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Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
177: 15 Instagram Growth Strategies That Still Work in 2026 [Throwback]
00:44:22
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Kaitlyn Rhodes
This episode is sponsored by Shopify, Whatnot and Storyblocks. If you've ever dreamed of turning your ideas into a business, Shopify makes it so much easier. Whether you're selling products, digital downloads, or building a brand from scratch, Shopify gives you everything you need to create a beautiful online store without the tech headache. Love finding amazing deals. Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the country, where you can discover everything from collectibles and beauty products to fashion and home goods while shopping live with sellers in real time. It's interactive, fun, and full of incredible finds.
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And if you're creating content like I
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am, Storyblocks is a game changer. Instead of spending hours searching for the perfect stock footage, music or sound effects, Storyblocks gives you unlimited access to a massive library of high quality creative assets so you can create content faster and make it look incredible. Ready to check these out? Start your business with Shopify by signing up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com CHC download the whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search wh a t n o t whatnot in the App Store and start scoring amazing deals. And bring your creative ideas to life with storyblocks by visiting storyblocks.comchc welcome to
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another episode of Call Her Creator. I'm your host Kaitlyn Rhodes. Today's episode, we're gonna get into some Instagram growth tips because I feel like lately I've been scrolling through my newsfeed and people are complaining about reach, they're complaining about engagement, they're talking about bringing chronological order back. So what we're going to do today is dive in to different ways that you can increase your engagement, you can increase your reach. And when that happens, that's when the algorithm starts to favor your account and share you to more people. And when you get in front of more people, you have the chance to grow more followers. So we're going to talk about different ways that we can do that. We'll go over hacks that I've tried and tested and that I love. I personally have used some of these growth hacks for my Call Her Creator account, which we just hit a thousand followers. We're actually close to 1100 now. And I've been testing some of these different tips on here. So these have actually been tested. I'm going to share my strategy with you guys and then, yeah, I think after you listen to this episode, you'll have a little bit more insight into what the algorithm is looking for, what you can do to be betterly seen, if that's a word. Betterly. I don't know if that's a word, but let's. Let's get into it. All right, so before we get into the episode, you know, I like to start with a social media update. This isn't a new update per se, but I don't hear a lot of people talking about it, so I thought that I would bring it up. Facebook is currently testing a generative AI captions tool. So when you go to post a status on Facebook, when you write your caption or you go to write your caption, you'll see something that says write with AI. And so this is a cool little feature that Facebook is doing, meta is doing, to kind of help you out with your captions. They want you to write engaging captions. Obviously, guys, this means that captions do matter. I've always said that. I think not only do they help engage your audience, but they help with using keywords and the algorithm, understanding what your post is about. So with this little Write with AI tool, if you tap it, meta systems will basically generate a caption based on your existing post or image. So you could even write a caption and then click that button and the AI will rewrite what you've written or. Or if you don't know what to post. My brother was texting me last night. He just went to Utah, and he wanted to write something witty for a caption. So he always texts me and I'm like, bro, use AI. So this is a cool feature that I think a lot of people will appreciate. Those that just don't have that creative bone or they don't have time to come up with a creative caption. Use the AI generator. One of the example captions, when I saw someone click it, I was like, reading. I was reading a blog about this, and so they clicked the button and the caption that it wrote was. I mean, seriously, what even is this day? So I think, like, it was a little bit generic, but it was funny. So they're still being witty with it. So give it a chance. If you've got this feature on your Facebook, try it out, see what it does for you. I've seen this over on LinkedIn as well, which is really great because I think that LinkedIn is a place to write long forum content. So try it out, see if you like it. Maybe it can help you write some captions. And then before we get into today's episode, I always like to highlight my reviews. Thank you so much to everyone. That takes the time, time out of their day to listen to an episode and go leave me a five star review. It means more to me than I can ever tell you guys. This week's testimonial comes from Stella. She says here for the free advice, I give it a 10 out of 10. If you want to monetize and grow your Instagram account again, these mean so much to me and it's how we measure the success of my podcast. So please, if you have time today, go leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'd love to see a five star review and I will highlight you on the podcast. You know, if, if you're not the review type either, it would really mean a lot to me if you just shared my podcast with a friend. The more people that listen, the better we can grow and I would just really appreciate it. Okay, so time to get into this week's episode. 