Growth hacking is a way of rapid experimenting across marketing channels to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a business. To be concise, growth hacking means using inexpensive strategies to grow at a very high pace. Here are some things that you can apply with your Instagram account to get a shot at success and make a living through it. These techniques will help you gain more audience on your Instagram account.
Focus on quantity as well as quality
Quality needs to be a priority in every case but if you are going for growth hacks, you must focus on the numbers. The higher the number, the more strength you have in marketing. You could give people a reason to connect with your brand which might cost you some money but gives customers for sure. Since you are focusing on growth, other things are less important. Having large numbers means having a lot of followers on Instagram and you can do it in many ways. A large following is the first step before applying any of the other growth hacks.
When you have a large following, you can use it towards earning. If you are a brand who sells products or services, you could give a link to your online shop and show some of your great products. If you teach some skill or sell your book or podcast, you could share a glimpse of that on your Instagram and encourage people to buy it.
Use other brands and influencers to your advantage
When you are starting out your marketing journey on Instagram, the easiest way to get followers is by selecting a set of accounts of brands and influencers which belong to your niche. The people who follow these accounts are obviously interested in their niche so they may be interested in your content also. Going by this thinking, you need to start giving follows to the followers of those selected accounts. When they will see your profile, it is highly likely that they will give you a follow back. You can extend this strategy further by opening accounts of the followers and liking and commenting on their posts. This is a simple approach for increasing followers without the need of having to ask people to follow you, they will do it themselves.
You can further do a collaboration with brands and influencers or ask them to do a sponsored post for you. The influencers could ask their followers to buy your product which will result in a lot of sales and profit for you.
Post every day at peak times.
This is one of the newer hacks on Instagram. People have found out specific times in a day which results in more likes and comments on your post than if you post at just any time. When you think about this hack, it makes sense as if you publish a post at night-time when most of your audience is asleep or they have logged off the platform, then they won’t be able to see your post. By the time it is the next day, your post will have gotten lost in the ton of posts done after yours. Research what times are best to post on different days or experiment yourself and find out what suits you and post content every day at those times.
This will keep your followers entertained and if you don’t post content every day, you will lose followers as your followers are there for your content. Doing this will maintain your brand image and trust and further encourage people to buy from you.
Try to create viral or trendy content
This is one of the most popular ways of hacking your way into popularity. Be active on social media and be aware of what are the latest trends and things that are going viral on the platforms. Try to replicate their success by making a similar post like the one that got viral. It is more than likely that people who saw the original post will like yours too. Use hashtags on your post such that people who search for that post also find your content. If you can create content that is loved by the audience, they will share it. You will truly go viral when a huge amount of people shares your post.
This will increase your popularity by leaps and bounds and you can start to do sponsored posts for other brands and earn significantly and make a living.
Improve your search engine rankings
One of the ways to get more followers on Instagram is by having a good ranking on search engine results so that people who search about your brand or your niche, your profile gets shown to them. This results in a lot of organic traffic to your account and you can take the traffic wherever you want. To improve your ranking, you need to utilize all Instagram features. Use geotagging and hashtags wherever possible. Have a filled profile including name, bio, link, etc. Use keywords that relate to your brand in your profile information as well as your posts.
When your search engine rankings are improved, you could take the traffic to your website or your online shop and you will receive a lot of sales. You could also take the traffic to Instagram and do shoppable posts there.
Sonali Sharma is a social media writer at BuyTrueFollowers who also contributes for hundreds of other blogs. Her articles predominantly focus on social media and are widely followed by readers from all over the world.
Instagram stock photo by ALEX_UGALEK/Shutterstock
