A quick checklist to get your first 10k Instagram followers

On Instagram, the ‘follow’ notification popup glitters your eyes like nothing else. Well, it’s the same for all of us – Influencers, brand marketers, company heads, or the common mass. Everyone is on the run to achieve more followers, 10k – 20k – 50k – 1M… and the numbers are on a constant rise.

And why not, after all, it’s the first metric that defines your success on Instagram. So, while you are just gearing up to grab your first 10k followers, here’s a quick checklist that you can’t forget –

Consistency in your theme

With over one billion active accounts on Instagram, your theme is your opportunity to stand-out. Every Instagram account represents a voice. If your voice is not unique and it fails to impart the message, your whole purpose of being on Instagram will fail. Your voice must align with you as a person (if you are a celebrity), or it must represent the brand’s personality (if you are marketing a company).

The consistent voice will attract your audience, or to be more specific, target audience who is looking out for you. Your posts must all relate to the audience. If you break the consistency, it confuses the audience and your message remains undelivered and your sales funnel never reaches the end phase.

Regularity in posting

Well, as of June 2016, 95 million posts were made on Instagram every day and Instagram usage doubles from June 2016 to 2018. This is MASSIVE!

You can’t afford to not be visible to your audience when everyone else is posting vigorously. Infact, inconsistent posting can cost you your credibility, viewership, and engagement. Your followers expect to see content from you daily. After all, there’s a reason why they hit the ‘follow’ button in the first place. Needless to say, each of your posts must contain matter that drives you closer to your goals. Ideally, you must post one to three times a day. However, if you have just kick-started your journey, and your resources are limited, once a day will serve the purpose.

Don’t forget hashtags

Instagram algorithm carries a lot of weight for hashtags. Hashtags have turned out to be extremely valuable, and my suggestion is to use the whole limit, which is 30 hashtags per post. They increase your reach, visibility, and engagement. They drive you to the viewers who aren’t your followers yet. Research the most relevant hashtags of your industry and prepare a list, save it in your notes and use it in your every post. You can also alter the last few, according to the recent trends to help you rank better. Some people also recommend that you must add hashtags in the first comment of your post instead of the caption since it deters the audience from the message.

Geotags are useful

Geotags are an underutilized technique on Instagram. However, if put-to-use correctly it can generate amazing results. It allows you to tag places where your store is located or where your target audience is likely to be found. In short, you will get geo-specific Instagram followers by this. Say suppose you are a sportswear company, and if you attended the most talked about event in the sports industry, you can geotag the event! This will appear on the feed of all the other participants of the event (which is also your target audience!).

Mark the timings

Now, you have invested hours of hard work and resources to craft one post of Instagram but posted it at hours when most of your audience is asleep – will it make sense? Certainly, No. So do your own research, gauge as much information as you can, because statistically, there are parts in the day where people are more engrossed to this social media platform.

The time you decide should be the best time for you. Based on analytics, different times have different activities. Yes, there is no fixed time for everybody; it varies upon your theme, your aim, posts and lots of other things. Figure out what’s best for you.

However, according to a research conducted by SproutSocial the best time to post on Instagram is between 2 PM to 3 PM, and the best day of Instagram is Thursday!

The journey of a million miles begins with one step. 10k is just the beginning, there are a lot more milestones yet to be covered. And as it is said, success is a never-ending ladder, so is Instagram!