I posted on Twitter the other day how proud I was of how much my Instagram has grown this year! I started March with just under 400 followers and I’m now sitting at just under 1000. So many people commented saying they’d love to know how I’d done it and some tips and trips for growing Instagram organically so I thought I’d share some tips today that i’ve found have made a feel improvement to my following!

1. Picture Quality – I’ve found that taking more pictures on my camera rather than my iPhone or even just spending longer editing pictures definitely increases engagement! Having said that, the majority of my highly ranked pictures have been taken on Tom’s iPhone 7+ so you can work with what you’ve got!
2. Follow People Back! – It may sound obvious but it seems so many bloggers nowadays feel ‘above’ us lowly small bloggers and refuse to follow you back in order to have a really high ratio of followers to following. It’s a load of crap! Follow back people who’s accounts you like and you’re more likely to keep your followers! Yes the whole follow-unfollow scenario is rife at the moment but this is a good way to maintain some of those new followers.
3. Keep Track – I use Followers+ to keep track of my followers. This tells you new people that have followed or unfollowed you. If i’m following someone who unfollows me then I simply unfollow them. It sounds petty but if they can’t be bothered to engage with me then I can’t be bothered to engage with them. Simple.
4. Post More Regularly – I was at the Ice Lolly Blogger At The Beach event earlier this month and Rhianna from Rhianna Olivia (formerly RoboweCop) and she mentioned that she had seen a real improvement from posting 3 times a day. Now I honestly do not have time for that everyday but since trying to post daily, I have noticed a vast improvement as you are constantly refreshing your presence in peoples feeds and hashtags!
5. Join Follow Threads – I’ve been part of a couple of these through Twitter where people, fed up with low engagement and mass unfollowers, post their links in a thread and everyone follows each other. These have been amazing for growing my following recently and can increase your number by up to 30 or 40 in one day! If you are interested in one, tweet me (@RoseBeautyFiles) and I’ll set a new one up and tag you in it!
6. Comment On Posts – If you engage with others then they are way more likely to look at your account and engage back. This also works with liking pictures you are genuinely interested in and leaving useful and unique comments. Nobody likes the standard ‘Great Pic’ comment. Quite frankly its annoying and shit!
7. To Theme or Not to Theme? – I do not have a theme on my instagram. I see the appeal and I do admit the feed look ‘neater’ with a theme, but your instagram has to reflect your personality and your blog and inspire people to want to follow you. I love talking and posting about a mixture of things so I just post pictures of whatever takes my fancy that day. You can easily see a correlation with what your followers actually like so reflect on this but don’t let low likes on one picture stop you posting about things you are interested in.

   

8. Explore Hashtags – I was recently introduced to the wonderful world of the ‘Discoverunder’ hashtags, where you are appealing to people who are looking for smaller accounts. I always use the #discoverunder1k, #discoverunder10k and #discoverunder100k ones nows but I’ve found the under 1k hashtag seems to work the best. I often click on that one and look for new, likeminded feeds that I’m interested in and follow them and comment on their pictures. Most people, like I would, appreciate the engagement and do the same in return. It’s a win-win for everyone!
9. Link your Instagram to other Social Media – Post your instagram pictures to your blog sidebar, your twitter and your Facebook to ensure that they get the maximum exposure! I often find that there’s people I love on Twitter that I hadn’t realised I’m not following on Instagram! This helps to easily allow people to associate the Twitter user they love with an instagram account to match!
10. Questions – This final point is another Rhianna special that was too useful not to include. To increase your engagement, why not add a question to the end of your picture description! It almost seems like it’s targeted directly at you so you can’t help but answer it! More comments is always a good thing!

I hope you liked this post and that it helps you out. I often feel Instagram has become a bit of a chore but since i’ve been doing these things it’s really boosted my confidence as my followers have increased! Why not leave your Instagram handle in the comments so we can all find some new accounts to follow? FYI mine is the same as Twitter – @RoseBeautyFiles and my latest feed is always displayed in the side bar of this blog!

Much Love

xoxo