“WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS?”
you might wonder. Two summers ago, a buddy moaned. “Emojis in the comments are the bane of my existence.” With 8,000 followers, she might earn 300 likes just by pointing her phone down and snapping her feet carelessly. I had just 950 followers, and none of them were genuinely interested in images of my limbs. This appeared to be an issue. As the editor of a newspaper’s lifestyle department at a time when buy Instagram followers greece was increasingly determining lifestyle trends, I saw it as my professional obligation to dominate the site and get enough followers to be at least a little plagued. Plus, I was in a competitive mood.
My summer objective was to master the science of expanding my account. To prepare, I watched hundreds of YouTube videos in which platform experts discussed “tricks” and “secrets” in a rapid-fire manner. Here are the ten tactics I considered or tried, which helped me increase my follower count by 20% in three months, as well as updated input from two of those eloquent experts:
Define your specialty precisely
The experts unanimously agreed that if you want to expand your fan following, stick to one topic so that your updates will dependably please would-be followers with comparable interests. Dogs. Old residences with sagging roofs. Desserts that are excruciatingly difficult to make. “You need to have one constant value proposition,” said Ben Leavitt, a social media expert in Guelph, Ontario, who’s made 53 YouTube videos to teach prospective Instagrammers similar ideas. But I was unable to complete the task. I didn’t want to be reduced to a single dimension, and I didn’t have time to make a continual stream of tiring tartlets. So I stuck with a “panoply” of themes, as Vancouver-based Instagram specialist Vanessa Lau pitifully puts it.
“Nice captions” are the only thing my postings have in common, she commented after recently reading my page. “Purchase that in your Instagram bio.” That may sound like an embarrassing “niche,” but Ms. Lau has 70 Instagram videos to her credit, one of which has 5.8 million views.
Convert your account to a professional one
This I took care of right away. (This is something that anyone can do for free.) Make the necessary changes in “Edit Profile.” “Professional” status grants you access to “Insights,” stats that show how many impressions, shares, and followers each post received. You can figure out what’s working and do more of it. I immediately discovered why my shot of an obscure 1970s beauty was a flop, despite its measly 37 likes. Even though her curly hair had “a matted, Little Orphan Annie intensity,” as I phrased it, it didn’t get any shares.
Post every day at the same time
“It pays you if you tell Instagram ‘I’m active on this account,'” Ms. Lau explained. And it exposes your stuff to non-followers who are vulnerable to your tricks. According to my Insights, I posted at 1 p.m., when my followers were most active. Given that I spent my hours in a cubicle, rather than scenic Fiji or a photogenic alternative circus, taking nice images regularly nearly killed me. At one point, in my rather sci-fi newsroom, I desperately photographed a large iPhone displayed on a giant screen. One of the new followers, who was first generous, turned out to be vulnerable.
Write long, insightful captions that finish with a call to action
As recommended, I poured thinking. If you follow my example, Ms. Lau suggests using line breaks to break up large pieces of material into smaller, more digestible portions, “so you don’t injure people’s brains.” (She alters the length of her captions.) In terms of calls to action, I insisted on hearing about people’s “most memorable pizza memory,” wanted to know whether they’d sleep in a windowless hotel room “if it saved them $55,” and casually asked if they knew “pigeon eyes were so unique.” It worked, as unpleasant as it was to add “tell me in the comments.” “If you don’t ask for feedback in a dialogue, you won’t get any,” Mr. Leavitt stated. More involvement translates to buying Instagram followers Singapore.
Every remark should be responded to
It also encourages more comments, which leads to increased interaction. Dog enthusiasts offered their pups’ names when I tweeted about a Bedlington terrier called Pippin—an unusual name, I assumed—including SheShe, Basil, Huckleberry, Texas, and three additional Pippins. I tapped out, stretching a little, “Enough Pippins to back up Gladys Knight.” If your followers exclusively use emojis, Mr. Leavitt recommends responding with a neutral emoji, such as the praying hands. “You’d want to avoid the feces emoji.”
