Follow / Follow Back \ Unfollow

Ever see your Instagram follower count go up and down like a seesaw? Why is that? Well it seems for a lot of people, they follow you then, when you don’t follow back, they stop following you a few days later. Is the game just to get more followers than you follow?  Well, yes because it sends the message you are the influencer, they are the influenced.

Can you really get value out of following thousands of people anyway? Think how crowded your feed would be.  Makes you wonder if social media just millions of people shouting into a void.  Before we go all existential on you, let’s remain focused and look at how to implement a follow/unfollow strategy to your advantage. Here is Stage One … The Setup.

After you create your Instagram (or Twitter) account, make sure post some great high quality content, ie content that looks good and has some value e.g. informative, motivating, thought provoking.  Wait until you have a screenful e.g. 9 or more posts so anyone checking your profile will find it engaging. Ideally you have at least 18. Now check your account.  Is the profile set up well?  Does your feed look good? If so, you are ready for the next step.

Choose 30 hashtags to follow.  Yes we know that we have said your hashtags are part of your brand and you should choose carefully but when in growth mode you need to be have a slightly different strategy when choosing which ones to tag posts with.  Instagram allows you to post up to 30 hashtags per post so you need to take advantage of that and choose ones that will get you a following.  Once you get your target number of followers, you can reset your strategy. Having said that, always keep your primary hashtags part of the selection.

When choosing a follower hashtag, look for tags that have no more than 300k image matches. Your goal is to get featured within the 9 top posts under each hashtag. Why 9?  Because that is the first page of results on a phone.  When making the post it is better to put the hashtags in a comment under the post.  Sure this means more work if you are using automated posting tools but in growth mode you need to put that effort in.  Add a comment like “double tap if you like and tag a friend you think needs to see this #hashtag1, …. #hashtag30”.

Now here comes even more effort. Post more than once per day.  Yep, it takes effort.  So aim for 3 (or more) posts per day.  Think of it adding a row to your feed every day.  Keep one post out of nine specifically about what your business does.  Again others can be motivational, entertaining or opinionated that ideally provide your feed with personality.  If you look at larger brands their feeds are filled with images of people, offices and scenery.  So think local: photos of your work, your office or your location.

So get going and tune in next week for more.