A Blogger’s Guide to Instagram Growth

Instagram is the social media platform that has taken over the digital world. If you’re a blogger, this social media giant can be a great promotional platform for your existing content. With this in mind, we created a blogger’s guide to Instagram to help you get started.

While Instagram is a highly visual platform, it has evolved over the years to include different content formats. This is great news for bloggers who embrace multimedia. Bloggers can now share stories, carousel images, video snippets, podcast snippets, and good old images. The evolution of content is a great opportunity for bloggers to leverage Instagram’s fast-growing userbase.   

Why Instagram Works for Bloggers

More and more bloggers are making appearances on Instagram since it’s very helpful to make direct connections with their audience. As mentioned above, Instagram is not just a picture sharing app. Instead, it has become an effective tool that allows us to communicate, sell, and grow an even larger community. Without a doubt, Instagram is more than a personal social media platform. Here’s why Instagram works specifically to bloggers:

• Wide range of users to interact with
• Engagement builds an organic audience and marketing channel
• Excellent opportunity to expand your userbase
• Opportunity to blog content
• Sharing content is not limited to posting photos

Creating for Your Instagram Content Strategy

For bloggers, it’s important to have an active social media presence especially since social media has become an extension of authority. At Ampfluence, we encourage clients to use Instagram daily or as often as possible. Publishing social media posts on a consistent schedule helps your profile remain visible and gives Instagram an opportunity to include your content on a user’s explore page or platform searches. Apart from posting consistently here are some basic considerations you should keep in mind when planning content for Instagram.

1. Start with Research –  Always start your planning journey with research. This process should include researching your target audience, competitors, current trends, and identifying content that user’s in your niche engage with. Here’s a great tip: Check out well-known bloggers in your niche (you’re probably following them already) and scope out their content. Also, take the opportunity to observe how they interact and engage with their audience. A minimum the research process gives you a basic standard to follow when planning out your content strategy.
2. Plan Your Content Theme – After research, it’s time to start actually planning content. If you are a large organization you may have several teams involved in this process. However, for small agencies and brands planning out content can start with a simple Google spreadsheet.  Be sure to set your objectives beforehand this will help you understand what type of content you should be creating and why.Theming is always a comfortable place to start with bloggers as it is very similar to editorial planning. Content theming allows you to take random brainstorming ideas and box them into a series, storyboard, content focus, or quite literally a theme for the month. A simple way to understand the process is to think about the month of February. Since February is commonly known for Valentine’s Day you may consider a “Love the Skin You’re In” Theme. Of course, themes will vary based on your niche or industry. Once a theme is selected you can then begin to focus your content for the month around that theme. Additionally, because bloggers already have existing content you should consider how you’ll successfully weave existing content into your social strategy.
3. Keep it Engaging –  Now that you have a plan in place it’s time to start crafting content that falls in line with your strategy. You can reuse blog content. However, it’s important to be creative with this process and create content that is optimized for Instagram. You don’t necessarily want to paste your entire blog post into an Instagram caption. Instead, think of Instagram as an extension of your brand. Share valuable content on the platform and then offer more value on your website or blog. Overall, remember to keep it social, after all Instagram is a Social Media Platform.

Tips for Bloggers Driving Traffic to Their Instagram Profile

Never miss out Bio

Your Instagram’s bio is the first opportunity to introduce yourself. This is the place to write something about what you do, what you’re passionate about, and what you’re good at. If you want to impress them, then start with your Bio. Take a look at this example below:

Share Your Latest Blogs

Bloggers should always be up-to-date. Share creative that includes your latest blog posts to encourage the audience to visit your blog. To make your life easier, paste the link in your Bio or using Later’s #linkinbio or Linktree so every post includes a link.

Share Behind the Scenes

Sharing behind the scenes is a way to build loyalty and authenticity with your audience. For example, if you’re writing a very interesting blog post, then post a picture of yourself writing it in your favorite coffee shop. Or if you’re doing a video, share a short clip of what you are preparing for your audience.

Be Unique

Of course, be a unique blogger that matches your philosophy. Otherwise, there’s no point in people following your account if you’re no different than anyone else. How to do that? Find a unique theme or style that expresses your personality or philosophy and use it consistently throughout your Instagram feed.

Tips on Creating Instagram Stories for Bloggers

Stories should always be part of your content strategy. Keep in mind it’s likely to become the content type of the future. Stories should be engaging, interactive, and loads of fun! Let’s see on how you can make most of the Stories for your advantage: 

Turn a Blog Post into Stories

Stories are a very interesting content type especially for repurposing blog posts. Often, users are too busy to click on another link and open the original blog – so they’re looking for an easy snackable piece of content to be engaged with. By converting your blog post into a mini version or a series of stories. For example, Jenn Herman does a great job of sharing interesting snackable tips.

Make Stories Fun and Interactive

There are so many features you can use in your stories to make it fun and interactive – polls, GIFs, text, stickers, questions, and many others. Make sure that you make use of all these features to get the most out of your story.

Tease your Audience

If you’re working on something new, then why not share a small teaser through Instagram stories? It will create excitement and anticipation. Even better, if you have an event coming up, then you can do a Q & A session in which you are giving a few hints about what your event is all about. There are many ways to make stories exciting.

Boost Posts

If you feel the need to grow faster, try sponsoring your posts. This brings in new followers to your account and drives traffic to your blogs, a few dollars a day will help add more exposure to your account in this highly competitive market.

We hope that you have enjoyed the tips in this article and that you’ll start to use them in promoting and making your blog account visible. Remember to post relevant, high-quality content, and always stay consistent. But don’t be boring – make it fun, interactive, and engaging to get extra traffic to your blog posts.