Do you struggle when it comes to growing your Instagram following? Do you wonder how people gain a ton of engaged, loyal followers?
Social media has become such an important tool for running a creative business – so it is super important now more than ever to ensure you are using it effectively.
A lot of people spend (or perhaps even waste) time on Instagram without a clear plan or any idea of why they’re using it. They don’t know how to grow an audience at all, let alone how to grow the right audience.
If that sounds like you – never fear, Steph is here!
Steph is one of my Thriver Circle members, and when she shared her story of Instagram growth (and concomitant business success) in the Circle, everyone wanted to know how she’d done it. So, I asked her to come on the podcast and share – and lucky for you, she said yes 😉
So, in this episode I chat with Steph Wallace from Mostly Miniature about how she managed to grow her Instagram following from 280 in July to over 5,000 in less than 5 months!
She shares the exact steps she used, and you can use her advice to go about growing your own genuine community of followers who will fall in love what you create – and hopefully, turn into customers, too.
Quotes and highlights from this Episode:
- Get clear on your ideal customer
- Have a look at your most popular posts so you can get a good idea of what people enjoy about what you do.
- De-clutter
- When you discover someone new on Instagram you always go look at their account. So do this to your own!
- Have a look at your account and see which pictures pop up and how they look as a whole.
- The next step is to get rid of all pictures that are not relevant or don’t fit well within your feed.
- Create with consistency
- ‘Is it pretty, does it serve my brand, does it serve my customer?’ {Steph}
- Use the same photography tips and efforts for your Instagram as you would for your Website or Etsy store.
- Find when your audience are online the most and so having posts ready to go at these times is super important.
- Have your core hashtags saved as a note on your phone to save time.
- Connecting with your ideal audience
- ‘Don’t sit back and wait for people to find you because it’s just not going to happen’ {Steph}
- Hashtags are great for making these connections.
- Use hashtags in the form of keywords such as #kidsclothes and also use niche hashtags. Niche hashtags are like a community such as #geekery.
- A great way to find people is to put something in the search bar – see what shows up.
- Nurture community
- Once you start generating your followers you need to ensure you are engaging with them.
- Share your followers content once they post pictures of your products – always credit the person.
- Collaborate
- Find other users that complement your business and work with them.
- Giveaways in a group help share across everyone’s audience.
- Convert to sales
- ‘Don’t underestimate the value of a relationship’ {Steph}
- When you are ready to sell to your audience don’t be embarrassed to ask for the sale.
- Step into the sales role and own it. Be proud of it.
- So much of your audience will miss posts so make sure you put out offers more than once.
- Make sure you always have a link in your Instagram bio so people can follow through.
- Make sure you are going out there and finding your ideal customers. Connect with them. Chat with them. Be authentic.
- Steph offers an in-depth free course that you can access here. (This site/resource is no longer available)
- Find Steph online at Mostly Miniature or on Instagram @mostlyminiature
Download or Listen to This Episode
(You can also subscribe to the podcast and listen to this episode on iTunes + Stitcher – just search ‘Create & Thrive’.)
