Instagram Do’s & Dont’s

A great practice to have is to learn from others who have done what you want to do, so you can avoid their mistakes for yourself. This can apply in life and work. So if you are a business owner looking to start your Instagram profile then doing some research and stumbling upon this article is the best first step to take! We have compiled a small list of Instagrams Do’s and Dont’s so you can learn from our experience and the experience of others too.

Post Bad Quality Photos

It is not necessary to only post professional quality photos or to use a proffesional camera all the time. You can post pictures taken and edited from your phone, as long as they tell a story and are not pixeled, blurry, dark, or confusing. (This unless one of the aforementioned are being used as an effect for the photo which can be an option too). The point is to generate quality content that will engage your audience into wanting to follow you, like your photo, comment or even share it!

Focus on Engagement, not Followers

It can be a lot more simple to gain followers than to increase engagement, and when you have an engaged audience you will retain them as followers. What happens is that if you get featured, or one of your posts goes viral: your followers will go through the roof, but if your content is not engaging and interesting you will lose a big part of them in no time. Hence, focus on creating quality content that engages and this will naturally increase your followers.

Be Spammy

When you post too much you will spam your followers and most people are not interested in seeing your posts 3 times a day everyday. Also, don’t be spammy in the sense that you follow a lot of people and ask for a follow back. If you follow accounts within your niche they will naturally follow you back or even feature you. Try to be genuine, and this will attract more than anything.

Be Consistent

There is a difference of being spammy and being consistent, and in order to have the Instagram algorhythm help you and retain your followers you have to be consistent in posting. If you have an audience that wants your content you commit to giving it to them, you can also look for scheduling tools that help you leave posts programmed and give you the best posting times according to your followers.

Play Games

One of the biggest games is buying followers, this doesn’t work because a company profile benefits from active followers and real followers that will hopefully one day turn into clients. Another game to avoid is the “follow for follow back”, because just like we mentioned before, it is better to have active followers than too many unactive. So try to keep it real, and focus on the quality of your content!

Have a Niche

In order to know what to post, and why your followers would be interested in following you, you have to pick a specific niche and be an authority in it. Know what you are posting, educate and teach, inform, and specialize in the area you want to post about. Some examples are travel, lifestyle, beauty products, luxury, etc. It would be even better if you chose a more specific one like “travel in america” or “organic beauty products”.

Abuse Hashtags

Hashtags are helpful when you use them related to the niche you post and what’s on the image you are posting. If you look for the trending hashtags of the moment or just popular ones that are not related, this will not increase the visibility with the community you are targetting your content to, and this will not help your engagement nor your followers number.

Try to get Featured

Shout outs and being feauted in bigger profiles will help you boost your followers, however always remember that these have to be related to your area so the audience reached will be automatically interest in your content and this will be valuable followers as they will stay, and interact with your content.

For us at MediaCenter social media is always a very important part of a content marketing plan, and when we create a strategy we keep in mind these do’s and don’t for our Instagram profiles and the ones for our customers. We have learned them from our own personal experience and from the experience of others, so always keep in mind that the best do is to learn from others that have more experience than you.