15 Ways to Grow your Instagram account. Have some really juicy tips for you, but I hope that these tips, like some of these are really easy to do. So if you can just follow along, try to put some of them into place, I promise you, you will see some change in your account. Hopefully it's positive. It's going to be positive if you're putting these into place. So let's dive in. Okay, so to start these tips out, I'm kind of going in the order that I see fit for someone that's really struggling with growth. So this first tip, you know, some of y' all are going to be like, okay, we already know that, but I've got to start somewhere. And this, this has to be said. So tip number one is to have a strong personal brand, but you also need to highlight your unique selling point. This is also known as a usp. Little marketing tip here for you guys. When you're coming up with your product or your service or whatever kind of business you're trying to run, you need to have a unique selling point. What's going to set you apart from Joe Schmo? We always talk about Joe Schmo on this podcast, but what's going to set you apart from him? What do you do differently from everyone else? That is your unique selling point. So before you even start selling on the Grammar or Facebook or TikTok, you need to make sure that your branding is in line. What I suggest to do, if you don't have any branding at all, go into Canva, click on Create Brand Kit, and then you can go in there and pull some colors Together some fonts. Canva even gives you examples like, they'll give you some inspiration. I personally, when I'm working with a new client that has no branding whatsoever, I always suggest to them, go look at Pinterest. Go search up like a word that is relevant to your industry. When we went for our rebrand in 2023, was it. It was last year. Darby actually was like, hey, there's this, these aesthetics on, on Pinterest, if you type in that girl, you'll just see all these very like swanky, trendy, like branding pictures, colors, all that. So I went into Pinterest and I typed in that girl vibes or something like that. And I was blown away with how much it actually matched what I was looking for. So if you could like name or put some kind of keyword in place of what describes your brand and then search that on Pinterest, you will be surprised at what all you find. So that's a really great starting point for you to get inspired by branding. And then along with that, you know, we have to remember we're not the only creators out there. You're not the only Instagram coach, you're not the only TikTok coach. There's a ton of fitness gurus. So what makes you different? And that's where your unique selling point comes into play. Usp. What makes your business unique? For me, you know, there's a lot of social media agencies out there, There's a lot of social media coaches out there. I believe that what makes us different is, you know, we do very personalized, customized content based on you and your target audience specifically. Whereas some agencies are one size fits all kind of deal. So I believe that that's kind of our unique selling point is that we do it very personalized to you. When it comes to my creator side, my Instagram account, I think that my unique selling point is like my humor in my way of making social media fun again. There's so many of us out there, so I have to be different. So that's why I try to use my personality as much as I can in my marketing. I try to dance when I can, just to be fun and show off really who I am. So if you haven't done this, you really need to take a step back and kind of look at your brand, your services, your offerings, what makes you different from everyone else and lean into that. That is what's going to make someone choose you over him or her. And then another part of that, too. Another example, I had written it down in my notes, so I want to make sure I mention it when it comes to your services, like, if there's a way that you do things, maybe you do things the holistic way or maybe you do things the paid ads way. Like, those are the things that you need to highlight to show off what makes you different from everyone else. So that's just another little example to help you kind of discover what makes you different. What is your unique selling point. And if you just are having a really hard time with this and you can't decide what your unique selling point is, go talk to ChatGPT, ask him about different unique selling points based on X industry and kind of see what he tells you. And then you could kind of take some of those examples and inspiration to come up with your own. All right, tip number two kind of plays into the branding as well. I personally, I will stand on this mountain. Hill, hill. I will die on this hill. Create a cohesive feed. Esthetically pleasing cohesive. I was going through Instagram yesterday and someone's like, it does not matter what your profile looks like, but I just cannot agree with that because I think first impressions are everything, especially on social media because we have such a, you know, short attention span. I believe that when I land on a profile, it better be cohesive. I better see the same branding everywhere. You better be talking about the same thing over and over again, like the same topic. If you're all over the place talking about kitty cats and fitness and you're a mom and you also do a marketing, but you're also a math coach, like, that just is overwhelming and just freaks me out because there's too much going on and I can't handle it. So I'll just immediately click off the profile. But if I land on your page and it's all focused on one huge topic and, like, all of your stuff looks cohesive, easy to read, then I'm probably going to follow you over the other thing that I suggested. I just, I think that when it comes to visiting an account, everyone gives it a brief audit. They do, whether they want to admit it or not. First impressions are everything. So if your profile is a mess, if your branding is off and you're talking about 50 million different things, I'm probably not going to resonate with you or follow you. And I think a lot of other people can agree with me on that. Okay, I have to tell you something.
