06.10.13

My Instagram Secrets

Maybe I’m breaking the rules… I’m not sure. But the purpose of this blog was to document my experience of starting my own business.  So here is what I have learned about Instagram:

You might ask, Why is Instagram important? or, What the heck is Instagram?  This social media application is a simple way to share photos.  With the filters and editing options available it is easy to make even the most ordinary object or moment seem special.

I am using Instagram as a way to reach out to more people in the hopes of gaining more followers.  My thought process is that more followers and people who recognize my name (outside of thinking of Carlos Santana) translates to more people knowing my style and tastes, and ultimately, translates to people wanting to purchase from me.  Instagram has been a great tool to learn about the people following me.  It helps me determine what outfits and accessories are most popular.

When I first started Instagram for my blog I had less than 100 followers.  After requesting everyone I’d known in my life, I just did the minimal account maintenance.  After a couple of months I wanted to go to the next level, but no matter how many amazing pictures I posted, the most likes I could get were 12-15…. I needed to figure out how to step my game up.

With my new position at work I was finding it difficult to put in the time necessary to ‘like’ fashion pictures, follow people, and leave comments.  Then one day, I noticed that one of my friends on Instagram (she is a lot younger than me so she knows a lot more about this world) had over a 1,000 followers….. so naturally I needed to pick her brain.

Now this is where it starts to get a little… hmmm what should I call it… shady/creative/need to know.  There are a couple of tools that busy people like me can utilize.  The first one is Tags for Likes. This website compiles all the most popular hashtags on Instagram and even has them categorized.  You can literally copy and paste them as your photo caption or as a comment and almost instantly you will start getting likes on that photo.   Of course if you wanted to,  you can put all the random hashtags and get a million likes on a picture, but I would be careful with this because your main goal should be to turn these random ‘likes’ into real followers.  This is why I find it best to stick to the categories that actually go along with my pictures.

The next little trick is to help save time.  As much as I would love to sit here and scourer photos with #fashion #style #fashionista all day, I simply just don’t have that luxury.  Instaautomarter is a great tool that allows you to automatically like up to 20 photos at once with the desired hashtag.

Of course there a many flaws that can be pointed out when using these types of methods, but I believe if used carefully and wisely then you can definitely benefit from them.  I was able to take my Instagram account from static to active.  Everyday I gain new followers and now my average likes on a picture are 35-40.  I plan on keeping these followers loyal by making sure I am constantly uploading quality content.

So there is what I have learned about utilizing Instagram so far.  I’m sure I have a lot more to learn, but for now I think I am on the right track to building a loyal following to learn from and support me when I am able to open my store.

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Mentorship 2013 Year in Review