SECRETS to get your

First 10,000+
followers on INSTAGRAM

2: CREATING CONTENT YOUR AUDIENCE

WILL LOVE AND INTERACT WITH

Once you know what type of content is right for your

brand, it’s time to really focus on creating great posts
that you know are going to connect with your audience.
This might seem obvious, but we always see the content
creation itself getting neglected. Find out what your
customers enjoy seeing on Instagram or what themes
resonate with them, and populate your account with
relevant images.

But you’ve got to connect with your audience,

specifically. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.
That’s why it’s so crucial to develop a good relationship
with your audience, so you learn what type of content it
is they like. There have been numerous times when
we’ve posted something that we thought would
absolutely crush it with engagement, but it turned out to
be a dud. Other times we’ve been left scratching our
heads as to why this one post is so popular.

One good way to find out what your customers like is by

checking out what your competition is posting, or what
kind of imagery is used on the websites or blogs that are
popular in your industry.

If you’re in an industry where what you’re selling is

already visually appealing, photos of what you do is not a
bad idea either. However, keep such images in the
minority; posting a lot about yourself on social media is
just like being the person at BBQ who only talks about
themselves.

On that note, it’s really important that you don’t run the
risk of “oversharing.” A celebrity can get away with it
because a large part of their appeal and brand is their
personal life. Fans are genuinely curious as to what
Beyonce is having for dinner or what exactly it is the
Rock is cooking. If you’re running a personal account,
that’s also totally fine, because it’s explicit and clear that
this is an account for sharing your everyday life.

However, if you’re running a professional account,

unless your personal photos actually fit in with the theme
of your brand, it’s not a good idea. For example, as a
CEO or founder, a personal photo of how you’ve
organized your work desk would fit in with your theme. A
personal photo of you in Vegas doesn’t have the same
effect.

Oversharing means that you lose out on engagement

because your content is just too off topic and confusing
to build a consistent audience.

On Instagram, engagement is king. For best results, we

found images that trigger an emotion or questions that
elicit some thought work really well. For example, this
image below got over 95% more engagement than our
regular posts. For Instagram, we’re told that 1%
engagement in terms of likes is a good metric to follow.
People Like Seeing Other People
Include faces in your photos. Images with faces have
been known to increase engagement, because our
brains naturally want to interact with other people. Also,
images that don’t include faces, but using a point-of-view
shot where the camera acts as the eyes of the audience
can help them make them feel like they’re a part of the
image. Despite having fewer likes, you can see how the
following post by Mecca Maxima has far more comments
compared to their posts that don’t include faces.
Calls to Action
Every post should have a strong call to action or CTA
(marketing speak for an instruction for your viewer to do
something) encouraging people to follow you or like the
post in the caption. By adding in a call to action, people
are 25% more likely to follow through on that action than
without it.

This CTA should be relevant to the photo, and not the

same as the one you used in your bio (more on your bio
later). It’s a softer ask.

Think of a CTA as a way to remind people that there is

an action they could take. By adding a CTA to your
image, all you’re doing is reminding your followers that
they don’t have to just scroll on past, they can actually do
other things, including liking your picture, or writing a
comment.

Ask questions in your captions to encourage people to

respond. This is a very simple tactic to make sure that
your Instagram followers are interacting with your
account.

“Putting a question in your caption always

creates interest and forces people to read
and hopefully respond.” – Bianca Cheah,
founder and MD of Sporteluxe

Remember, the one thing you want to achieve the most

with your audience is engagement—you want them to be
interested in and personally connected to your brand and
your account. Gently encouraging them to invest less
than a second into each post does wonders for
cultivating that engagement.

Examples of CTAs are “tag your friends who are like

this,” or “double tap if you agree.” Always give your fans
something to do. This helps your account spread like
wildfire.
It’s Storytime!
Develop a story with your posts. Capture people’s
attention by providing a narrative; don’t just settle for a
generic line of text. Get people invested and show off
how much value you can provide in one go. One of my
favorite accounts to follow is cereal.entrepreneur. Each
Instagram post is accompanied by either a small bio, or
interview with the featured entrepreneur so you get a
chance to know a bit more about them and what they do.
Developing a story also ties into emotion. Always look to
elicit an emotion with your posts. Whether you’re looking
to inspire people, make them laugh, or stun them, your
posts should always aim to trigger an emotion with your
audience. A great example to look at here would
be Chubbies, and note how they’re always looking to
make their audience laugh by posting an assortment of
jokes and memes.
User-Generated Content
Post user-generated content whenever possible. Not
only will this give your brand social proof and make
people far more likely to follow you, but it’ll also help you
build a vibrant and engaged community around your
Instagram account. Frank Body have almost built their
entire Instagram strategy by curating user-generated
content. This has helped them build a community of
engaged Instagram followers, as well as create hundreds
of loyal brand ambassadors. To find out more about their
social media strategy, do make sure to check out our
interview with the founders of Frank Body.

Regularly use your posts

to ask followers to share
their content with you.
Make sure to give them an
incentive for doing this,
though, like running an
Instagram competition or
giveaway. You can easily
curate their posts by
asking them to use your
branded hashtag.
Your Instagram Theme
Getting more people to interact with you also involves
maintaining a consistent aesthetic theme so that your
Instagram feed reaffirms your brand identity. A simple
way to do that is to use the same filter. It makes your
images more recognizable and your overall feed look
more professional. Notice how Herschel
Supply maintains their aesthetic theme by constantly
making sure their posts have similar tones and colors.
Not only do these posts look great, but because of the
consistency you can see how their feed has a natural
flow to it that builds familiarity and affinity.

Remember that quality

always beats quantity when
it comes to Instagram posts.
Don’t post something for the
sake of posting. Always
make sure your content is
providing value to your
audience in some way.

By - NAMESOPEDIA