The title of this blog talks about Instagram but in all honesty, this blog is about all social media platforms.
I was talking to a friend about her starting a new Instagram and Twitter account for her side hustle. As we chatted about those accounts, she assumed that they would grow fast and she would reach the follower amounts that she has on her current Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Now before I get started with this blog I want to point out that having a high number of followers isn’t always a good thing. What really matters is the quality of your followers, not the number. It’s one thing to have 100k followers but if they aren’t engaging with you, wouldn’t you rather have 10k followers that are engaging? Those numbers I mentioned are examples but it’s the same no matter how many followers you have.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s dive into actually growing your following. As we get into that I want you to remember one thing. Social media is exactly what is in the name, a platform, no matter what one you’re on, to be social.
A mistake a lot of people make is they either post or schedule a something and then just forget about it. Maybe reply to the comments that are made on the post and that’s it.
Look at social media like you’re going to a networking event or even just out at a party. If you want to talk to more people, what do you do? You don’t just wait and hope they come to you. You will go out of your way to engage with them and start a conversation.
That’s exactly how social media works. You have to go out of your way to have a conversation with others and engage with them.
A method I use is the Gary Vee $1.80 Strategy and a chrome extension/tool by the same name. Dollar Eighty. This is a strategy where you give your “2 cents†on multiple posts in your target market until you have “spent $1.80â€.
The way you do this is simple. You’ll first want to find out who your target market is and from there, you will want to do a little research. You’re going to want to find out what the best hashtags are in that market.
Once you have those hashtags, I recommend making a list and creating a Google Doc or something that you can easily reference. From there you are going to take just the top 10 that you want to use and engage with for the day.
Now that you have those 10 Hashtags you’re going to take the top 9 posts for each of those hashtags and leave your “2 centsâ€. When you leave your “2 cents†on each of those 9 posts, for each of the 10 hashtags, that will equal $1.80.
A good example of why this works so well is a story I have told many times. A local company here in Windsor, ON was very engaging on Instagram for almost a year. Every single day they would comment on each and every post I made. A lot of the time on both my personal account and the Russtek account. More than likely this was due to the fact that I used similar hashtags on posts I made on both accounts.
The more they commented the more I felt like I knew the person that was making the comments and in turn that created a good relationship with this company. Now, the product they were selling wasn’t something I needed right then but if and when that time came and I did need that product, they were the first company I would think of and they would have had my business.
The down side to this story was the fact that they just stopped commenting. After a few days I started to wonder what happened and just let it slide. It got to the point that after some time had past I actually forgot who that company was and couldn’t think about what their name was when I went to tell this story later on.
That just goes to show you how powerful engaging on social media actually is.
Are you engaging on social media and building relationships with your audience?
If you’re curious about using Dollar Eighty tool to grow your Instagram account, have a look at the link below to get started.
This is geared towards helping you grow on just Instagram but this strategy above is good for all platforms.