Smartfish Group

I don’t think I need to use this opening paragraph to talk about how big Instagram is and how many people around the world are using it to drive a full-time, and sometimes paying, job. Yes, I’m talking influencers, people!  These days everyone wants to be Instagram famous and make thousands of dollars doing it. It sounds like a pretty nice and laid-back life to be an influencer. I thought it was going to be a walk in the park when I decided to open my own public account to share with the world (follow me @tipzy.artist hey!). But I soon came to realize how being an Instagram influencer is literally a full-time job in itself. I have developed a whole new respect for influencers and their creative minds as well as their dedication to their “brand”. There are so many components to sharing on Instagram and making people want to follow you and engage daily. Although I’m not sure I knew what I was getting into when I started, having connected with many local foodie influencers, I have a few great tips and tricks to getting those high numbers of followers:

Create a logo or brandmark for your account. When I am choosing to follow an account, I really seem to gravitate towards accounts that look more official and clean rather than just a random person posing with their cat. When creating a logo, try to make some thing that sums up your brand with one glance.

Post stories to gain new followers. It seems like such a hidden component, but everyone flips through stories. It is much more interactive than looking at a photo on someone’s page. Because social media is so fast paced these days and scrolling quickly through a feed is a way of life, stories get the message across and contain multiple segments of exposure. Stories also seem a little more personal because they only remain posted for a certain amount of time so each post on there is like a real-time update.

Post frequently – don’t be lazy! I think this tip is really important because this is my Achilles heel when it comes to my own account. Life gets busy, especially when you’re not a full-time influencer, and often times posting falls by the wayside. A great way to remedy this is to keep a stash of content in a folder on your phone and pull something out when you’re in one of those crazy, busy, can’t be creative days. Yes, influencers like to use content that isn’t necessarily current to them in that moment. If you had a really great trip a few months ago and you got tons of content, that can last you a few posts and multiple stories and it looks like brand new content each time! All hail Throwback Thursday!@caloric.chaos

Spread the love by following and liking other people’s pages and posts. This sparks a reciprocated like or maybe even a follow! Another big component to this is engagement. Commenting on other posts and replying back to those who have commented on your posts boosts your visibility on Instagram overall. A very wise Boston-foodie once told me, “if you’re more active on Instagram, the Instagram gods show you to more people”. Unfortunately, there are accounts that follow you and unfollow you just to get you to follow them. I struggle with this a lot on my account and unfollows seem to happen more often when I am posting less.

Hashtags are also super important. A tip that makes hash-tagging a lot easier is to create a sticky note in your phone with all of the hashtags that you like to use on every post. That way, you don’t have to sit there writing out a novel of hashtags every single time. You can copy and paste from the sticky note and add in new ones that pertain to the post. Although you might have some hashtags that you like to use regularly, it is important to mix it up and throw new ones in to capture a wider audience.

Coming up with new and creative content can also be extremely time consuming. You don’t want to post the same thing every time and you want it to look enticing enough to get some people to follow. One really good piece of advice that I got from a local influencer is to make sure to post content with yourself as the main focus. People love to see the creator and who is behind the camera. It is much more personable and relatable to see the content as well as the face behind the magic.Remember that you are your brand and you are trying to sell the best version of yourself to the world. That statement just gave me a great idea…gotta go create! Thanks for reading!