How to make it on Instagram as a creative
Almost all of us are kinda confused about Instagram. No wonder, it changed a lot since it’s a part of Facebook and there seems to be an update every few weeks that throws everyone off. But there are some core elements that everyone should have. That’s why I wanted to make this little post on how to make it on Instagram as a creative.
Engagement over Followers
It is hard to not look at followers, because everyone that is not on the business side of Instagram looks at exactly that, but other Influencers and Businesses look at your engagement rate instead of your follower count. Don’t focus on new followers every day, focus on making the followers you have your fans. As soon as they begin to share your stuff it will take off by itself. This is obviously taking a few weeks or even months, but is more sustainable if you really want to make it a stable income source. You grow your engagement through posting good quality regularly with a call to action in your caption and interacting with the people.
Be active for at least 30 min every day
Social Media is called Social for a reason, if you want to grow you need to interact, connect and invest time. Comment on pictures of people that are your potential followers. Which brings me to the topic that you should know what kind of person you want as a follower. There is a difference between young girls that love makeup and middle aged women that love DIYs. Also comment on the pictures of people in your niche that you might want to connect with. I personally also love to answer to Instagram Stories of other people and some of them answer you and you can start a conversation.
Use the right hashtags
I wonΒ΄t talk about how much Hashtags you should use and where to put them. I use 30 and put them in the comments, others use 5 and have them in the caption. As long as their is no proof, that one ruins my account and something else doesnΒ΄t IΒ΄m not going to change that. Why not use 30 if you are allowed to? But I would suggest to have at least 2-3 different hashtag groups for different pictures. The best hashtags for beginners have between 30k-700k pictures in them. Your goal is to be in the top pictures to get seen. Use Hashtags that fit your account, that aren’t banned (Preview has a nice blog post on that) and hashtags that your perfect follower would actually search for.
Give value
If you want to get big on Instagram you need to learn that it is not about you, itΒ΄s about them. You need to give some kind of value to the people to make them stay. Follow the 80/20 rule, 80% content for your audience, 20% content for yourself. Give tips, stories and advice in your captions, give progress pictures if you draw, give before & after pictures if you are a photographer or love fitness, give people loopable content (cool Boomerangs or videos). If you have the time and talent you should definitely try to make videos if it fits with your niche. I personally post a lot about my own journey as a creative and about self-care. I’m still not perfect on Instagram but I could probably make videos around self-care. If you need Inspiration for your Instagram you should check out my Inspiration Mini-eBook that you can get in my resource library when you sign up for my newsletter down below.
Collab with other creatives
If you do all of this for a few weeks consistently you will see something change, your engagement rate, your positive mentions, your DM conversations get deeper. Start asking people that are your size and a bit bigger for collaborations. It’s scary, but worth it. You could do a video post together, maybe take over each others Instagram Stories, or use the multiple picture feature to show both sides of something you planned so nobody needs to go to another profile to see the other side (in my opinion this converts people easier to follow someone else).IΒ΄m always open to connect and collab, if you don’t already follow me on Instagram you can do that HERE or @rayowag.
Concentrate on valuable content, not on your follower count. Good organic growth takes times. And thats how to make it on Instagram as a creative.
If you need an inspiration boost – I got you. I wrote a whole ebook that helps you with creative ruts and gives you some creativity prompts that you can get in my resource library that you can get access to if you are a part of my Newsletter Squad. Sign up for free:
Did you enjoy this post? Share it on Pinterest!
