Landing Your First Instagram Followers

When you start on any new platform, including Instagram, it can feel a bit depressing to see “0 Followers” tied to your account. You may even wonder if it is worth starting an Instagram account.

The good news is, using some cross promotion and smart content techniques, you will quickly see your follower count rise.

How Can I Get Instagram Followers?

Leverage Your Existing Audience

One of the easiest ways to increase your Instagram following is to take advantage of the hard work you have already put into gaining traction on your website and existing social media platforms.

Here are a couple things you can do right now to let your audience know how to find you on Instagram.

1. Take Advantage of Your Website Traffic

Unless someone is a brand evangelist, they probably won’t go searching for you on Instagram. You have to let them know you have an account. One of the easiest, but possibly most overlooked, ways is to link to your Instagram account from your website, along with your other social media accounts.

If you want website visitors to immediately see your great Instagram content, consider adding a sidebar widget. You will be able show off your latest images and link directly to your account.

2. Cross Promote on Other Platforms

Sharing your Instagram content across other social networks is a great way to let followers know you’re active on other platforms.

Instagram makes it easy for you to share your content with other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. To share your image, click the ellipse on the bottom right corner of the picture.

After that, select the ‘Share Photo’ button.

Next, choose the service to which you want to send the Instagram image.

Currently, Instagram allows you to send your photos to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flikr, Foursquare and Email. You create the links to these accounts in your profile settings.

At this point, you can change the message you want included with the photo, then just click ‘Share’ to send it on its way.

Be Active

Being active, and consistent, is key to attracting followers no matter what social media platform you are using. Instagram is no exception. Producing and sharing good content and using relevant hash tags can be effective ways to increase your Instagram following.

Produce Good Content

So, you’ve gotten someone to click over to your business Instagram profile. In order for them to follow your account you must have a variety of have solid images in your gallery.

Think about your brand and what image you want to project. Is your brand whimsical and fun? Spontaneous photo snaps may work for you. If your business projects a more elegant vibe, your photos might need to be more stylized.

No matter your style, avoid blurry or poorly lit photos.

Use Relevant Hashtags

As on Twitter, people on Instagram love hashtags. They make it easy to search for and find beautiful images and new people to follow.

Be sure to add a few relevant hashtags to each image to attract some people who aren’t already following you. (Note: a few. Not a slew.)

Great hashtags include locations, activities, objects, and colors. For example, if you sell T-shirts at a local store and online, you could show an image of someone on a park trail wearing your popular red shirt. Possible hashtags include: #Ohio #hiking #tshirt #red. People from Ohio may search the location hashtag.  Someone who likes hiking may find you via the hiking hashtag.

Get Started Now

Don’t let the fact that you don’t have any followers keep you from getting started on Instagram. If you leverage your audience from other online platforms and consistently produce quality content, you will soon see your Instagram following increase.

Five ways to get Twitter users to retweet your content

Since Twitter introduced the favourite button, businesses have been plagued by an ever-increasing problem: dead-end content marketing. While the favourite button is intended for users to flag a tweet they like, or to bookmark a link so they can refer back to it later, many are now using it in lieu of the retweet function. And this means your content isn’t being shared.

While favouriting (or liking) something is an excellent way to endorse posts on closed social networks like Facebook, favouriting has the opposite effect on Twitter. Instead of spreading the word, promoting participation and improving exposure (and followers), the favourite button gives users the option to simply flag a post instead of retweeting it. This means content they might have otherwise shared is disappearing into a social media abyss… and that’s not good for business.

The task for businesses is now tougher than ever before. If people aren’t sharing, it doesn’t matter how great your content is. While you can’t force Twitter users to avoid that favourite button, here are five ways you can encourage them to go for a good old-fashioned retweet instead (or – if you’re lucky – as well).

1. Keep your tweets brief

People like to add comments to tweets that they share, so don’t use all 140 characters when you’re tweeting as this will put them off. Shorter tweets catch the eye and give your followers space to add their own remarks. This in turn endorses your content and will hopefully encourage their followers to share it too.

2. Retweet other people

Practice what you preach. If you want people to share your content, then share theirs – particularly content from key influencers within your industry or area of business. Of course, you should only retweet things that your audience will find relevant, but once you start retweeting others, they will start to notice you. And if you start catching their eye, this means they will be more likely to spread your content in return.

3. Have compelling material

Get to know your followers and their interests – not just in terms of business, but their hobbies too. If you tweak or angle your content so that it’s more relevant to your followers, this will make it more far more retweetable. Providing top tips, promoting giveaways, contextualising content with current affairs or even just making users smile are all sure-fire ways to grab their attention. And once that happens, chances are they’ll be more willing to retweet you.

4. Time your tweets

This one might sound obvious, but time your updates carefully. There’s no use tweeting when it’s too quiet (such as in the morning or late at night) because fewer people will see your content. Equally, tweeting at peak times often means your post will be lost amid a sea of other content. Tools such as Tweriod are excellent for helping find out when your followers are online so that you can increase exposure and your chances of that coveted retweet.

5. Ask for a retweet

As the old saying goes: ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’. If you have compelling content that’s relevant to your followers, asking them for a retweet can really pay off – interestingly, studies have also shown that spelling out ‘retweet’ rather than writing ‘RT’ improves the chances of sharing by about 23 times. Asking for a retweet can be an excellent way to promote discussion while increasing coverage and showing your followers that you’re interested in what they have to say.

Finally, engage with people, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Whether you’re a business or an individual, the best way to promote yourself on Twitter is to be real – after all, it’s called social media for a reason.

Did you find this post useful? Then start as you mean to go on: don’t just favourite it – share it!

Will Hillier