Instagram is by far my favorite Social Media Platform – one could say I am obsessed :
I love that it is a combination of creativity as well as business and awww I just love it so much! But I have also used it to leverage it for my Community here on my Blog.
So today I would like to show you how I use Instagram to grow my Blog!
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Now, to use Instagram to grow your Blog, you can increase your community engagement and drive some really specific and targeted traffic to your Blog. When you think about it – People have to click twice to get away from Instagram to get to another website! Once on your profile and then on your link :). So if they click your link and come to your Blog you can be sure they are actually interested in what you have to say!
In this Blog Post, I want to outline the strategies on how to use Instagram to grow your Blog and Business! Here is what I am going to talk about:
1. Strategies to increase your Following + Use Instagram to grow your Blog
2. How to use Instagram Stories to increase Engagement and create a Community
3. How to leverage what you have learned about Instagram to grow your Blog
Strategies to increase your following + use Instagram to grow your Blog
Let’s jump right into my favorite Strategies to use Instagram to grow your Blog and Social Media!
A. Profile & Feed
Your profile and feed is the first impression you make on someone who clicks on your account for the first time. Literally within seconds, this new someone will decide whether he or she wants to follow you or not! So this is your opportunity to impress! Once they are impressed with your account we can work on using Instagram to grow your Blog!
Now, my friends, the good news is we do not all have to be the best photographers or have the ultimate photo editing skills to be successful on Instagram. There are various factors, which will decide your success on Instagram!
Personally, I find the key to a successful Instagram account is an appealing feed. Now you do not have to spend weeks preparing for one single shot. I believe it is much more about:
Consistency
Brightness and
Community
Let’s make a practical example 🙂
Ohh Couture
Her Instagram is legendary and she is an absolute superstar at what she does! But my friends this is her full-time Job! She has time to prepare for every single shot, edit her images with professional software and brands give her the most amazing stuff so her outfits are insane! Her feed is just so gorgeous I love her! But friends, for the great bunch of us it’s just not possible to do that on weekends or late at nights after work –right? That is sadly the reality for a big bunch of us bloggers!
It’s a lovely Life
But good news, I would like to show you an alternative account of my fellow Blogger Family “It’s a lovely Life”. Now their Instagram Feed is incredible. They have beautiful images and make us want to grab our family and go traveling right now! But their images are not staged or overly edited! They are just beautiful, bright and inviting! Do you think you could take an image like that too? I am sure you can! So why is their account so successful. Their photography is sharp, consistent, bright, inviting, family-friendly, and they create an amazing community. This is key fellow bloggers!
B. Instagram Bio Strategy
To get people to visit from Instagram over to your Blog your Bio needs to be on point! Here are the things I would like you to include in your Bio to use Instagram to grow your Blog:
1. Your Name & What you do
Let people know from the first moment who you are and what your Blog or Business is all about!
2. Where you are from or where you live
People love to relate to you and you won’t believe how many Swiss people follow and write me messages about how exciting it is that I am currently living in L.A. – this is the community that we have mentioned before which is so important!
3. How to contact you
You never know through which channel a potential partner of your blog and business may find you! So include your blog email address and make it super easy for people to get in touch!
4. Call To Action
Call to action are great to increase the engagement on your Feed and Posts! It is magic what a little comment below or Insta poll can do for your engagement!
5. The link to your Website, Business or Blog
This is the only link Instagram gives you and it’s your one shot to get people over to your Blog – use it! There are two strategies I frequently use:
- Direct link to my Blog: whatskatieupto.com or
- I use Bitly to change my Link and then customize it (yes you can do that and it’s free)
- Create Link
- Paste in URL
- Edit the bitly Link
6. Emoticons
I always use Emoticons to loosen up the mood on my profile! Choose emoticons, which describe your business or blog best! Are you a gardener you may want to use a plant emoji! Are you a photographer, go for the camera emoji! Fashionistas use the dress or lipstick emoji! Then make it stick and use it continuously throughout your posts and people will start to combine the dots!
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
C. How to use Tailwind Hashtag Finder
Now, after we have Feed and Bio covered, I want you to introduce you to Tailwind Hashtag Finder!! WHAAT? 🙂 Now I came across Tailwind when looking for a Pinterest Scheduler! But Tailwind actually does Instagram as well, which is pretty amazing! So you can register for Tailwind HERE and you can use the free trial to check it out first! Now Hashtags are essential for people to find your posts and ultimately to use Instagram to grow your Blog! Here is how I use the tool to find the best Hashtags for my posts:
- Upload the photos you are planning to post to Instagram into Tailwind
- Write your post description
- Type in 2-3 Hashtags which suit the post description in order for Tailwind to know what your post is all about
- Press update arrows
- Tailwind gives you a selection of Hashtags which work best for your post. You can just dab them and they are added to your post
- Orange Hashtags are used very often by users, which also means they are highly competitive. With those Hashtags, it is going to be hard for you to rank high on the Instagram Feed. If you are though it will generate the most traffic ever
- Light green Hashtags are less competitive but still very commonly used by people
- Dark green Hashtags are best because people use them, but they are not as competitive. This means your image has a much better chance to rank highly on the Instagram Feed
- Grey Hashtags are niche tags. You can create your own Hashtag for your Blog for example.I have done this on my Blog account and created the Hashtag #bloggybadass
D. Like & Follow Strategy
So, friends the 3 like and 1 follow Strategy is one of my favorites to use Instagram to grow your blog! It is the strategy that has grown my Instagram account the most! Now, I know that the follow and like strategy has a bad reputation and this is because people were following you but then un-following you after a while leaving you alone in the dark and friends – this is uncool!
