How to gain customers and followers on Instagram in 2023
With Instagram recently hitting two billion active monthly users globally, it remains one of the best free social media platforms for small business owners to use to increase their brand awareness and make more sales, with zero advertising spend, writes Brooke Vulinovich, founder of The Social Club.
Instagram’s three key areas of focus for 2023 are inspiring creativity, helping people discover new content, and personalising the user experience. So as a small business, what should you be doing on the platform to grow this year?
- Share more Reels.
- Create entertaining and educational content.
- Use trending audio.
- Audit the keywords in your bio.
- Share more carousel posts.
- Add text to your Stories.
- Use 30 strategic hashtags on every post.
- Share lots of BTS (behind the scenes) content on your Stories.
- Turn your Story into a carousel post once it’s expired.
- Respond to Stories.
- Be consistent but take a break when you feel like you’re burning out.
What to share on your Instagram feed
Create three posts for this week:
- 1 x static post with what you’re focusing on in business for 2023 and/or your ‘word’ for the year and why (this is trending and everyone loves a trend).
- 1 x educational or entertaining Reel using trending audio.
- 1 x carousel post (you can share up to ten photos or videos in one post).
When you are creating content, think about what your customer will find useful to see/hear/read from you this week.
Post your content at your peak time across your three peak days. You can find this information in your Account Insights – which you can access via your profile once you have over 100 followers. Once you have opened Insights, tap on ‘Total followers’ then scroll to the bottom of the screen until you see the graph. Tap through to see your peak engagement time for each day of the week and each time of the day, summarised in three-hour blocks.
Repeat next week.
What to share on your Story
Take photos and videos of your day. Select four to share on your Stories during your peak time that day. Do this 15-30 minutes apart.
Add small text (pinch your text with your fingers to make it smaller and move it around the screen) over the top explaining what you did – so your day tells a story!
Repeat next week.
I’m burnt out, what do I do?
Instagram is a marathon, not a sprint. Pre-plan your content using a scheduling app. Sharing three posts per week means you will need to create and schedule 12 posts a month. I recommend doing this at the end of each month in preparation for the month ahead.
If the idea of taking a break seems impossible, then take mini-breaks. Look at your Insights to find your least active day/s and take them off each week.
Is it too late for me to grow on Instagram?
Building relationships is key to long-term growth, as relationships equal engagement and engagement tells the Instagram algorithm you’re sharing high-quality content. This in turn increases your reach as the algorithm then puts your posts in front of new audiences who it believes will value it and follow you!
To build relationships in 2023, be sure to reply to all your comments and DMs on a regular basis, comment on posts in your feed, and respond to Stories.
And remember …
It’s not too late for you. Now is the best time to grow on Instagram, so don’t be put off by thinking you’re wasting your time.
Growing an Instagram account in 2023 doesn’t have to be hard, but it’s important to know and understand what’s trending on the app in order to grow faster.
This article was first published on Kochie’s Business Builders, read the original here.
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