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I genuinely had fun using lately. Whatnot. The first time I got in the app, I was honestly just browsing.
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I Ended up watching a live seller,
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chatting with everyone else in the stream, and found some really great products that I would have paid way more for somewhere else. It didn't feel like online shopping. It felt more like being a part of a community. And that's what makes whatnot so different. Whatnot is the largest dedicated live shopping platform where sellers are building real businesses across everything from beauty and fashion to collectibles, electronics, jewelry, so much more. And what I love is that anyone can sell. Whether you already have a business or or you've been looking for an easy way to start one. Whatnot helps passionate sellers grow through live connection and community. Instead of just listing products, you're actually building relationships with customers who come back to shop with you. People selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplace. And across the platform, the number of sellers making over a million dollars a year has doubled. Buyers are spending over an hour a day in the app, discovering products and supporting sellers. So it's a really exciting place to build something. Search whatnot wh h a t n o t in the app Store download and you can start selling right now. As someone who is constantly creating content, podcast clips, social media, videos, presentations, you can imagine how much time goes into editing. That's why I love Storyblocks, and they've become an essential part of my workflow. It's a 100% human made stock media library. So every piece of footage, music, sound, effect, image and template is created by a real filmmaker or artist, not AI. Everything is professionally curated, pre licensed, cleansed and ready to use. Which means I can spend less time searching for assets and more time creating. Honestly, it saved me hours every week. Head to storyblocks.com CHC to access the human made stock media library that's essential to my workflow. For a limited time, they're offering 15% off any annual plan. And that discount is only available through my link. Again, that's storyblocks.com CHC for 15% off annual plans.
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Now, when I say cohesive feed, I really, I don't mean that it has to be perfect. I don't mean that every reel has to have a cover photo. I mean, if you go over to my Instagram account right now on social marketing queen or call her creator, both accounts, I don't have a specific, like carousel, static reel, carousel, static reel, cover photo. Like, no, like it's, it's all just what I post that day. But you will notice that all of my reels, I use the same three to four different colors. I use the same text, so it all just kind of flows. I guess that's what I'm trying to tell you guys is just make sure your profile flows. It doesn't have to be perfect because people don't want perfectly packaged people. They want. They want real messy, somewhat messy. But, gosh, now I'm. Now I'm scared that what I'm telling you is kind of going against what I'm saying. But don't be too messy to where you're all over the place, scatterbrained, confusing people. But be yourself and be true to what you're preaching, what you're teaching, what you're selling. And if you do that, I believe your feed will go together. But the main thing here, guys, is stick to the same couple colors. This is why a brand kit is so important in canva. Stick to the same fonts. I don't want to see a reel on your page with like the scribble font and then another one you're using bright green with a regular font. Like, no, choose what you want to use. Don't use a scribble font, by the way. It's hard to read. And don't use bright colors. Choose what you want to use and then use it over and over again so people can recognize your branding tip number three. Optimize your bio and your profile. I talk about this in almost every single podcast episode. Your Instagram profile will get much more traction if you optimize it for search. So you've only got 150 characters. When it comes to your Instagram profile, you've only also got one profile picture. So you want to make sure it's informative. It's short and sweet. It includes relevant keywords. If you really need me to deep dive in this, you can go back to episode number one, where I talk about getting started and growing your first thousand followers. Because I will break this down for you step by step. But since that's not the main focus of today's episode, I'll just kind of tell you what I talk about over there. But one of them is adding keywords to your profile name. For example, mine is Kaitlyn Rhodes social media agency. I believe Call her creator is call her creator. It might say marketing podcast or it might just say the podcast. But you see how I have those keywords in there. So social media agency, podcast host. So when people go to search those keywords, hopefully my profile pops up at the