Did you see that? Everyone out there is busy figuring out how to increase Instagram followers. How to improve engagement and be able to get their business off the ground. So are you, right?
I don’t need to tell you how effective Instagram is for promoting and growing your brand. Professionals and businesses know it well. The possibilities are many. You can show the “human face” of your company, share its ideals and stories that bring it closer to the public. You can and will engage them, delight them and, why not, do new business.
But here’s the problem: You confuse the medium with the purpose.
It’s not a race to get the most Instagram followers; it’s a tough fight to get noticed and sell. So first you’ll have to figure out who your ideal customers are: the target audience who would love to get to know you, follow you and buy your products or services. Then? Then you’ll have to find them.
What are you waiting for? Come on, let’s see how to do it.
Instagram followers: who are your ideal customers?
The beating heart of any marketing strategy is creating relationships with the right people.
Finding your target audience should be one of your priorities when developing a strategy on Instagram.
So, who are these people?
It all sounds very trivial: they are your ideal customers. But, stop for a moment: do you know who your ideal customers are? Do you know or do you think you know?
To get a clearer idea, you need to define fictitious representations of your potential customers, called: buyer personas. Use these questions to seek answers that shape your ideal customers:
- Who are they?
- What do they do?
- What are the goals they aspire to and how can you help them achieve them?
- Where do they find themselves?
- What are they passionate about?
- What types of content do they want and interact with?
- What hashtags do they use and follow?
I know it sounds crazy, but creating a role model helps you. You can understand what your ideal customers are thinking and doing as they consider their options for solving a problem, or as they search for something that satisfies their passions.
Start by putting yourself in the shoes of who your potential customer might be and gather information. This aspect is critical. When you know what your buyers want, your approach can be such that you create a bond of trust that your competitors are unlikely to unhinge.
What may now seem like a waste of time will know how to be your compass on the journey to find your Instagram followers. You will discover how your audience is much more diverse than you thought, and this will lead you to develop diversified strategies that will enrich your marketing plan.
Think about it.
- To create engaging content, you need to know what they like.
- To know how to write attractive captions for Instagram, it is possible if you know what gets their attention.
- To use the right hashtags, you need to know what hashtags they follow.
- To post at the right time, you need to know when they are on Instagram.
You will be able to create a solid base to promote your content and grow a following of genuinely interested people who will want to interact with you. The sooner you define your target audience, the sooner you will begin to structure strategies that can really attract them.
Instagram followers: where to find and reach your target audience
Easy to say, hard to do: where do you find and how do you reach your target audience?
Put away your pencil and compass, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Often the answer you seek is so close you can’t see it. If you’ve defined what your ideal customer profiles might be and segmented them into possible target audiences, now is the time to go after them on Instagram.
Start with the trending topics in your industry. Find out who is pulling the strings in conversations about topics that are on target with your business. The easiest way to reach potentially relevant conversations and, consequently, the profiles most interesting to you, is to leverage hashtags.
If you want to understand how to look for the right hashtags, this content is perfect for you: Captions for Instagram – 5 tips for attracting followers.
Follow the right hashtags
Hashtags have the power to put you in front of the right audience right away. But, after you have identified the most interesting ones, you cannot use them passively. Those hashtags are an expression of your target audience’s interests; if you want to get noticed, you have to interact.
When you find interesting content, like it. Leave a comment. Look at who the people who interact are. Go to their profile and observe. Could they be potential followers? If yes, comment. If you want to get a follow, get noticed.
Also take advantage of the hashtags of events in your industry: conventions, trade shows, initiatives. Find the hashtags of events that interest you and start following them. They are linked to specific events and the people interested are more likely to be “real profiles,” so industry enthusiasts or your competitors.
Again, the modalities do not change. Following hashtags will not be the only thing you need to do. You need to be active. So take the time to view content and interact with likes and comments.
This is not a process that will be over in a moment. Even when you have defined your ideal clients and your profile starts to take off, you will need to continue to examine your industry and observe what your competitors and followers you have acquired over time are doing and saying.
Find Instagram followers by leveraging competitors’ profiles
Finding out who your competitors are and what they are doing is a strategic move to increase followers on Instagram:
- who are your competitors?
- what are they talking about?
- what hashtags are they using?
- do followers interact? If so, what are they saying? Who are they?
Scroll through the list of followers engaged with your competitors and look for active people who might match the prospect profile you have built. Review the profiles, participate in conversations with a few comments, and leave likes on their content.
It’s painstaking work that will take time, but you make sure you build relationships with followers who are “real,” active, and potentially interested in your products and services.
Analyze your content: what do your Instagram followers like?
You need to monitor to see if dynamics change or new needs arise. No one ever said it would be easy. If you want to succeed on Instagram there are apps and bots that can help you and make your job easier, but you need to be active and constant. Attendance.
Start analyzing the content you’ve posted: what works best? What content is liked and what generates the most interaction?
You need to give your audience what they like. Your goal is to find new followers similar to those who are genuinely interested in your content. Then, replicating what has worked will lead you toward your target audience. The audience you wish to interact with.
Analyzing your content also helps you know when is the right time to publish. If the content with the most interaction falls within certain time slots, focus on those. To reach your target audience, you need to post on Instagram when they are online. It doesn’t make sense to post in the morning if the posts with the most engagement are those posted in the evening time slots.
Take advantage of Instagram Insights to get a clear view of your content’s performance and better define your interacting audience. After all, only with data can you understand in which direction you are going and what strategies to implement. You can know the demographics of the audience you are reaching and the level of engagement-it is always important to know who is reaching your content.
Follow Influencers and consider collaborations
Influencers are the gateway to your target audience. Not all of them, of course. You’ll need to find those profiles capable of creating the most impact in your industry.
You can analyze their followers and apply the strategies you put in place with your competitors. However, if you want to make a leap forward, start collaborating with them. They can enable you to reach the followers you are missing out on today. Start with:
- Define the goal: Do you want to collaborate with an Influencer to expand your brand awareness or do you want to increase sales? Whatever the goal, clarify it up front and create synergy with the Influencer.
- Define metrics to evaluate the collaboration: how will you keep track of performance to see if you are achieving your goal? You need to define metrics to measure the performance of your campaigns: impressions, reach, interactions, etc.
Instagram is an effective medium for applying Influencer marketing strategies. If you want to go deeper and know what to do, this article has what you need to identify influencers: Social influencers: the benefits of influencer marketing for your business.
Instagram followers: reach your target audience
Now you know that to reach your audience on Instagram you will first need to figure out who your ideal followers are. Then you’ll have to implement all the strategies you need to find them and get noticed.
Instagram is a positive social network for your business because it connects people with the same interests. So, it’s time to take action. Develop a plan for your content, find the right hashtags and start building relationships.
The key to reaching new Instagram followers is to get out of your comfort zone and connect with your audience and Influencers. If you want to know all the strategies to manage your Instagram profile like a real pro, I created this course for you: Instagram – How to Increase Followers and Create a Business.
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