Tips for Growing Your Instagram Account

Here we are again - another year, another algorithm shift to challenge content creators, brands and influencers alike. No matter how much we talk about growing your Instagram account authentically though, the vanity metrics still matter and how many likes and followers often determine success for many people within the business.

However, let’s take a step back and understand a little bit more about what Instagram is looking for at the moment and how you can shape strategies around this and increase brand awareness.

On May 31, 2023, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri shared insights on how the latest algorithms rank content.

“Instagram doesn’t have a singular algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t see on the app. We use a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose. We want to make the most of people’s time, and we believe that using technology to personalize everyone’s experience is the best way to do that.

Each part of the app – Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels, Search and more – uses its own algorithm tailored to how people use it. People tend to look for their closest friends in Stories, use Explore to discover new content and creators and be entertained in Reels. We rank things differently in these different parts of the app, and have added features and controls like Close Friends, Favorites and Following so you can further customize your experience.”

So as you can see, using different elements of the Instagram app has different benefits and impacts. So what does this mean for brands? Here are our top tips for growing your Instagram account and ways to help improve your performance and grow your community:

Tip 1: Your audience matters

Understanding who your audience on Instagram is and what they want to see will help improve your engagement. If the algorithms are ranking content based on individual interests, things they have previously engaged with and so on, then ensuring you have content that appeals to them is vital.

Think about why they are following your account in the first place. Do they want to just see finished projects and beautiful images or do they want to get under the skin of the business? How did you get there? What was the process? Who was involved?

All these things matter when it comes to building genuine affinity with a brand. You might not get it right the first time but keep monitoring posts to see what’s working and what isn’t and adapt.

And importantly, ENGAGE with them. If you are not part of a two-way conversation with your audience, they can feel ignored. Answer comments, ask questions (Story stickers are great for this), and respond to enquiries. It’s all part of building that all-important community.

Many interior influencers have had huge success by being authentic and taking people with them on their renovation projects. Explaining to others how they worked out how to do something is really helpful for their audience and you feel part of their experience as well as your own.

Tip 2: Use all the options available to you

As Mosseri said, there are many parts to the app: Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels, and Search. How can you make use of each of these?

Feed

The shop window of your brand. The first thing potential customers, press and collaborators see when they look for you. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfectly polished but it should still align with your brand identity. For example, Reels are an informal, engaging format (see more about this later) but select a cover image that fits still within the grid system.

Many brands try to share 3, 6 or even 9 squares using a single, split image. But remember, people see a post on Instagram in their feed in a random order so unless each square tells its own story, then it may end up as a blank square in their home feed.

Stories

Instagram prioritises Stories at the top of your feed based on three factors: Viewing history, engagement history and closeness (i.e. are they family and friends?). Consistent and regular sharing of Stories will mean you are more likely to appear at the top of someone’s feed and eventually fall into one of the above categories.

And don’t forget Stories Highlights too to extend the life of your Story posts and reinforce your brand.

Explore

Explore was designed to help you discover new things. It is populated with posts that are influenced by previous engagements: likes, comments, views and so on. Users have the ability to remove content from the Explore tab if it doesn’t interest them using the ellipse on the post. So they are in control of what they see.

The best way to get included in this tab is of course to create content that appeals to your audiences. Posts that get good engagement are more likely to appear here. Hashtags and keywords within the text too will help the algorithms know more about the content you are sharing and share it with like-minded people.

Reels

Ah, Reels…short-form video content that means we often can lose a big chunk of our time, with mindless scrolling through an endless variety of content from funny cat videos to beautiful brand shoots. In the last year, Reels have seen exponential growth. There’s no getting away from their success. But for many brands, there is still a reticence to create them.

Mosseri states:

“Reels are also designed to help you discover new things, with an emphasis on entertainment. Much like Explore, the majority of what you see is from accounts you don’t follow [...] We first source reels we think you might like, then order them based on how interesting we think they are to you.

In order to find entertaining reels, we survey people and ask whether they find a particular reel worth their time or fun, and learn from the feedback to get better at figuring out what will entertain people.”

The word ‘entertaining’ is often met with concern for many brands that have taken the time to craft a beautiful identity. However, how you define ‘entertainment’ is open to interpretation. Here are a couple of examples of paint brands doing it well:

Farrow & Ball

The company has an eloquent brand ambassador @paddy_od_1 that regularly appears in their Reels to share tips on colour trends and home renovation. Subtitles are added to increase engagement.

COAT Paints

A Reel that shows the painting and renovation process. Also, a How to Reel featuring @danlovattdesign and his tips on applying paint with subtitles.

Lifting the lid on the design process, having people in the Reels and engaging with your audiences will always appeal to people who feel brands are inaccessible.

Tip 3: Be consistent

With the wealth of options available to you now on the platform, it is important to make the most of them to keep your audience entertained. Ensuring you are posting high-quality content on a regular basis through a variety of the app’s tools will help keep you front of mind with audiences. There is no optimum as such but if you mix up the functions that you use, you could consider starting with a Reel, one or two posts and a selection of Stories and see how that performs in a week.

Tip 4: Use hashtags and geolocation tags

Although the number of hashtags and their location in the post has long been debated, what’s clear is that relevance is by far the most important factor. Researching relevant hashtags is really important to help discoverability. It’s fine to include your brand as a hashtag but if no one knows about you, then you are shouting to an empty room. Include other hashtags that are more relevant to the posts, the content and the location so that people searching for ‘blue paint’ for example, are more likely to come across you in search results if say, you are a paint brand.

Geolocation tags also help if you are in a specific location. Say you’re an architect that has designed a workspace or a venue, tagging the images of your work at that location will mean that when people are there or looking into the location more, they will know you are associated with it.

Tip 5: Consider collaborating with influencers, ambassadors and content creators

Again, this is something that brands often find hard to invest in. People can often think that “they just want free stuff”. But good content creators and influencers only work with brands they have a genuine interest in and passion for and their followers follow them knowing this. So when they share your product or service, they have a real understanding of it having used or experienced it themselves.

For brands, it allows you to tap into their audiences and brings authenticity to your image. You can share product or service features that you are proud of through the influencers.

It doesn’t have to be a huge investment and collaborations take many forms e.g. advocacy through posts/Reels showcasing the product, ambassadorships, gifted products in exchange for content, paid partnerships and more. You and the influencer have the ability to shape something that works for both of you. However, they are often developing their account as a business too so make sure that you are considering a fair and reasonable offer.

Look at their engagement, do your research and find brands that resonate with you.

Changing platforms can be frustrating but with the right plans in place, they can be a powerful marketing tool and Instagram growth is indeed possible. We hope you find these tips for growing your Instagram account useful. If you aren’t sure where to start, then get in touch with us and we’d love to help and support you.