top. I also use keywords in my actual bio, so my description there has keywords. I tell you why you should follow me. That's very important. And then I try to show off accolades or like something that shows my expertise in the specific field that we're talking about, the industry. So I think that's very important too. But make sure your bio is completely filled out. Use up those 150 characters, dial in your link in bio, use Stan, get a Stan store so that people can easily purchase from you, learn from you. And yeah, just make sure that your whole profile is filled out. And then with that, once you have your bio filled out, that's when you can also focus on your branding. So both tip 1, 2, 3 all three tips go together in synchronicity for you to be found on Instagram and for you to actually grow on Instagram. Tip number four for growing on Instagram and getting your content scene is to write descriptive captions with keywords. A few years ago you could only search Instagram explore using hashtags. But now when you put in a keyword it will show you everything from top hashtags, top location posts, top usernames that come up with that, top profiles, top post. You can type in whatever you want there. So that means writing relevant descriptive captions using specific keywords. It can seriously impact your content's discoverability on Instagram. Hello Instagram SEO. I actually just just did a podcast episode on this as well. I think it was a few back but I go into great detail on that episode on SEO and what all you can actually optimize on Instagram because there's a lot you can do alt text on photos, you can do descriptive captions, you can use hashtags, your profile, there's so many things that you can dial in for search engine optimization and to be discovered on Instagram and really any social media channel. So go check out that episode if you have not already. But once you optimize your Instagram captions with relevant keywords, descriptive keywords, you're more likely to appear on the explore page versus if you don't. So it's a win win for you to write descriptive captions. And with descriptive captions comes hashtags and you need to use good hashtags that make sense for your industry and your content. So Instagram hashtags are still one of the best tools to get your content seen. When you use relevant hashtags that are targeted to a specific audience, you are going to get in front of the correct audience that will then find your profile and they'll follow you because it makes sense to them. If you're not sure what kind of hashtags to use. You can always do industry research. You could use the tool Flick. I love to use Flick for hashtags. Or you can just like start typing in keywords on Instagram and see what pops up. And those will kind of help you with your hashtags as well. Instagram allows you to post up to 30 hashtags. So the way that I like to break those up is I'll do like keyword hashtags, hashtags that are specific to your industry, location based hashtags. Even if you can serve the whole United States or the whole UK or the whole world. Pick like big locations that you want to target. So for me, I tried to target the entire US I work with people out of the country too. But I'll pick big cities in the United States to target, like Nashville, New York City, because those are where my target audiences live. It's these, you know, bigger companies that live in those towns. So I'll use those as my location based hashtags. Focus on your post as well. So if I am posting specifically about maybe the importance of hashtags, then obviously my hashtag would be hashtag, viral hashtags or something like that. So industry specific, keyword specific, post specific and location specific. That is how I come up with all 30 of my hashtags. Do I use all 30? Not all the time. I typically will use probably up to 15, but that's just because either I'm being lazy with it or I just don't have time. But if you plan out your content, I would use up to 30 for our clients here we do a hashtag vault and we break everything up by keywords, location, industry, and we basically copy and paste different hashtags every single post. So you're not getting stagnant with the same hashtags every time you're like changing them out. I have read that Instagram will flag your post if you use the same copy and paste hashtags every single time. So make sure that you are changing them up whenever you can just to maximize the discoverability there. Tip number six is to create a consistent Instagram posting schedule. Now if you're smart with this, say you're just getting started. I think it's so much easier to like put schedules into place when you're just getting started. But like for example, we just started the Call her Creator account and to get us started, to get us used to posting, we did a Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule. So it was easy for me to stick to that schedule. I knew what to expect every week. And then the algorithm also starts to learn your posting schedule too. So in a perfect world, if you really want to grow on Instagram, you would post like at least twice a