Here they are! My best tips for how to have a better Instagram and my huge, secret, never before shared tip for more followers. Enjoy!!
1. Take & post better pictures.
This is so important. I’ve personally come a long way with this! Some of my most popular blog posts to DATE feature the worst photography imaginable. I mean… why was nothing in focus? Why was the lighting so bad? In an age where we photograph everything and share it online, I still see an unbelievable amount of shitty pictures out there. Blurry. Out of focus. Not of anything anyone cares about. So, my advice- take better selfies, make sure what you’re taking is in focus and framed well, and ask yourself if this is the best lighting or angle for your subject. Don’t hesitate to edit and improve the piece of media you’re sharing for EVERYONE to see. Make it good!! Is this a photo you’d be happy to see? Would you care? Would you pause and like it if somebody else was sharing it?
For photos of yourself, use this tip RuPaul gave on his podcast: either shoot from the shoulders up, or do full body including shoes (perfect for OOTDs). Almost every photo of me on my Insta is one or the other. Usually, anything in between doesn’t look as good to the eye.
2. Comment underneath your photo with hashtags.
I love that IG just shows it as one comment, rather than showing the comment itself in someone’s feed. Then when other people comment, those are the ones that get featured when people scroll past. This is better than putting hashtags in the body of your caption, IMO, because curious people like me always click that ‘read more’ button, even if you hide them at the bottom!
3. Copy what hashtags to use!
People who have bigger accounts with you still use hashtags, and this is public information. I love certain nail accounts, so on my manicure photos, I go in and read their hashtags first. Sometimes I’ll write them down so I don’t forget the list, and add them to my own pic! With some of them, I never would have thought of them on my own, or didn’t know about them, so I love this trick!
4. Have an excellent, COHESIVE feed.
This is one I could personally do better with! My Instagram is being pulled in too many directions. I post food, nails, and selfies equally, and I’d have more success if I just posted 100% in one of those areas. The nail accounts generally only follow other nail accounts, and same with food. So if you want a lot of followers, think about who your audience will be, and specify your account to that field. Your account can be all you, but make them high quality pics.
5. Posting time is everything.
Certain days and times are just dead-zones. Nobody will see it, with IG’s new algorithm, and nobody will like it. Then it won’t get boosted to the top of people’s feeds, and that photo is basically lost. I’ve made this mistake so many times, and it sucks!
6. Posing amount is also everything.
Don’t over post!!!! These people are the worst. Gah. I used to follow girls who would post seven or eight times a day. I mean, RELAX!! I’m sure one photo is good enough to get across your personal perspective on Earth for the day! If you’re doing something AMAZING, like traveling to Bali, or just got the digital images of your engagement or wedding or something, go ahead and post two. But otherwise pls chill.
7. I REPEAT: POSTING AMOUNT IS EVERYTHING!
On the flip side, you have to post enough if you want IG followers and engagement. If I see an account I like and think about following, I check their last post date. Obviously, I will never follow an account where their last post was December of 2016, unless you’re like, my aunt or something. If your last post was three weeks ago, you can’t expect anyone to be interested in your account, since you aren’t. Ideally, post everyday or every other day. I know that can be really hard, especially if you’re trying to post high quality pics (and repeating a post is unacceptable, unless it’s like… the promo photo for your comedy tour and you haven’t posted it in 30 photos), but it’s worth it when you’re building your Insta Empire (lol, this post is so extra). If you’re a food account, take two great, different angled shots of your pancakes, so that you can post one now and one several photos later when you’re out of material (but try not to do this too much- we’re all wise to this trick, as well as the TBTs to vacation pictures captioned ‘wish I was at the beach instead of the office!’- now we all know you don’t have any fresh photos!)
8. LIKE an insane amount of photos.
I got many of my followers on Instagram in one simple way: I liked SOOOOOOO many pictures. This is by far the easiest way to get people onto your page. If your stuff is good enough, they’ll click follow. It helps if you target people who view your page aspirationally, or who are flattered enough by a like to click that follow button as a thanks. I would like photos in certain hashtags but not others. I never fussed with big hashtags like #AnastasiaBeverlyHills where everyone has bomb, perfect makeup. Those people are looking for attention or reposts from bigger accounts and will never click back to you. But hashtags for smaller makeup companies? Liking photos tagged with specific shades of lipstick or nail colors that I’d just posted myself (but only when your page is mostly makeup or nails) garnered follows. I also liked random ones where the posters were seeking attention, like #bangs (as in, girls who just got bangs and are posting their new haircut online) or #pinkhair (similar). If you’re bored, sick in bed, or curious about this, post a bomb photo, find a hashtag that makes sense with your account, and like photos until you get kicked off Instagram for an hour.
Oh yeah, that’s the other thing- Instagram will definitely flag your account if you like a lot of pictures. When I was really into playing ‘the follow game’, as I called it, I’d just like photos until I was kicked off for the day. Then I’d play again the next day. The best was one week where I was stuck in bed with a horrible case of strep throat. All I could manage doing was zoning out to Netflix and liking pictures at the right pace for Instagram to not flag me (that pace is slower than comfortable for an activity like mass-liking). I got two hundred followers in two days that way. Fun times!
We all share our lives online, so we might as well be really freaking good at it. What are your best tips? PLEASE leave them in the comments below, and let me know if any of this worked for you! You can find me on Instagram @taylordorothy of course.
Happy posting!
Taylor
TAYLOR DOROTHY 