How to Become an Instagram Rock Star
Instagram is THE fastest growing social media platform with over 300 million active users and growing. Read that number again: 300 million and growing. CONVERSATION is king on Instagram. If you remember nothing else from this article, the single most important tip I can give you is this: Engage with people, get to know them and spend more time doing this. Converse. Think about the person at a party or in a group who won’t stop talking. They ramble and ramble and ramble and it’s all me me me. How long do you stick around and listen to them? The same holds true on Instagram: Be vocal but be reciprocal. Want to become an Instagram rock star? Keep reading.
One of the greatest things you can do to help your account and grow it is to align with a rock star. A rock star on Instagram is anyone with a larger following whose account you admire. Do not be a stalker: Honestly, do you want someone pestering you asking to “follow back?” That is a turn off for me right away. Instead, take a genuine interest, talk to the person, follow them, like their photos, shout them out, etc.
One of my favorite Instagrammers is MJ_the_Beagle. He is a Beagle from France with over 72 thousand followers. We have become online pals through Instagram. MJ was kind enough to do a video for Fidose of Reality that we are sharing below.
Here are some time-tested tips that have worked for us with our own dog, Dexter, and our Fidose of Reality account on Instagram, followed by MJ’s video.
1. Follow people who you would like to follow you
2. Get to know people and engage with them if you want them to follow back
3. Use caution when connecting your Instagram account: Seeing the same photo in five places can backfire
Don’t:
• Ask for followers
• Pay for followers: They will get deleted
• Post too much
• Put 50 hashtags on one single photo
• Post crummy, dark photos
• Be an island: Even rock stars do meet and greets and have fan clubs!
Hashtags: Proceed With Caution
Don’t go crazy with hashtags:
•Things changed in March of this year
•Instagram orders images from the time that you posted the original image, not when you applied that hashtag.
• Get it right the first time
• Be more thoughtful at the time of posting to Instagram.
•Some of my best photos have silly hashtags
•#MyMomThinksThisisFunny
•TellItToThePaw
Finally, be sure to track what is working and what isn’t: Here’s how:
Iconosquare – formerly Statigram
* When to post photos – best times
•Most engaged followers
•Dozens of stats about your account
•Can use on a Desktop of Laptop/tablet
We are proud to present Instagram Rock Star tips from our friend from France, MJ_the_Beagle, whom we suggest you follow on Instagram. And follow us on Instagram, too at FidoseofReality.
Are you on Instagram? Tell us your name below and follow us and we will follow you back!
These are all great tips for Instagram. I would love to put our dogs out there…although I’m not sure everyone would think they are as funny as I do….
Thanks for reminding me to check out Iconosquare and PhoneGram Pro! These are in my notes from your session at BlogPaws, but I haven’t gotten to all my post-conference action items yet. But no more! I’m doing it this week.
Instagram can be a tough one. I have found I can get massive followers on twitter and facebook but instagram took me about 4 yrs to get to 2200! I’ll try these tips!
Such great tips, I’m making my way through all of them. I’m doing ok on IG but for some reason I just can’t seem to ever get more than maybe 50 likes on any one photo. Can’t figure out how others get 100 and much, much more on their photos but mine never get more than maybe 50, 60 on days the boost group is sharing on IG. I have close to 600 followers at this point. I don’t know, I guess my photos aren’t quite as adorable as I think they are – LOL! But I sure am having fun on IG!
Love & Biscuits,
Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them
IG Name: caluvsdogs
Thanks for this, Carol. Still figuring Instagram out. Am at @barkandswagger. Already follow you, lady. 🙂
Hi Carol! Thanks so much for doing this post! I found it really helpful! I tend to struggle with engagement and I’m trying so hard to work on that! Our instagram page is http://instagram.com/zoe_and_phoenix
Great Tips! Instagram is tough to get followers unless you are naked …lol I can’t remember that I need to take Pictures of almost everything I do to get a high turn-over
LOL that is so funny, Lorane. It is a very user intensive platform that does require time to talk to folks and get to know them. I have a few apps that help me streamline.
Rofl!
These are great tips! I love Instagram because it’s pretty but haven’t really cracked the code of being hugely successful on it yet. I’ll be trying out your tips to see if I can change that!
These are all great tips and I need to get moving on them. I love Instagram but need to use it in a smarter way.
Instagram is growing more and more popular each day. I think it’s very important to grow your instagram!
This is really helpful advice and the video explains things so clearly! I have to admit I neglect my Instagram account.
Great tips! Thanks!
Love these tips and am going to check out one of those apps you mentioned above. My Instagram really took off these past few weeks, and I’ve been gaining a lot of new followers (for me anyways) each day. I had been using it as more of a personal, yet still blog-related social outlet. It’s definitely a lot of fun!
Great tips Carol… and I admit it… My name is Annette and I’m a Hashtag-aholic. Desperate to reunite lost pets I use every tag available – but I am mindful of making them relevant.
I’m at @PetsAreFound and my pets can be seen on Isagold’s account @Isagold09 (she’s @Isagold on Twitter).
Looking forward to singing some rock hits with you 😉
Thanks so much for the great tips on Instagram. I feel like I’m an Instagram newby as I was late jumping in on the Instagram bandwagon. I need to pay more attention to the photos I post because I’m bad about posting them only to realize that what looks good on my tablet I post from, does not look good on Instagram, lol. I’m shabbychicboho on Instagram. I’ll see if I can find you.
Great tips! Love instagram but need to get a little more comfortable w/the platform. Thanks!
Love it! I have to admit that it took me a while to get to Instagram but I didn’t even initially realize I had followers. Now that I do, I want to find out all the awesome things I could do with this network.