Growth Ideas for your Instagram Business Account

One of the many Growth Marketing services that we offer includes growing Instagram business accounts. Instagram growth is becoming more and more competitive for trying to get your account in front of the right audience or build a social media community. There are plenty of strategies, hacks, and ideas out there.

We will introduce a few quick Social media management ideas to boost your organic followers on your business account. Please note, there are many methods that are against Instagram’s TOS, we will not be discussing these today as they often have your account ‘shadow-banned’ (temporarily banned), or permanently closed.

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1.    Co-hosting Instagram Live sessions-

Co-host a live session with accounts in your niche that have a similar or a slightly larger following. You don’t need a large account to do this or need to find those with a high amount of followers or an industry giant. Find accounts that your followers are currently follow or that will provide value to your audience for your co-hosting session.

For example, You could interview an industry expert who might have a few thousand followers. This industry expert will now be sharing your account and you will be sharing theirs during the live session. You are now exposed to new potential followers and providing your current followers with valued content. Win-win!

2.    Link in the Bio-

If you have an account over 10,000 followers, then you have the ability to create a story and tell your audience to swipe up which will take them to a link that you have set. If you don’t have that many followers, then directing your audience to this clickable link needs to be done differently. Put the link in the ‘Bio’ section marked with its content a clear Call to Action.

If you post any content via stories, photos, or videos then refer the audience to the link in your bio. Sending the visitor away from your Instagram profile is not the objective, however, providing content that they are interested in or that solves a problem provides value to that person who in return will ‘follow’ you.

3.    Account ‘Hijack’

Please note- This will only work on larger accounts and be very cautious not to appear like a spammer.

Find a Large account that is similar to your audience or that provides a product to your audience, this account needs to be so large that it's hard for their admin to keep up with the comments on Instagram posts. Take a look at the Instagram feed and see if there is any way that you can assist queries or genuinely comment on that comment.

For example, if you are a freelance graphic designer with an Instagram business account. You could visit the Adobe account and possibly answer queries posted in their comments or engage in positive and knowledgable discussion with commenters. This will display expertise, create an image of a brand that is focused on relationships and interactions, and awareness of your brand. This brand awareness can covert into immediate followers and Instagram interactions.

4 . Hashtags- Be Strategic

Hashtags are used to identify content and assist others in identifying relevant content that is useful. You click on the search button and search for a hashtag related to your content. It's very important to Instagram and its users, that’s why this marketing strategy can be so powerful.

Hashtags are usually overused, underused or misunderstood. The questions always arise, ‘What hashtags do I use’?, ‘How many hashtags do I use?’, ‘Where do I use them’? , 'Do I need them in my Instagram bio?' and so on.

Developing a hashtag strategy is important because it will have you in front of your target audience, being found by those that will be most interested in your product and engage with the account.

The Instagram platform allows up to 30 hashtags and you could use all of those allocated tag slots.. So when it comes to hashtags, how many should you use? We recommend using 15-20 hashtags.

How do you come up with 15-20 hashtags? Firstly, pick 3-5 of the most popular tags related to the post, then 3-5 five niche-specific, 2-3 Branded tags, then 3-5 content-specific.

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Why this strategy?

Popular hashtags give you an initial burst of activity from non-followers but within minutes your content is buried behind more popular accounts or content. This engagement burst can show the Instagram algorithm that your content is valued to the user and can be shown more on their hashtag feeds. This will hopefully cause your content to appear as a top-performing post in the niche-specific tags which could stay for days, weeks, and even months!

To get the most out of this strategy, think about where your audience is, what is your audience doing? and who is your audience? This will provide greater insight into the best hashtags to select.

5.    Use business analytics and post analytics-

In Growth Marketing, Data is always one of our best tools. The business account analytics and post analytics will allow you to learn more about your audience therefore learning about your potential audience and where/who you should target.

You can access this from the View Insights button, this will tell you you how that post performed,  and where your impressions came from. If it is not appearing, you may have a ‘personal account’ and need to create a business profile.

Is that all?

No, definitely not! There are so many Instagram growth strategies out there and we will be adding Instagram business account growth ideas weekly! Keep checking in for more great ideas to grow your account followers.

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