day, Monday through Sunday. But a lot of people can't start with that. They can't handle that type of posting schedule. So minimize that. Start with three posts a week, and then once you get that and you're staying consistent with it, then maybe do four posts a week, then do five posts a week, but just stay consistent with it. The more that you are consistent with the app, the more that it will favor your content and send it to more people. I promise you, the more time you spend on the app, they start to favor your account over others. Because I see a direct correlation with Social Marketing Queen and call her creator. Because I'm on Social Marketing Queen every single day just because that's like my main hub for my Instagram marketing. But I've started getting on call her creator like three or four times a week. And I'm noticing the more that I spend, the more time I spend on there, the more my content, like, gets more likes comments and shares. I get DMs. So just be consistent with your posting. Figure out a schedule that works for you, that you can keep up with, stick to it for 90 days and see how things roll. I promise you, you will see some growth there if you can stay consistent. Tip number 7. Find the best time to post. So here is how I find the best time to post. It used to be people would tell you to go into Instagram, look at your professional dashboard, CL your followers, and then you'll see what time of day they're on the app. But as my agency started growing, I started noticing that everybody's posting time was the same exact time on everyone's account. So I was like, there's no way this is real. This can't be accurate. So we've actually started testing different times for different accounts. We also use Metricool to schedule our content now, and they have much better analytics for us and actually test. I think that what they tell us is more accurate because it's different for everyone and it makes more sense. But if you don't have something like Metricool that will show you actual analytics, then what you can do is journal it. And I know that sounds like a lot of work, but that's kind of what I started doing with Social Marketing Queen when I felt like I was kind of in a rut as far as my growth. Was going, I decided I was gonna start leaning into a better, more educated posting time. So I kind of thought to myself, who is my target audience? Okay, win. Are they on their phone? So I was thinking about business owners, and in my opinion, business owners are maybe checking their socials in the morning, maybe around lunchtime, and then in the evening, because the other hours they're working. Right. So I started posting at those different times. I would test, like, Monday, we're going to post at the morning time. Tuesdays, we're going to post in the evenings. Maybe Wednesdays, we're going to post in the morning and at lunchtime. So we just started testing a bunch of different posting times. And what I found was that there was actually two different times that actually worked for my audience, but we also started to see better results at a specific time. So I post twice a day to maintain my growth over on social marketing queen. So I'll post early in the morning, and then I try to post in the late evening as well. And I just. That makes sense. Again, people wake up, they check their phones, and then when they're going to bed, they check their phone before bed. I am my target audience, so I kind of just went off of my own habits. But you can kind of put your head in to your target audience's head and decide what their schedule is like. And if you don't know what that is, that's where you need to go back to the drawing board and list out your buyer's Persona. What's their name? How old are they? What do they do for a living? What's their schedule like? You make this up in your head, and if you need help with this, you can always go to ChatGPT too and kind of say, like, hey, I am a fitness coach that focuses on busy working moms. Please help me come up with three buyer's Personas and then Chat GPT should be able to create three different, like, avatars for you based on your industry. So go ahead and do that again. Y' all know I give y' all homework for every single episode. Today's homework is to go to Chat GBT and figure out your buyer's Persona. I want you to make at least three of those people. And then once you have those three people, you need to get into their head and figure out what time of the day they're probably checking their phone and start testing those posting times. I promise you, you will see a difference. I truly believe a lot of people will tell you, like, posting time doesn't matter, but in my opinion, it does. If I'm posting at midnight, I and my target audience is mainly Eastern Standard Time in the US Then a lot of people are going to be sleeping at that time. But if I post early in the morning on Eastern Standard Time, that's where a majority of my audience is, then they're more than likely going to see it. So you just kind of have to be like, put your head in it. What. What time of the day is your people getting on? That's when you should post.
