Although the platform is owned by Meta and it has a lot fo similarities with facebook, Instagram is still a platform in which you can grow organically without having to spend money for advertising. The only thing you need to invest is a little bit of time and a lot of dedication and patience. However, once you’ve mastered these tips and you keep implementing them consistently, you’ll see how your account will grow and your new followers, will actually be active on your profile, bringing you higher conversion rates. You will be able to grow a community around your business and build brand loyalty and brand advocacy. And all of this, without a dollar spent on advertising. How? Let’s dive a bit deeper into it!
Engagement with other profiles or the so-called “$1.80 Instagram strategy”. Gary Vaynerchuk’s $1.80 Instagram growth strategy is all about creating micro-connections that gradually can transform into an active community around your profile. The strategy is completely free to use and it requires just a little bit of your time and a little bit of engagement with other profiles. The strategy basically boils down to spending some time each day to find 10 hashtags related to your niche and interact with 9 posts under each hashtag. By interacting, I mean actually putting the time and effort into writing meaningful comments, not simply emojis. Instagram’s algorithm accounts comments with more than 4 words to be meaningful, so make sure you have at least a short sentence. Each comment you leave is, as Gary See explains it, you putting $0.02 into your Instagram growth. If you’re not feeling like leaving comments, you can opt-out for the lighter version of this with simply leaving likes. However, take into consideration that this might take longer and can be not so efficient when trying to grow your Instagram account. If you want to optimise your efforts for success, you can always combine comments and post likes and even turn it up a notch and like more than just 1 post per person. The more you expand this strategy through, the more time each day you’ll have to put into it, so keep that in mind.
With some of the latest Instagram updates, it would be wise to identify some keywords and phrases for your niche and implement them in your post captions. Since the platform is becoming more and more like a general search engine, you can increase your profile and content’s visibility if you regularly use a set of keywords and phrases in your posts. Not just that, but you should think of optimising your bio and Instagram name as well. You can even include an emoji in your name and if people search for that emoji on Instagram, they might be able to find you. For example, if your Instagram handle is @danny.bennet and you’re a photographer, your Instagram name can be set to “Danny Bennet 📸”. This way, if someone searches the camera emoji on Instagram, or if they are looking for a photographer, you have a better chance at ranking higher in the search results.
On Instagram, under each post a user can add up to 30 hashtags. The most efficient way would be not to use all 30 slots, but still keep with the 1/3 rule. Regardless of the number of hashtags that you will use, always make sure that:
In addition, make sure not to use the same hashtags under every single post. It is always better to identify a few topics around your content and alternate the hashtags under the posts. Make sure to update that list once a month and add at least 5 new hashtags into your strategy.
I know that the follow-unfollow technique can bring great results fast, however, once you start unfollowing, you risk decreasing your own followers count. Not to mention that everybody knows about this strategy and 90% of users are tired of it! Be smarter about how to approach this. Instead of doing the regular follow-unfollow procedure, make sure to follow other accounts that are within your niche. This will increase your chances to show up in the “suggested for you” section, when somebody follows an account in the same topic as you.
With places on Instagram and identifying local hashtags, related to your business, you can narrow your targeting with the $1.80 strategy. Keeping your interactions local, especially if your business has a physical store / location, can increase your chances of growth tremendously. Try interacting with profiles not only based on a hashtag search, but also with posts that have your city as a location on them.
The Instagram algorithm is known to favour profiles that incorporate new platform features into their content. This doesn’t mean to completely change your Instagram strategy every single time there is a new feature. It simply means to spend some time into using the platform’s new features once they are released. Having the algorithm favouring these new features, you will definitely have the opportunity to reach more and new users, quickly.
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1 Comment
Reading your article has greatly helped me, and I agree with you. But I still have some questions. Can you help me? I will pay attention to your answer. thank you.