Spam & Bullying

Some accounts exist with the sole purpose of causing chaos. Spam accounts harass all kinds of accounts on Instagram. Whether you’re a brand or an artist, you should be proactive about blocking anything negative that makes its way into your ecosystem online. Fostering a positive and welcoming community is a big part of keeping the followers you have and attracting new ones. If your profile becomes a breeding ground for spam, your followers will disappear as quickly as they came.

Aside from blocking, restricting an account stops DM read receipts, mutes comment notifications and requires approval for comments. This is a good option if you want to limit engagement from a troll but not fully block someone. In addition, you can take advantage of Instagram’s Limits feature. With it, you can temporarily limit unwanted comments however you please.

Pin Your Favorite Comments

Comments are a crucial part of your engagement on the platform, so it’s important to nourish this section with care. Pinning comments is a great way to highlight positive feedback to the top of your posts. This can help you moderate the communication and make it more optimistic, and you also set the tone for future discussions. It even notifies the comments just like a tag or a Story reply would.

• To pin a comment, tap the comment you wish to pin, then tap Pin (the thumbtack icon).
• Keep in mind, you can only pin up to three comments on one post, and you can’t pin your own comments.

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Sharpen your IG skills…

How To Get Verified On Instagram

How To Check The Performance Of Your Instagram Reels

How The Instagram Algorithm Works

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Evaluate How Your Account Is Performing

You can use Instagram insights to learn more about your account’s followers and performance. You can also view insights on your audience’s engagement with specific posts, Stories, videos, Reels and Live videos.

To view account insights:

• Go to your profile.
• Tap the Insights action button.
• You can also go to Menu in the upper right corner, and tap Insights.
• Tap the metrics under the Overview section or specific content you’ve shared for a more detailed breakdown.

Keep in mind that you’ll only see insights for content you’ve posted since you converted to a business or creator account. You can also tap the drop-down at the top of the screen to choose if you want to view insights for your selected preset or custom timeframe within the past 90 days. Knowing how your account is performing gives you insight into what’s working and what isn’t so you can adjust your strategy to better engage with your audience as you go.

Utilize Saved Replies

If you find that you’re getting the same questions over and over in your DMs, Instagram has a built-in feature to make it easier for you to reply. The Saved reply feature is a keyboard shortcut you can set up to quickly respond to simple inquiries and gives you more time to answer more people and manage your DM’s with ease.

To set this up, go to your DM’s and find a question that you get often. Next, write out the response you’d like to save for later use. Once you’ve done this, tap the message and click More. Next, you will get an option to save the message. After you save it, you’ll get a prompt to set any word you want as the designated shortcut for this response. Now, all you have to do is type this word whenever you need this response and it’ll pop up for you to use.

In Conclusion…

By consistently managing your profile’s content, your will continue to see more and more growth as you expand your community. These best practices are some easy ways to be sure you’ve got all your basics covered, and your audience is engaging with and sharing what you have to offer in a positive way.

For more Instagram best practices, check out this post.

Good luck!