Part 1 - How to succeed on Instagram

Part 1

I thought I’d put down my thoughts on Instagram and how you can actually still grow your account In the face of (a) the algorithm and (b) all the crazy rules they apply these days.

I have no clue how long this will be by the time I’ve finished but I’m going to share what I’ve done to be moderately successful in my niche.  We’ll look at consistency, how to get your work seen, how to get the best out of the platform, how to grow followers (and by the way I have never bought followers, please don’t ever do this,  you run a very real risk of being deleted), how to protect your account from deletion and probably a bunch of other things I’ll think of along the way.  I don’t believe any of this stuff is amazing or some secret recipe, it’s not a 100% “how to hack Instagram” formula, the majority of this is common sense and understanding how the platform works.  There is no magic silver overnight bullet, no quick win, no instant success, it’s like anything  the more you put in the more you get out.

Let’s start with looking at the basics of running a successful account, as often actually just following the basics is all a lot of people need to do.  I hear time and time again “ I can’t get followers” and “no one sees or likes my posts” and when I go check the account they are not in any way following the basics.

By the way, there are no shortcuts here, my account is sitting on the way to 125k followers which I know is small compared to a lot but it’s also significantly bigger than a lot of other photographer accounts and it hasn’t happened by accident or overnight, it’s been nearly 6 years of effort and hard graft, so probably the first thing to learn is that growth doesn’t happen overnight, so if you aren’t willing to put the effort in then you may as well stop reading now.

First rule of Instagram is to know your audience.  Who are you aiming your content at? Are you producing content they will like and interact with?  This, by the way, is mostly going to be coming from my own experience with a photography account but this applies equally to any other niche.  You need a clear purpose with your page and (I believe this helps) a general aesthetic.  People who are going to follow you need to know what they are going to get and for that to be consistent.  Do you post only mono artistic images? Is that your thing? If so, do that and stick to it, dropping in a colour shot of a landscape randomly, disrupts your flow of likes – which is what the game is all about.  So much of Instagram and the algorithm is consistency, posting consistency, posting content that people consistently engage with, posting at similar times to suit when your market is up and around.  If you get a lot of engagement from the USA, there’s no point posting when they are all asleep.

Which brings me to my first MUST DO! If you haven’t already then for the love of all that’s holy switch from a personal to a creator account, it opens up all sorts of insights and extra things (like broadcast channels) that aren’t available on personal accounts.  There is no reason not to have a creator account, they really don’t differ from a pro account either, just I like the creator tag, and you can set your bio with (for example) Photographer, which I love.

You’ll get access to what they call the professional dashboard, it gives you insights and stats on all sorts of things related to your posts, followers and your account, understanding in detail what people like and engage with and when is key.  If you don’t have a handle on what people like and don’t like, then you may as well throw your phone in a nearby river.

Let me loop back to consistency for a second.  You need to be posting a minimum of 5 times a week at the times when your audience is around and actively engaging.  Also you need to be posting a mix of reels, static single photos and also carousels (multiple photos and videos in a single post).  In general Instagram will reward you the more of it’s features you use (something we’ll come onto later).  So mixing up your content will keep IG happy.  You may well find that some content always does better, I always ,always get better engagement on reels for example, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still post photos.  What you must not do is get hung up on individual posts, this is a marathon and not a sprint, you need to think about all your posts over a week or month and how well they do as a whole.  Stressing about a single post and how it does is a pointless waste of your time and energy and will just make you depressed.  Plus, it’s not all about the likes.  If you have a post that’s been seen 100 times but only liked 10 vs a post that’s been seen 10 times and liked 10 times – which is the better performing post?  The 10 and 10 is the one that gives the better rewards, so these are the things you need to be looking at, so many people think likes are the be all and end all, they really aren’t – that’s a key mindset you need to change.

Personally I only post Monday to Friday as weekends my audience just doesn’t seem to be around.  That’s something else to consider posting something and getting poor engagement on it can actually be worse than not posting at all.  Think of your place in Instagram as a sports league table.  Stuff you do moves you up and down the rankings on that table and the better you do, the better you do – as IG will show your account and posts to more people the higher up the mythical table you are. I’m vastly simplifying the whole thing but it’s close enough that it should make sense to you.

So back to consistency again, that sports league table – you are on a spring pulling you down, as you do well and keep posting you fight against the spring and head towards the top, as you stop posting, engaging and doing well then that spring will pull you right back down.  You will have seen this if you take a break then when you come back you’ll feel like you’re starting from scratch.  This is the shitty side of Instagram, they know how to manipulate you and they know how to keep you on the platform, and if you don’t then they punish you.   That’s why growing is mentally very taxing, hell even just staying where you are with minimal growth is an uphill battle, so I will always say please think of your mental health first and foremost, the effort required here really isn’t for everyone.

That’s the end of part 1. In part 2 I’m going to answer the question “how the hell do I get people to see my stuff?”