How To Influence Like An Instagram Queen
I'm often asked how to become an Instagram Influencer. "How do you get people to follow you?" "How do you have brands pay you for your posts?" There are many questions that come up when you become an influencer, but it's hard to know what the right answer is for everyone!
I've created a simple guide for all my soon-to-be influencers out there who need help getting started!
First Things First:
Introduce yourself! You'll need a killer bio that makes people understand who you are, what types of posts they'll see, and why they should follow you! This should be a brief one or two sentence synopsis of you or your company!
#Hashtag Strategy:
Your hashtags are the easiest way for new followers to discover you. When you put strategic hashtags on your post, your photos are "tagged" with specific words that help find your posts in a search engine. These hashtags need to be direct and consistent with you or your brand. For example, if you're an influencer in Richmond, Va who loves photographing weddings, your hashtag strategy may be #richmondweddings #richmondweddingphotgrapher and #rvaweddingphotographer (to name a few) so your audience can easily find you!
A Photo's Worth a Thousand Words:
Your photos should be high-quality images that are specific to you. I love using a specific edit on my photos so they all look cohesive when they're posted (no matter what the lighting was like on the day I actually took the photo)! Your photos should be about you and your brand, so if you're all about fitness and clean eating, try to steer away from fashion photos and traveling pics. These don't fit your intended audience and therefore won't grow your following! (Don't forget to post a video from time to time! These are great ways to attract more followers to your feed!)
Caption This:
Once you've found the perfect photos to post, you'll need an amazing caption to accompany it! Your caption should be sweet and simple, and add context to your photo. Tell a story with your caption that accompanies your image, and remember to entice your followers by offering more to see somewhere else! You can direct them to your blog, website, or highlights to find out more about you or whatever you're promoting!
Get Engaged:
A lot of times, I find that people are doing all the things above just right, but they're not responding to comments. This is just as important as all the other details of your profile! Make sure you're responding to comments in an efficient manner (at least within 24 hours), and that you're showing your following just as much love as they're showing you! You should also respond to comments that contain just emojis, as your response helps boost your analytics in the Instagram algorithm. (Getting negative comments? Take a peek at the POSH PR® blog here to learn the best ways to handle those!)
Wanna Be Brand Besties?
Try to work on building relationships with other influencers in your market. Your ideal client will most likely follow these influencers, too, so it never hurts to learn from them! Start connecting and seeing what they've done, and maybe even decide to work together on a collaboration!
Always Be Yourself:
You've heard it before, dolls. There's no one like you, so why try to be someone else? My best advice? Just be yourself! If you're trying to emulate another influencer and be just like them, then what is there to make you stand out? Instead, build your influence on your authentic likes and loves, and you'll find more passion in talking about those things (and therefore, your posts will come more naturally)!
Connecting + Collaborating:
Once you've seen all the signs are showing you to begin the next step of connecting with brands, it's time to do some work. (If you've reached over 1,000 followers, been operating your account for over six months, and your followers are routinely engaged with you, you're definitely on your way to bigger things!) Start reaching out to smaller brands to begin working on your experience, since oftentimes your first connections won't get you rich overnight. These will build up your portfolio and can be used later when you're pitching to higher-end brands. Start making deals and trades that benefit you and them to get more visibility to your page!
As you begin to grow, you may start to see more brands reach out to you! This is where negotiation comes in, dolls. Be ready to walk away if a deal doesn't sound right to you, but you can always be prepared to work for a business if the offer is right! Start building your empire, babe! You're on your way to becoming a true Instagram Influencer!
No matter what way you get there, or what you build your brand on, you can always be a force of influence for followers by being yourself and doing what you love!