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Organically Grow Your Instagram with David Christopher

Why Use Instagram?

When you read a professional biography for David Christopher you’ll learn he loves Instagram. He is the Director of Marketing and Growth at Tailwind, a Pinterest and Instagram scheduling and analytics tool headquartered in Oklahoma City. He has diligently worked to make Instagram more manageable for businesses.

Instagram is a lifestyle network. Posts there receive 10x more engagement than the posts on Facebook. The platform has 700 million monthly active users and more than 50 percent of users log in daily. The majority of traffic is through the free app and is almost entirely mobile traffic. The audience on Instagram is younger than what you’ll find on Facebook too.

To succeed in using Instagram, you’ll need great visuals that are well thought out. In fact, David says endorsements feel natural on Instagram because of the way the feed feels. With short text and no way to link, businesses feel just like other users. When you put the link in your bio it makes it easy for people to find you from your feed. In fact, David mentioned you get high conversion rates from Instagram.

Using Instagram’s Stories

Instagram Stories are something you should be taking advantage of. Users find them at the top of the news feed and they are incredibly popular. More than 200 million people use the stories every day. In fact, more people use Instagram Stories than use SnapChat.

With the use of Stories, you can make in-depth guides with great visuals for how to use your products or how to interact with your brand. You can use slides or video to tell your story and tell a much longer story in a way people like to engage with.

Positioning

Using certain tricks to help position your company profile can help you reach the right audience. Here are some ideas:

  • Make sure all of your posts are on brand
  • Use consistent colors in posts
  • Make sure posts are aesthetically pleasing–instantly
  • If you use filters, use them consistently
  • Use consistent themes in your posts
  • Ask “Do I want to see this every day?” and use that as a guide for posts
  • The more you post, the faster you grow–so keep posting
  • Post daily to increase your engagement rate
  • Be deliberate in the way you post
  • Use scheduling to help get your post times right
  • Have an editorial strategy–choose what you will post about and make it your strategy
  • Use hashtags–they are a discovery mechanism for people to find things they like
  • Try to get your post into the top posts of a popular, related hashtag
  • Engage in comments, increased engagement leads to more engagement
  • Nine hashtags is the magic number
  • Use a blend of niche hashtags and popular ones

Dos and Don’ts of Engagement

David was full of tips to assist with engagement. A few were:

  • Pick messages that resonate with your audience
  • Don’t be a downer
  • Tell a story
  • Don’t overwhelm your audience
  • Be fashionable
  • Be timely
  • Don’t worry if professional posts get less interaction
  • Give your audience the posts they want
  • Don’t be too clever
  • Endorsements can work
  • Influencer marketing can really work on Instagram

Wrapping Up

David Christopher is incredibly passionate about using Instagram and has tons of blogs to look at when you log in to tailwindapp.com. If you are interested in learning more, you can get a free month of Tailwind service by visiting their site.