Now that co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have stepped down as the CEOs of Instagram there’s a lot up in the air, especially for bloggers and entrepreneurs who use IG to do the majority of their business.
What’s going to happen to Instagram now? What’s next for the guys who created it? Will the algorithm change?
One thing that’s for sure is that unless we work for Instagram or we have a secret in with them somehow, we’ll never really know the answers to any of those questions. All we can do is utilize the app and all its features for how it was meant to be used which is exactly how to dominate the Instagram algorithm right now.
Here are some things you should be focussing on to set you up for success on Instagram in 2018:
IGTV
For those of you who don’t know, IGTV is essentially a simpler version of YouTube. You can upload videos, vlogs, tutorials, etc. filmed vertically on your phone directly to IG without much fuss. It’s great for amateur videographers (like myself) and bloggers who want to explore and get more comfortable with video content. Video is no joke and can take hours to produce and edit but with IGTV it’s like, 30 minutes and you’re done.
Since announcing IGTV back in June 2018, Instagram has been tirelessly trying to get users to engage with it. I don’t think IGTV had the exact success the creators were looking for so they’ve been playing around with new marketing tactics to get it to stick… and it’s been working!
Right now IGTV videos will appear as a pop up above IGstories. This does 2 things: 1. it forces the user to look at it, even if they’re looking to X out, and 2. it prioritizes IGTV above IGstories so those who utilize the feature have more of a chance at standing out and getting their video watched. If done right, IGTV can open up an entire new door for collaboration opportunities for your blog/brand. You could essentially add new fee to your media kit for an IGTV feature. As we’ve seen in the past with IGstories and carousel posts, Instagram rewards those who use its new features and IGTV is no exception, so why not give it a try?
Plus, after you’ve created an IGTV you can then upload it to YouTube for added exposure. The format of the video may be a little off but you can play around in iMovie, Adobe Premiere, or Final Cut Pro to adjust. Easy peasy.
Bottom line: IGTV is a great way to dominate a micro-market within Instagram because it’s not over saturated… yet.
Instagram stories
“Instastories”, as I like to call them, completely and utterly have everyone’s attention. They are the #1 way to connect with your audience and draw in new viewers. You will have more engagement on Instastories than you ever will with a regular post on Instagram. Ok, that’s a little extreme, but for the most part your views on Instastories are always higher than your likes and comments on your grid posts because video is king.
This means you really want to put your best and most valuable content forward. IGstories are not for throw away content (you can save that for Snapchat). Instastories deserve the same time, attention, and strategy that is put into a regular Instagram post.
Using certain features like GIFs, polls, questions, location tags, mentions, etc. will increase your chances of your story being seen as well because IG rewards those who use all of its features. Location tags are especially important to use because people can be searching the location, stumble upon your story, head to your profile, find you interesting, and click follow.
It also seems that IGstories haven’t been as effected by the algorithm as regular posts have. The only “algorithm” I’ve noticed has been that the more you watch someone’s story the more their story will show up closest to your own which is prime real estate so you always want to be at the top of the IGstory reel.
videos
Videos have the most viral potential ever. Hands down. Think about what happened with @theshiggyshow and the “In My Feelings challenge”, he gained 2.1M followers in less than 3 months! Hundreds of thousands of people shared his video and recreated the dance tagging him and 2.1M followers later he’s going on tour with Drake. Let’s not forget @salif_crookboyz who gained over 900,000 followers in 1 week from his moonwalking video. Videos have an immense amount of power which is why you need to be producing them on a consistent basis.
In fact, there are IG accounts specifically dedicated to videos, whether it be cute animal vidoes, funny videos, dance videos, inspiring stories, etc. Accounts like @people, @theellenshow, @dashuniverse, @thedodo, and @garyvee are built on video and continue to grow at an exponential rate because of it.
hashtags
Do they or don’t they? Hashtagging on Instagram is one of the most debated topics in social media, but guess what? They do work. We can all put the rumors to rest because Eva Chen, you know the Director of Fashion Partnerships at IG, confirmed herself that hashtags do in fact work and will help people discover you on Instagram.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, should you put hashtags in your caption or as a separate comment? Eva again confirms that it doesn’t matter as long as they’re there, but don’t let Eva or I convince you. The proof is in the pudding. You can clearly see a difference in accounts that do and don’t use hashtags. Those who do have a much higher engagement rate than those who don’t. See fashion blogger A and fashion blogger B below:
Blogger A should have more engagement because he/she has more followers but he/she doesn’t use hashtags which contributes to low engagement. Blogger B has a quarter of the followers as Blogger A but her (aka my) engagement is higher.
