LIVE Q&A: Grow Your Instagram Following!

aao

Any zoom link or so? Thanks

TomFromCrunch

OK here we go! Whack your questions about Instagram below, and we’ll do our best to get through them all!

(Note: Hit F5 to refresh the page to ensure you aren’t missing new posts).

Without further ado, here’s Kerry!

I’ll get the ball rolling with a question submitted earlier this week from forum user @dk2108 who asked:

My main question is how to gain more followers? I run a physio business and we get plenty of likes on our posts but not necessarily an increase in followers - and a side question … do some businesses incentivise being mentioned by their clients in insta stories and posts etc? Many thanks

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Hi Everyone, great to be here!

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Lots of people ask us how to get more followers on Instagram. There’s no one magic bullet (sorry)… However…

Ant

Hi Kerry - I’m a bit confused about the difference between a reel and a story? Why would I use one and not the other?

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Ant Hi Ant. A Reel is a completely different content format. Stories are temporary bits of content that are very short and just last a day. They’re great for showing ‘in the moment’ content or more raw, behind the scenes stuff. Reels are where you can be more creative - they’re always videos and they last 15, 30 or 60 seconds. Reels are more likely to help you get discovered via the Explore tab. Stories are more likely to be seen by your followers. So in summary, you use them for different purposes. You can share your Reel in your Stories (hope that makes sense!)

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

You need to post content that adds some value to your audience - show them why you’re worth following. i.e. they learn something/they’re entertained/inspired etc.
You need be consistent with your activity - use the app regularly and use all features, i.e. stories, posts, explore, so the algorithm can see you’re an active user.
Engage with other people. Don’t expect followers off the back of just publishing. make an effort to like and comment on others’ posts.
Acknowledge when others comment on your posts and reply to them. So monitor comments, stories and DMs and “be social”.

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Re the side question on the first question - ‘ do some businesses incentivise being mentioned by their clients in insta stories and posts etc?’

It’s great to encourage people to mention you or use a branded hashtag but not really incentivise.

Gem

Hello! What is a good amount I should be posting every week?

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Gem Hey Gem. There’s no right answer really, but consistency is important. Even when you’re not publishing though it’s important to use the app - to view others content and engage with them, so staying active. Most businesses tend to post 2 or 3 times per week on the grid + stories. But it’s about finding the right balance for you. Always think quality over quantity. I know some who only post weekly but do lots of interaction with their audience and this works well. Hope this helps!

Joanna

What is the difference between being active on FB and Instagram. I understand Instagram is more popular now. What is the reason for this? Does it attract differently? I have Instagram linked to FB for my posts but what is this achieving for me? It seems to be the same audience on both.

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Joanna Hi Joanna. Instagram is gaining popularity because it’s a newer, more visual platform that is appealing to a slightly younger audience right now. Facebook is almost becoming ‘old school’ now that everyone and their grandmother has an account. It’s not the cool place to hang out anymore for younger audiences and so over time you see user demographics changing and younger audiences jumping to new platforms (hence the rise of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok).

It’s fine to post the same on both networks - then people can engage with your posts on the networks they choose to hang out on. If at any point, you see Facebook not achieving any engagement for you and your audience is on Instagram, you could decide to leave FB?

Facebook’s organic reach has been declining for years now, while Instagram’s organic reach has more potential due to hashtags and different features e.g. Reels.

dk2108

Thanks for the above!
Have 2 questions please:

What would you say is an effective hashtag strategy and how many would you say is most effective?
Are there times of the day/week that are the best times to post to drive engagement?
Thanks

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

dk2108

You can use up to 30 but it doesn’t mean you have to use them all. We tend to recommend 12-25. And a mixture of topics, specific to your business and the post itself. Vary your hashtags between a few broad ones with 1m+ posts, the majority of them with 100k-1m posts and a few niche with <100k posts. If you only use broad, generic ones, it won’t help you to be discovered by others. Always check them out before you post - to make sure you’re happy with the company you’d be keeping 😆
This varies across industries but across all of them it’s Tues, Weds and Thurs, mostly mornings and evenings after work. Best to experiment with different days and times and see if there’s a noticeable difference for your audience. Check your Instagram insights to tell you when your audience are online as a starting point.

Cassie25

I’m on the google meet call, is this not happening now?

TomFromCrunch

Cassie25 Hiya Cassie! This is a forum-only Q&A so there’s no Google Meet set up. Apologies, this is our first one of these - we will make this much more explicit in future. Interesting to know you’d be up for a video Q&A as well 🙂 Thanks for joining the Community Forum and sorry for the confusion. If you have a question about Instagram for Kerry we’d love to hear it.

Gemma

Hi Kerry - can you schedule posts on instagram? At the moment I post off the cuff. I like that flexibility and to be sure I only post when I have something to say but having some pre-planned posts could also be useful especially as I begin to understand my insights more…

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Gemma Good question Gemma. It’s best to do it natively in the app as you are, and spend a bit of time engaging with others after you post (the algorithm likes this). But of course sometimes you need to schedule because, well, life. We recommend apps such as Later, Plann and Preview which allow you to schedule. Hootsuite, Buffer and other SM management tools also allow you to. However, these tend to send you a notification for the final ‘publish’ which is not ideal if you’re on holiday for example. Another solution is Creator Studio in Facebook in which you can schedule IG and FB posts. I’m not 100% but I think it will publish with the need for notifying you to publish like the others.

Jack

Does Instagram have certain types of posts that the algorithm hates? Or is my content probably just rubbish haha

KerryWatkins-SocialForGood

Jack First of all, great profile pic.
If the post isn’t good quality, the algorithm won’t like it. It doesn’t like spammy posts, repetition, poor quality photos, some stock photos, or posts that don’t engage people. When you first publish, Instagram shows the post to some of your most engaged followers and depending on their interaction with it, will decide if it’s worth showing to more people.

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