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- [27:16]
Next step to getting Instagram growth, getting those numbers back up is to make sure your Instagram content is accessible. So I've got some notes here that I kind of wanted to go over because I found this fascinating. According to the World Health Organization WHO, an estimated 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or experience blindness. 2.2 billion. So with that in mind, you have to think about those people when you're posting to Instagram. They cannot see. They are blind. They have no idea what you posted. So that is why it's so important to go in and type in alt text for your post. It's going to help them understand what your post is about. Now, I'll. I'll tell you how to do this, but there. There's a couple different things here. So first, let me tell you how to do this. If you want to put in alt text, all you'll need to do is go to post your content. And when it comes to the part where you're about to post, you'll see something that says advanced settings and from there if you scroll down, you'll see alt text and you're able to type in, you know, whatever you want. Make sure that it pertains to your post. Don't just try to keyword stuff. Put in what your post is about. Now, besides just putting in the alt text, there's a couple other ways that you can be accessible. We gotta think about people that can't hear as well. So when you're doing reels or videos, use the caption sticker. Make sure you're telling them what you're saying. If you don't want to use the caption stickers, add subtitles or headlines or hooks with the text so that they can kind of read and as they watch your video and understand what you're talking about. That's why in all of my reels you will see my hook and then you will see keywords like all throughout the video explaining what my video is about. Obviously, writing descriptive alt text was the other one that I had verbalized visual details during your stories and videos. So that's if, say, they're blind, you want to actually talk out what you're doing. Capitalize each word in Instagram hashtags. This can help screen readers read them aloud properly. I don't focus too much on that. I don't think that's too important. But when I was doing research, that was just one of the ways that you could make your content more accessible. It makes sense because you know how when you do write a hashtag and maybe it's like a three word hashtag, if they're all pushed together, it's going to be kind of hard to read. So they're saying to capitalize each beginning of the word letter. Okay. So as long as you are being inclusive with your content, that means that more people can access it, they can consume it, and then that can also result in higher engagement which will push you to new followers. Tip number nine, collaboration. This is one of the most underrated tools for growing on Instagram, that is creating content with other creators in your space or influencers or other brands that you like to work with. Partnering with like minded people and brands is a major growth hack because you're going to be able to get in front of their audience as well. So there's a couple ways you can do this. One is you can use the Collab tool that allows you to maybe create a reel that shows in both of your news feeds or a carousel static image, whatever you want to do. You could also go live with someone in your industry that compliments your brand. I always tell you guys, make sure it's someone that complements your brand. It needs to make sense, obviously, and then don't be afraid. Also to go live with competitors, you can also tag people, whether that's in your stories or on your Instagram posts. Typically when you do tag people, they will get an alert, they'll get a notification about it. So that will entice them hopefully to maybe share it to their stories or share it to someone in the DMs, because they're tagged in it. So using all of those different functionalities of Instagram can help get your content in your profile in front of more eyes, therefore helping you grow your account. Tip number 10 obviously I have to talk about this one. It's my favorite. Creating more Instagram reels Reels are still being favored on the Instagram app. I'm still seeing people in my newsfeed say how like carousels are back. You can still grow with carousels and static images. And we've started putting carousels back into our posting strategy. For a while there, I was strictly doing reels. We're seeing okay results, but at the end of the day, audience is still favoring my reels. So I guess it really depends on who your audience is. Some people do prefer carousels. I know Lucas o'. Keefe. He's one of my creator friends. He does a fantastic job at carousels, and his strategy is way more carousels than reels. And I wouldn't be surprised if his carousels actually performed better than his reels because he's not exactly known for reels. Like, I know there was a while when he was getting into them, but when I think of Lucas and his content, I think of the carousels and his infographics. His is very informative. If you're not following him, you should. It's really good content over there, but it's up to you. What do you want to lean into? But I still believe that Instagram reels are the most effective way to reach new audiences on the app. So unlike other types of Instagram posts, carousels, static images, they don't have a designated spot on the Explore page like reels do. So their tab on the Home Feed navigation bar makes them more discoverable. So when you go to your home feed and you click on that little magnifying glass, it will take you to another tab in Reels is one of those highlights up there. So I believe that they are just the best way to get in front of new people. Now, if you haven't listened to my viral reels episode, that one is really, really good. And I'll kind of go into greater detail of what you can be doing to make sure that your reels get in front of the most eyes. But for the best results, I've kind of put out some tips that I can give you guys right now. But again, go back and listen to that episode because it's so good and it really goes into better detail than what I'm going to give you here. A coup little tips for the best results. First one, use keywords and hashtags in your reels. Captions that accurately describe what your video content is about. That is how the algorithm understands what your reel is about and that's how it indexes it and serves it to more people is by understanding what it's about. Next tip I have is using trending audio. Whether we like it or not, trending audio is still being pushed the most. I think it's because Instagram wants us to jump on things. They want us to jump on trends. They want you to get out in front of more people by doing this. So stick to trending audios but also don't be afraid to do original audio as well. If I was breaking it up by like a weekly schedule, I'd say like 80% of my content is trending audio and then like the 20% is original audio. Me talking, maybe a green screen background or just a talking head video with my original audio of my voice. Keep your reels short to encourage repeat views. That means sticking to like seven seconds or less. Create original content. So this is different from original audio. Original content is just like telling your own story, making your own trend, making something funny. I'm trying to think of someone that does a really good job at this. Brock does a really good job at original content. Brock Johnson, he's someone to look at for that. But I'm sure there's someone that is specifically in your industry that makes original content that you can appreciate. Add on screen text for viewers watching without sound. This goes back to accessibility. This is how they understand what your reel is about. So always have your hook. I've read different research that says hooks at the top are better than hooks at the bottom of the screen because that's just when people are scrolling their first, their eyes go up to the top of the video first. So using those to help people understand what your reel is about and then aim for high quality video. If it's blurry, I would honestly cancel it and repost it. And then don't upload reels that have the TikTok watermark. Instagram has explicitly said that that they don't want videos with watermarks on them. So make sure that you're posting like original videos or at least you're removing those. There's something called Snap Tick where you can put in your TikTok video and it will remove the watermark for you. And then we also like Instavideosave.net that one is if you have an Instagram reel and you want to repost it over to YouTube Shorts or TikTok, you can remove the Instagram watermark using InstavideSave. Net. So those are two really good tools to use for your video marketing. Tip number 11 create memes and shareable content. This is one of the most important parts of our strategy when we work with a new client is we are creating content that is shareable. That's how you get in front of more people when it comes to organically reaching new audiences without paid ads.
