6 ways to grow your Instagram 📈

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #27 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

Welcome to the Bank Holiday weekend!

We’ve got 2 new team members starting next week. If you’ve followed our recruitment journey you’ll know how excited we are!

Anyway, on with today’s newsletter - we’ll be sharing some really practical tips on getting the most out of Instagram.

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

📩 And if you’ve been forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

6 things you can do to improve Instagram performance 🤳

This week we’re being super practical.

The social media Wild West continues, with people wanting do destroy TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) wanting to destroy itself.

Facebook’s reach and user base is shrinking rapidly.

It doesn’t leave many options.

Increasingly, when we talk about social media growth, we’re primarily talking about Instagram.

So if you’re looking for some pointers to make the most out of it, here are six…

#1 - Audit your profile regularly

When was the last time you touched your profile?

You should be making the most out of your:

• Profile picture

• Bio

• Links

• Story highlights

• Pinned posts

People will decide to follow you (or not) in a split second, and all of the above will influence their decision.

Measure your follower conversion rate by dividing the number of new followers by the number of profile views (both available in the insights dashboard).

Make some changes every month and improve that conversion rate.

#2 - Don’t fight the algorithm

The Instagram algorithm punishes the phrase “link in bio”.

It won’t strangle reach, but it will deprioritise it compared to other content.

There are other words it doesn’t like too.

Book, buy, website, find out more etc.

There are two reasons for that:

1. Instagram wants to keep users on the platform for as long as possible

2. Users don’t want to leave the platform - they want to be entertained

It’s not the only thing the algorithm looks at, and we’ve seen success with some posts that have blatant calls to action, but it’s also widely accepted that you won’t reach your potential if your fighting against Instagram’s objectives.

So think outside the box.

How can you signpost people towards an action without explicitly asking them to do it?

#3 - Take inspiration

Follow accounts in your niché.

Any posts that stop you scrolling, ask “Why am I interested in this?”

Try and get as analytical as possible.

Create a collection and hit “save” on any good posts.

Over time you’ll build up an inspiration library you can refer back to.

#4 - Have fun with features

There are features baked into Instagram that you could benefit from.

Like your close friends list or broadcast groups or Instagram live.

For the love of Zuckerberg don’t just do all of them for no reason and with no strategy.

Think of an idea that will actually provide value, and see if it matches up with a baked-in feature.

Think outside-the-box on how to use them, and try something you’ve never seen before.

#5 - experiment with stories

Reels and carousels perform best; they should take your focus.

But stories, with their stickers and interactive elements, can provide more storytelling options than traditional posts.

They’re also a much better way to sell things, because you can include a link directly in a story (although see #2).

#6 - pick a growth strategy

In our experience there are three main ways to grow:

1. Create amazing content

2. Collab posts with influential people

3. Run paid social campaigns

The first way is the hardest.

It takes expert knowledge and time and testing and resource.

The second is easier, but you ideally need a wide pool of people to collaborate with.

The third is the easiest, but also most expensive.

Pick one, or a combination, and you’ll grow for sure.

That’s all for this week.

If you like the sound of these , but lack the expertise or capacity, hit reply and we’d love to chat about doing them for you!

See you next week.

✌️

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

📺 If you have 43 minutes, watch this great keynote from the founder of Patreon. His talk is aimed at creators, but he lays out the social media environment so well.

📺 Dan binge-watched Fallout on Amazon Prime and loved it. He’s now 43% more likely to survive a nuclear apocalypse.

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