The fame, the brand deals, the “picture perfect” life. Don’t tell me you’ve never once thought “Oh that is such an easy life.”. As a follower, we only see what’s on the surface. What we don’t see is the amount of hard work that is put into a career as an Instagram influencer - the research, time, and effort. And more often than not the results reaped is not proportional to the effort being put in and it can become really discouraging.
We understand that starting out as an Instagram influencer is not easy and building your follower base can be challenging.. So we have provided some tips and tricks that you may find helpful as an Instagram influencer starting out 😉
Tip #1: Quality over quantity, always
One mistake commonly made amongst Instagram influencers starting out is flooding their feed with posts. Though consistency and being active is important and has its own set of benefits, influencers should not compromise the quality of their posts because of this. Followers want to see quality content, rather than loads of meaningless posts. By quality, it not only refers to the image resolution but also the story and meaning behind each post.
It's definitely better to have 1 post with high engagement, rather than 5 posts with little engagement. This not only means you are producing content that favours your followers more, but it may also allow you to beat the algorithm.
Tip #2: Choosing a Niche
Choosing an Instagram niche is a crucial step to take for every Instagram influencer starting out. Knowing what you want to specialise in will help drive the direction of content creation for your account, essentially becoming the key building block of your whole aesthetic and vibe as an influencer.
There are many different kinds of Instagram niches out there like food bloggers, fitness and lifestyle, astrology influencers etcetera. The different kinds of niches are endless!
Knowing how to choose the right Instagram niche for you is a whole different topic on its own, check out our recent blog which covers this!
Tip #3: Planning your feed aesthetics
No one likes a messy feed. Planning your feed and maintaining a consistent aesthetic (& consistent type of content to your chosen niche) is important in attracting new followers.
A tool that has been found to be helpful in planning your posts is the Preview app. It allows you to create a fake page and move and rearrange your posts in order to create your ideal feed. The only downside is that in order to use all of its features, a paid subscription is required. The free version currently only has limited features.
Another more traditional method that requires more effort is creating a private Instagram account that acts as your “testing account” where you can “rearrange” your posts by archiving/deleting them.
Tip #4: Optimise your bio and profile
One of the first things prospective new followers will look at is your profile picture, followed by your bio. As such it is important to have a profile picture that best represents you and your account.
A compelling bio should provide a summary of what your content is about and whether it fits the interests of these prospective followers. Using keywords related to your niche would definitely be helpful in creating a solid bio. For those that have a product/service/blog they hope to share, including a link in your bio is highly recommended.
Some good examples of influencer bios and profile pictures are @psychoramen and @caitlinrraine.
Tip #5: Maximising your growth
Other than setting your account to public, converting to a business account on Instagram can reap much more benefits for you. Being able to gain insights on your posts and stories, all for FREE can greatly maximize your growth as an influencer and ensure that your audience’s needs are satisfied.
For more in-depth insights and statistics of all your posts and audience, you can download Avenue where most of the research is practically settled for you. Free for a limited time only, Avenue allows you to gain access to not only your own personal growth statistics as an influencer, but also trending hashtags that may inspire content generation. Avenue also collates all the best times to post based on the type of influencer you are which are all essential research to fully maximise your growth potential.
Tip #6: Being active in all content formats
In the past, Instagram was just a platform for sharing photos and just posting photos then might have been sufficient. However, with more sharing formats like stories, IGTV and reels, posting photos alone is not enough. People want to see a diverse range of content formats, as such it is important to partake in the various different kinds of content sharing.
Additionally, it is important to be up to date with the latest trends on what consumers want to see. Research has shown that 86% of people would like to see more video content, and that social media posts that contain videos receive 48% more views.
Thus, more focus can be allocated to producing video content.
Tip #7: Focusing on meaningful engagement
Focusing on meaningful engagement through asking questions on stories, polls, giveaways or simply just replying to comments can go a long way. Such meaningful engagement are the building blocks of strong relationships between an influencer and their followers.
Showing that you care about your followers and that you are like any other human being with real emotions can touch the hearts of your followers and build stronger connections.
Tip #8: Finding apps that gets you brand collaborations
Last but not least, after you more or less have a substantial follower base, finding brand collaborations is the next step. There are many ways for influencers to get brand collaborations, more of this is covered in our recent blog post titled “Influencer Guide: 5 Tips for Working with Brands”!
Another convenient way to get brand collaborations is through our Avenue app! Apart from the features mentioned above under Tip #5, Avenue also allows you to easily connect with brands that are compatible with you where a compatibility percentage is also shown, thus simplifying the process by a lot. Download Avenue now to make your life as a growing influencer much easier!