Don’t get it twisted though, hashtags alone aren’t going to make your engagement sky rocket and gain 100,000 new followers, but it will certainly. Basically what hashtags do is they increase your “searchability”. Hundreds of thousands of people a day use the search feature on IG so when you’re constantly adding hashtags to your content on Instagram and people are constantly searching for things on IG, it’s likely that you’ll show up in those search results therefore increasing your chances of attracting new likes, comments, and followers.
The key is to switch up your hashtags though. If you use the same hashtags over and over and over again you’re being shown to the same audience over and over and over again. But by switching out #fashion for #style you’re exposing yourself to new audiences. There will most likely be some overlap but you still have a good chance of getting discovered by new people.
being social
I see a lot of bloggers today posting to IG and going on with their day and then begging, for lack of better term, for people to like, comment, share their stuff. Let me get this straight, because you posted a picture on Instagram and I’m expected to engage with it? No honey, give me a good reason why, then we’ll talk. Part of the entire point of social media is to be social, not entitled. Your 100 or 100,000 followers won’t care one bit about any of your content unless you give them a reason to. And one of the ways to do this is by being social with them.
Being social means, liking, commenting, saving, sharing, and DMing other people about their content, not just your own. In addition, when someone does engage with your post, respond back to them. If Something Navy can respond to DMs and comments with 1.2M followers, you can too. Don’t be lazy and greedy. Get out there and start putting in the work and I promise it’ll come back to you tenfold.
There’s a rumor that it’s best to reply back to followers within the first hour of a comment so the person who initially commented can see your reply and you can engage in a longer conversation aka be social. If this is too much for you, I personally think replying within the same day is fine. We can’t all be sitting on our phones at all hours of the day waiting for a comment. I get it. At the same time, you can’t just post something and expect the world to care, Instagram’s algorithm doesn’t work like that anymore.
So while the goal is to get as much interaction with your posts as possible, you also need to give a little in order to get.
longer captions on pictures
One of my biggest pet peeves is a lame ass caption on Instagram. Like, put some effort into it.
Today you can’t get away with a lazy caption because everyone else posts lazy captions and when you’re like everyone else you don’t stand out. Instead, you have to be exceptional in every sense of the word from the content you produce on your IGstories, to your pictures, to your captions.
Captions captivate your audience. It’s how people establish a rapport with you. By reading your thoughts, ideas, and opinions they’re able to form their own about you and relate to you. And as an influencer, the whole point is to be relatable.
A longer caption gives people the opportunity to stop, read, and engage which means they’re on your post longer, they might even feel inclined to click your profile and see if you have other captions similar to the one they just stumbled upon. The longer your caption, the longer you have to make an impression and to convert the ghost followers to actively engaged loyal readers. These actively engaged loyal readers are going to be the ones who help expand your blog and grow into the business you’ve always wanted to be.
carousel posts
Carousel posts aren’t as psychological as longer captions but they definitely hold value. They keep people on your post longer which gives them more time to potentially engage with it (i.e. save, comment, like, share). Carousel posts also get your followers to stop for a minute and actually process what they’re seeing. They create curiosity when your audience thinks,
‘Oh, I wonder what else happened that day’ or ‘I wonder what else she saw on that trip’
Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.
‘OMG that last picture is so funny’,
ENGAGE.
So even if you don’t post a long caption, include hashtags, or utilize IGTV, you can still engage your audience through carousel posts. These are especially useful for bloggers who have a lot of content to post but don’t want to overwhelm their followers with post after post after post. Combine them all into one carousel post and boom you’re done!
Like I always say, there is no one combination code or secret sauce to winning on IG but by incorporating these strategies you’re way more likely to kill it than someone who doesn’t. Instagram is all about adaptation and trial and error. You probably won’t get it right the first time but you just have to keep trying until you do.
Know of any cool IG hacks? Share them in the comments below!
xx
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