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Ready to learn how to grow your Instagram? It’s my favorite tool to connect and engage with people, find new friends, and new customers. Today I am going to teach you 3 things you can do to grow your Instagram account and ultimately scale your business to new heights.

I really do love this app but I also know that it causes so many people frustrations and confusion. You are tired of fighting the algorithm and just want to start enjoying it for what is again, right? 

Time and time again I hear the same questions and concerns and sounds of desperation of how to make Instagram work for your business. I find myself having to remind my students that Instagram is JUST social media. While it can be such a powerful tool for businesses, we need to remember the roots of what makes us fall in love with it. 

In this episode I am going to be teaching you 3 simple yet powerful things you can start doing today to boost your instagram engagement and start gaining more followers.

Grow Your Instagram Account

I remember first creating an Instagram account for my photography business and thinking that I could just hide behind my work and it would speak for itself. However, after time went on and my business wasn’t so shiny and new anymore I got totally lost in the crowd. 

YOU can have 1000 followers and make a 6 figure income if you know how to utilize what you have at your fingertips. If 1000 people gave you one hundred dollars each, you would make one hundred thousand dollars.

However that is obviously easier said than done. I know you are thinking, “yeah Sarah that’s all fine and dandy but how does one actually get them to want to buy what I have to offer?” Which brings me to my first tip.

Tip #1 – Show your face.

Too many of us are hiding behind what we do, instead of sharing who we are.

When I was in the thick of trying to be like every other Photographer out there it gave me some serious comparison issues and feelings of worthlessness. I doubted myself and thought that maybe photography just wasn’t for me. 

But one day I kicked my butt into gear and unfollowed any accounts on Instagram that made me feel anything less than joy.

I started to show my face more on my feed and in my stories and just became my weird, goofy self. And do you want to know what happened? The posts on my feed where I would show myself, got SIGNIFICANTLY higher engagement, and would bring in double the amount of followers. But why?

When you show up on social media, you are showing that you are a real person. If you want to grow your instagram, you need to show your face. Not just some robot sharing pretty photos.

Tip #2 – Engagement

We often times get so wrapped up in what we are going to post and spend so much time writing out the most amazing caption and pairing it with a great photo that we forget about those on the other side of the screen.

How can we expect others to engage with us, if we are not going out of our way to engage with them?

It sounds a little weird, but you have to train your followers to engage with you. You can do this by putting call to actions on your posts, and in your stories, but you can also do this by reaching out to them directly. 

Comment on their posts, and their stories, send them messages, or share things with them that would be helpful. 

Keep in mind the algorithm favors comments of 4 or more words. Don’t just slap a heart emoji under every post on your newsfeed and call it good. You want to be intentional and meaningful behind your comments. Read their captions, fully take in their photo and respond accordingly.

Make sure that when someone leaves a comment on your post you are responding to every single comment. You don’t have to do this immediately, but I like to set aside 20 or so minutes a day to just engage with others. It’s so important that you are acknowledging the fact that someone took the time to respond to your content. Don’t leave them high and dry by ignoring it and moving onto the next.

Tip #3 – Alternating Topics

Along with posting photos and videos of ourselves, we want to make sure we are alternating topics or in other words, we are going to create content based off of our branding pillars. 

You are going to choose 5 topics that represent who you are. For example, if you are a coffee connoisseur, and you just love getting your Starbucks drink everyday or whatever your jam is, that could be a branding pillar. 

Other topics such as being an animal lover, fashion guru, being a mom, or a wife, work as well. They do not have to be fancy or totally unique. In fact, the more relatable they are, the better.

Keep in mind that these topics you are choosing are not all related to your business. If you are a photographer, then only one of your branding pillars should be related to your photography business. The rest are whatever other titles you carry are or the things you enjoy doing outside of work.

Once you have your branding pillars, you can list them out and underneath them, you can list content ideas for each of those topics.

This helps you to attract people who can relate to you to then which you should nurture those relationships for what they are at that time. As time goes on, and you speak about what you do as a photographer one of those people who followed you for your love of coffee, might end up needing a wedding photographer down the road and now you are in the front of their mind. 

Remember, there are people who are watching you from afar, who may not be ready to book you yet, but they are waiting for that moment when they can. 

Recap

3 key points from this episode on how to grow your instagram account. 

Number one – Show your face on your feed, your stories, make instagram reels, IGTV, all the things. Just show up for your people.

Number two – Engage with others. Never just expect people to engage with your content if you are not engaging with them. Be a real human being and remember there are actual heartbeats on the other side of those usernames.

Number Three – Have alternating topics so that your content is always fresh and can serve a wider range of people and grow your audience in new ways. 

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