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Ads.
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If you can create share worthy content that people are going to share to their stories, share through the dms, that's how you are going to get better at reaching a bigger audience. The best way to do this is obviously like celebrity memes always pop off really well. Inspirational quotes. What other oh like informative carousel posts, those are also still share worthy as well. So kind of focus on content that you think someone would read and they would immediately want to share with a friend or a family member or maybe it's something they resonate with so much that they share it to to their stories. Memes are also really great at generating better reach, especially when they tap into something that's trending in popular culture. So for example like the Grammys, you know how like if there's like this big like the Grammys or the VMAs and they have these wonderful photos of celebrities, you will always see some kind of meme being made out of it. The Super Bowl. So stick to trendy memes as well. Tip number 12 to growing your Instagram is cross promoting it to others channels. So that's talking about it in your TikTok, that's talking about it over on your Facebook, sharing it on your YouTube shorts, talking about it in your email. If you're looking for extra ways to grow your Instagram following, cross promoting your account on other platforms is a really great place to start. If you don't Have a website. You know, a lot of these social media channels ask you to put a link in your bio, put your other your social media account so when people go to visit your page, they'll see that you, oh, she also has an Instagram account. Let me go check it out. It's also great if you do have a website, make sure you're putting your social channels there at the bottom. When you're sending out your email weekly newsletters, make sure you're linking your social channels there. There's a lot of different ways to cross promote your social media. We also at our social media agencies, some of the posts that we'll do on a monthly basis is maybe like a graphic saying, hey, we're over on Instagram, go follow us. You can also do a giveaway on your other social media channels, maybe entice them like, hey, if you go follow us on Instagram, we will put you in the drawing to win a gift card to Amazon or whatever it is. I actually did whenever I was growing the call her creator account, I sent out an email blast to my subscribers and I told them, hey, if you go follow call her creator, I will give you a promo code to download my Instagram training for free. And I had a lot of follows come in from that as well. So there's a couple different ways to cross promote your social channels. And then also putting in like a giveaway there also helps. Tip number 13, which should probably be the last tip because it's one of my favorite. It is my most favorite tip to growing on Instagram is to analyze your high performing content and repurpose it. So when it comes to monitoring your brand's performance on Instagram, reach is one of the most important metrics that you can look at. Reach shows you how many unique accounts have seen your posts and therefore how much awareness and value you are gaining. If a post receives higher or lower reach than normal, you can use those results for insights on future posts. So if you have a post that completely tanks, then you might say, hey, maybe we don't put that into next month's strategy. But if you have a post that really takes off off, you better be doing a part two on that same post next month. Or you can always just repurpose the same exact post. There's a couple ways that we repurpose content. One, we might just repost the same exact post and change the caption. Or two, we might use the caption and use the content, but maybe change up like the format, like maybe it was a carousel so this time we make it a reel. Or maybe we do a reel again. Maybe the reel took off. So. So next month we do the same reel, but we change the hook. But messing around with this, playing around with this, that should be a bulk of your marketing strategy because it really works. We have it set in place that every single week we are repurposing a top performing content from 90 days ago. And it's working, by the way. We've actually seen better results. Like the original one will take off and maybe it goes viral when we post it again. It does two times better. Better. Not always the case, but a lot of the times we will see it perform better than the original post. Tip number 14 go live on Instagram. There are a couple of creator friends of mine that have grown their following by staying consistent with going live every week. I know that when I was in the early stages of my creator journey, I went live a lot. And not only did it help me nurture my audience, but it also helped me sell more because people, people believed in me. They saw the expertise in me. They connected with me on a human level. So I sold a lot of services or products through Instagram Lives. But beyond that, I also got in front of these people over and over again. So and so would tell so and so that I had this weekly live where I answered questions. So it just got in front of more people. I also, which I want to get back into doing. I used to do this same segment like once a month.