However, I have used this strategy throughout the years, without un-following the people who are following me and it’s truly a great way to increase your reach and grow your audience!
Ever since Instagram has changed its algorithm it has become super hard to reach even your own followers and grow your community. Basically, the feed shows the most popular posts and NOT the newest posts. Additional, when your post reaches only an average amount of likes within the first few minutes, it is only shown to about 2 % of your followers! The more successful your post is in the first few moments, the more it is shown to your own followers on non-followers!
Now, friends, are we putting our Instagram and Blog faith into an algorithm or are we taking matters into our own hands? I think later! This is the strategy I used to grow my audience sometimes 100 followers a day and use Instagram to grow my Blog!
- Find Instagram accounts which you like and which is similar to your niche through Hashtag search
- Look out for people with beautiful feeds and followers around 2000-8000 people
- Check out this person’s followers
- Always like 3 images and then follow
- Rinse & Repeat
E. Instagram Pods Strategy
As we now know, your posts are often not even shown to all of your subscribers, which frankly sucks right! So when people started realizing they adopted!
Instagram Pods are basically Instagram Groups in the Instagram Messenger where you can collaborate with other Instagrammers. Here is how this works:
- Search for the Hashtag #pod or #instapod
- Find people who are using the hashtag and send them a private message
- Ask whether they have a sharing Pod and if you could join
- Once you are invited there is just a normal Instagram Message Group where people can write to each other
- Now, as soon as you post a new photo you let the pod know you have a new post
- The people in the pod will like and comment on your picture as soon as they see it. This creates early and higher engagement on your post
- Now obviously you will have to do the same for the post of your fellow pod members
- Frankly, its pretty amazing and you get to meet a lot of like-minded and awesome people 🙂
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
How to use Instagram Stories to increase engagement and create a Community!
I just love Instagram Stories so much! Instagram is really killing it with this feature (totally stole this from Snapchat) but I don’t care I am just happy its there. Instagram stories are just the best way to increase your engagement and create a community on your account! Friends this is an essential strategy to use Instagram to grow your Blog so heads up I know its a long post 🙂
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Here is why I love Instagram Stories and how you should use it:
1. Create a Community
People want to connect with the person behind the account and business! If you want to create a community of fans that love you do you will have to get out of your shell and into Instagram Stories!
2. Video is the Future
Facebook and hence Instagram have decided to focus a lot on video which means that the platforms will prefer video over images and text posts! Knowing this you make video your priority! Post 2-10 stories every single day! It doesn’t have to be you all the time! I often post images of my life to stories that otherwise just would not fit into the theme of my feed! Take your community on your journey! Also, it is great to promote your blog posts and lead more people from your account to your Business and Blog!
3. New Gif and Text functions!
Instagram has newly released the Gifs functions, which is a basically funny moving object that you can add to your video post! Honestly, I love them and its great to pop up just static images with a little life! Again Video over images!!! The same thing goes for using different text fonts and colors! Make your Stories your own and give them your personal touch!
4. Call to Actions
Stories are great to Call for Action! You have a new Product, Blog Post, or Course launching! Give it a shootout on your in your Stories!!!! People are highly affected by Calls to Actions! It is super important to tell your audience to check it out now! Friends, this works! Otherwise, your followers are like oh looks nice but I am going to check it out later! Never – you meant my friend 🙂
5. Highlight Stories
Highlight Stories! Honestly Instagram I love you!!! You can now create categories of previous stories from your Archive and section it into different Highlight Story!!! Personally, I have the following sections 🙂
6. Instagram Polls
Last but not least Instagram Polls! My Fave! There is nothing better than to engage your audience than by using polls. Basically, you ask people about their opinion and let them vote! This is huge! Not only love people to tell you what they think, but you also trim your audience to be engaged and active on Calls to Actions! This will be super important once you have something to sell to your subscribers or intrigue them to visit your Blog. Once your subscribers are used to engaging and acting on your calls they are way more likely to buy something you sell to them! Actually sounds logical right!
How to leverage what we have learned to use Instagram to grow your Blog!
There are many strategies out there to use Instagram to grow your blog traffic and one is by Social Media growth! Here is why Instagram can help you grow your Blog:
- Every follower on Instagram is a potential visitor or customer to your Blog and Business!
- Grow your Instagram follower using the strategies discussed above (Tailwind Hashtag Finder)!
- Use your Feed to create brand awareness for your Blog!
- Have a clear path to follow in your Bio – what you do & where to find it (Link)!
- Use Instagram Stories to create Community!
- Use Instagram Stories for Call to Actions!
- Once your Audience is used to interacting with you, they are much more likely to buy or do something you ask of them because they trust you!
I really hope you enjoyed this post and you are now super excited to use Instagram to grow your Blog a loving Instagram Community which supports your Blog too!
Let me know if you have questions or if you would like me to go into details more on some of the topics shared 🙂
Love you guys a lot!!
Xoxo Katie
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
? Found this post useful and inspiring? Want to read it later? Save THIS PIN to your Blogging Board on Pinterest!
