How to Instagram: 5 Ways to Optimize for Maximum Growth

Growing online is hard, am I right, or am I right?

Do you feel as though no matter what you do, you don’t seem to be attracting YOUR people?

You are soo not alone my friend. Many people are struggling to connect online, but I too often see the same mistakes being made by so many ambitious and smart individuals.

Here are five things YOU can do to optimize your profile, to help attract your peeps.

#1 Create a kick-butt bio

What makes a good bio? Basically, it must be clear. Crystal clear. In the first second of stumbling on your page, I need to know exactly what you do and how you can help me.

That’s the thing most creators fail to mention, you may think that your profile is all about you, but if you want to grow, if you want to attract people you have got to help them.

So how are you going to help bring value to your audience and your community? The first lines of your profile need to address this.

Another thing you can do to optimize your bio is to switch your account to a business account. It is going to ask you for a category for what your business is, I encourage you not to choose public figure or a lofty title. Bring it down to what do you do, how and who to do you help?

#2 Make your account searchable

Your name is searchable! Let’s make this work for us, add in what you do into your name. I saw a huge jump in followers when I added ‘Vietnam Travel’ into my name back when I was solely a travel account. This is because lots of prospective travelers are searching for their trips, and when they did my account came up first.

This also adds to page clarity, this is going to make it super clear what your page is all about.

#3 Link to your website

Using Instagram as a TOOL to bring traffic to your website is going to be a big goal and they make it easy to do. Even if you don’t have a website, link to a landing page where you can give your audience something for free, in exchange they will give you their email address. Use this to build a list so when you DO have a website you can direct your list to check it out.

I make my landing pages with FloDesk which I love — you can check them out here, and get 50% off!

#4 Plan your grid

Instagram is a photo-sharing platform at the end of the day, so it’s no surprise that the visual aspect of ‘ze grid’ is a large component to growth. Your photos, graphics, artwork or whatever you are posting must be high quality and look planned.

To plan your grid you can use free apps like UNUM or Preview.

I recommend planning at least nine squares at a time. Be mindful of colors and weight. You want the graphics/photos to look balanced and colors to flow together.

#5 Make sure your hashtags are working for you

Due to the changing algorithms, unfortunately, your followers are not your own. You aren’t guaranteed that they even will see what you are posting unless you pay to boost your posts. Because of this, hashtags are all the more important. Find the ones which are going to do the work for you and get your photos seen by as many eyeballs as possible.

Take a peek at what hashtags successful people in your niche are using. See how many active posts are on them, studies show that between 30K and 200K are going to be the sweet spot, where people are using them, but they aren’t oversaturated yet. Curate a list of hashtags to use on your posts and keep them on a note on your phone so they are ready to use when you post.

How to Instagram