Have you noticed a drop in your organic growth on Instagram? You are certainly not alone. Instagram has been making it very difficult to grow your social media following without the use of paid promotion. We talk all about it in our blog “Instagram is Killing Organic Engagement“. However, it’s not all bad news. You can still grow your following organically, you just have to get a little more creative. It’s no longer as simple as just adding hashtags. The following are some tips for organic growth on Instagram:
Use new Instagram features
- Reels
- IGTV
- Guides
- Live IG stories
- Polls, questions, quizzes, donations and other new story features
- Set up a shop if applicable
Diversify your content type
- Posts
- Stories
- Reels
- IGTV
- Short videos
Diversify Your Actual Content
Mix up what you’re posting. Mostly sharing photos? Diversify the type of photos you post. Share photos of yourself, other people, landscape, infographics, quotes, panorama carousels, etc. Sharing Reels? Share a mix of fun dance videos, 15 second info packed clips, videos with music, without it. If you’re posting often, make sure that each post is different enough that you’re keeping users engaged. People don’t want to see the same selfie with a different caption 50 times in a row.
Continue using best practices – even though these may not be as effective as they once were, it’s still worth the effort
- Curated hashtags
- Location tags
- Edit alt text
- Share reels to feed
- Be sure to use an attractive and engaging thumbnail that looks good on your feed
- Include a call to action in your captions and content
- Create engaging content
- Give people a reason to interact with it – ASK them to interact with it (Ex; “drop a comment if you relate!”, “Share with someone who needs to hear this?”
- Share new posts to your stories
- This is more important than ever – it is becoming increasingly more difficult to reach your own followers. This can be an effective way of presenting your new content to followers who didn’t see your latest post on their feed!
How you can support your friends, family, and favourite small businesses
- SHARE, SHARE, AND THEN SHARE AGAIN.
- Sharing the content of others is probably the most effective way to get new eyes on their content
- Much like word-of-mouth marketing, your followers are more likely to support something that you endorse. By sharing a post, you are essentially endorsing that content.
- Engage with content
- Like
- Comment
- Save (little bookmark logo)
- Share
- Interact with their story content (polls, questions, quizzes, etc.)
- The more you engage with someone, the more you see their content
- We’ve noticed that Instagrams algorithm definitely “plays favourites”
- Those who’s content you constantly engage with generally appear at the top of your feed
Send a positive direct message
- This really has little bearing on the IG algorithm, but a positive word of encouragement means a lot to someone using Instagram as a business tool!
- This can also help to build community engagement amongst your followers
- People who you build positive relationships with are more likely to engage with your content
- Using social media as a business tool is a lot more work than people realize, so positive messages go a long way in keeping small business owners and individuals motivated
- Get comfortable messaging people you don’t know, it’s perfectly normal to establish online relationships now!
Tell your friends
- Find an account you like? Your friends might too!
- As we mentioned, word-of-mouth is still the most effective form of marketing
Conclusion
As we mentioned in our previous blog, Instagram is making organic growth more and more difficult to attain. That just means it’s all the more important that you are doing everything you can to have your content perform well. By following our tips for organic growth on Instagram, you’ll rest easy knowing you did everything you could to get your posts in front of the right people. If you are still not satisfied with your results, there is no shame in using paid promotion. Paid promotion really can be a useful, cost effective tool when used correctly. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog about tips for paid promotion!
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