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Month.
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And I would hype that up a lot. Like it was called Vino and Value, which I want to get back on. But I would have a glass of wine and I would talk about Instagram growth tips. And what's cool is I actually had like someone sponsor my wine for me because they saw that I was doing a segment every month. And then I went over to Facebook and I made like a little carousel over there that said, hey, meet us on Vino and Value Every Thursday at 6pm Head over to our Instagram page page. So that pulled a lot of my Facebook audience over to my Instagram page as well. And then if you go live with another person too, there's a couple creators that go live. There's like three of them. They go live every single week. And so they're getting in front of each other's audiences every single week. I feel like that's helping nurture that audience so that they share each other's followers. So and so will follow me because they saw me on this live. So that Works out really well as well. All right, tip number 15 is post consistently on Threads. Now, this is kind of a not so talked about growth hack, but I've seen it working live right now. Like, I'll be on. Here's why it works. Let me kind of give you a little backstory. I'll be on my Instagram feed scrolling. And what's happening is that Instagram is highlighting different threads in my newsfeed. And these are like good threads that I resonate with. So I end up clicking on them and it takes me over to their thread account, and then I'm following them and just eating up all of their threads. The thing with threads and Instagram is that your threads and your Instagram account are linked up. So that gives potential followers more opportunities to discover your content. And when they go over to threads, I believe at the beginning it would automatically make them follow you. I don't know if it still does that, but at least when you go over to threads, it will recommend you follow so and so, because you're following them already on Instagram, so that helps. But what I'm seeing is people who are consistently posting over on Threads, Threads. If those threads are taking off or they're performing well, they're starting to pop up over on the Instagram news feed. So I think it's important for you to make sure that you are maintaining some kind of presence over there, because it's only going to help your Instagram account. And I feel like threads is kind of gaining a little bit of popularity again. I know when it first came out, it was huge. Then it kind of died down. But I think it's kind of back up again because X is just like doing its own thing over there. I haven't logged in over there since it changed to X, but it's so similar to what Twitter used to be. And it's just a place for people to really say what's on their mind. But if you're over there posting consistently, your stuff will pop up in people's feeds and help you get more recognition, more reach. Bonus tip here. That was my 15 tips to grow on Instagram. But I have a bonus tip which is connect with your followers, nurture them, build a community, talk to them, message them, answer their messages, answer their comments. But the more that people see that you're connecting with them, that you care about them, the more they're going to either follow you, or maybe they're already following you and they'll stick to following with you because they know that you are there. You care about them and you nurture them. So that is a really good bonus tip. Make sure that you're replying to DMs and comments. I did read a study that they want quick replies as well. If you are not able to give that to them, you can always sign up for mini chat and set up automatic replies based on on specific keywords. I highly recommend manychat. I love it. I've seen a huge increase in my sales because of ManyChat, so that's something for you to look into as well. All right, so that is my top tips for growing your Instagram account. There's 15 different tips here with a bonus tip about connecting with your followers. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have not already, please download this episode, download my podcast, send it to a friend and go and leave me a review so I can send see if you're liking the content that I'm putting out. You can always message me over on Social Marketing Queen or call her creator. I'll be checking them out. I'll reply to you and I would love to get your feedback too on a upcoming episode. Tell me what you want me to talk about. What are you struggling with? What do you need help with? What is something that is on your mind that I can talk to? Let me know over on Instagram. Love to hear from you. That is all I have for you guys today. Peace out.