What works to grow your Instagram following today is completely different than what it
was even just six months ago.
So this is my account six months ago, and I was kind of stagnant and stuck.
And now, this is my account today.
Everything I'm going to share with you in this video is exactly how I have grown my
account and more than anything, really grown my engagement.
It felt like I wasn't even getting found in the algorithm.
It felt like only a tiny fraction of my audience was able to see my posts six months ago, and
now I'm racking up a lot more engagement on my photos.
In this video, I'm going to share the four factors to owning the Instagram algorithm
and my Post Less, Reach More strategy.
Let's bring it back to January 22nd of 2019 when Instagram released this statement.
Instagram tweeted, "What shows up first in your feed is determined by what posts and
accounts you engage with the most, as well as other contributing factors such as the
timeliness of your posts, how often you use Instagram, how many people follow you, et
cetera."
"We have not made any recent changes to feed ranking and we never hide posts from people
you're following.
If you keep scrolling, you will see them all.
Again, your feed is personalized to you and evolves over time based on how you use Instagram."
Interesting thing to note here is that Instagram actually hasn't really changed at all.
Their algorithm may seem like it's gone through ups and downs, but it really hasn't changed
all that much.
It's how we interact with it and how saturated the platform became with using the same strategy
over and over and over again.
So the key really to owning the Instagram algorithm is understanding the algorithm,
and understanding that it's pretty much remained the same from day one.
It's just that we have to adapt how we use it.
So four things to note are: In the statement it said, "Posts and accounts you engage with
the most, timeliness of posts, how often you use Instagram and how many people you follow."
I paid super close attention to those key phrases within that statement and started
implementing some changes on my account.
And that's really what led to skyrocketing growth and engagement on my account.
So let's dive in to those four things.
Let's start from the bottom up.
So the first thing is how many people you follow.
Now, before you go and follow like 1,500 people at once, that's not really what this means.
It's more so about looking at Instagram as a business because it is a business after
all, and the business is built on social interaction and retention on the platform, meaning how
long are people staying on the platform.
And if you can get people to stay on the platform, then Instagram is going to like you a lot
as an account and benefit you in the algorithm.
So a couple of things that I do.
You may have noticed that in everyone of my YouTube videos, I always say, take a screenshot.
You can do that right now, and share it out on Instagram and tag me.
When you do that which a lot of you do, so thank you, you tag me and it shows up in DMs
and I'm able to comment back and forth with you.
And that shows Instagram that I'm keeping people on the platform.
I'm actually driving people to the platform and I'm creating relationships within the
platform which increases the retention, which increases the worth really of the business.
Because the more retention, the more people on the platform, the more advertisers want
to work with Instagram.
That's one big thing.
Other little tricks to create real relationships, and less about following more about relationships
is DMing people out of the blue.
So when people follow me, sometimes I'll just send them a voice mail and say, "Hey, welcome.
How is it going," and start a conversation because again it's keeping people on the platform,
and I get to build real relationships.
The other thing is in my stories, I'll do polls or I'll ask questions and that spurs
engagement with my account.
So it's showing Instagram that I'm actually building a solid foundation with my audience
and I care about building relationships as opposed to just distributing content.
So what happened was and the way that we were interacting with Instagram that wasn't working
is we're using it just to distribute content and wait for the lights to roll in.
That's no longer how you can use Instagram.
Now, you have to use it super actively.
So, when you're doing a post, ask questions in the comments, get people to comment in
your post.
Comment back and forth with them.
Create that sense of engagement, comment in the DMs, create conversations in the DMs.
Don't sit back and wait because Instagram wants you to show the platform that you're
actually creating retention.
That's tip number one to owning the algorithm.
Tip number two, that was made very clear in that statement from Instagram is timeliness
of posts.
That one little phrase really triggered me.
When I started experimenting with about six months ago was I stopped curating my feed.
I stopped taking these picture perfect, highly edited photos and I went for real, raw, in-the-moment
photos, and guess what?
Those photos and videos have 10x the engagement what my perfectly curated feed had before.
So you have to think about the facts here.
Instagram is called Instagram for a reason.
It is about capturing your life in videos and photos in real-time, so right here, right
now.
That was the whole ethos and purpose of the platform when it first started.
So I'm not saying you have to do every photo in the moment right now because you still
want it to be quality and you want to have a caption that really engages people.
But having more real, raw, authentic-looking photos is an amazing strategy today to get
more engagement and get more reach with your content.
Think about the value of Instagram as a platform itself and how we all used to use it when
it first started which was taking photos wherever we were, posting them up and not thinking
much about it as opposed to spending like five hours editing a photo and then posting
it.
It seems and appears based on my experiment that Instagram is moving more so towards in
the moment, raw, authentic moments.
And that's what's really working in the algorithm right now.
The other part about that statement that was a big clue was how often you use Instagram.
The final thing I'll say about timeliness of posts is it's also about the amount of
time you keep people on your posts.
You know it works as far as photo/video content moving towards real, more authentic imagery,
but the other thing is having longer formed captions which is something that I've started
experimenting with and seen an insane amount of results from is a big factor.
Why?
Because if someone is sitting there reading your caption, what does it mean?
It means you're keeping people on the platform longer and also keeping people on your content,
your post longer which tells Instagram that this must be a really good piece of content
and people are spending that much time on it.
The length of your captions is also really important factor and storytelling, weaving
stories into them, you can look at all of mine to get some ideas and some prompts, but
it's a really good way to boost you in the algorithm as well if you're keeping your eyeballs
on there far longer.
I don't know about you, but trying to think of a really great photo, video and caption
on a daily basis, I literally would get nothing else done.
And I used to use that strategy.
I used to post every single day of the week.
And I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
If you can do that and you have the bandwidth to do that, great.
But I'm about quality over quantity.
I do the same thing here on YouTube.
I would rather put out a piece of content that I know is guaranteed to get reach because
I know I've done every single step behind the scenes to get that reach.
When it says how often do you use Instagram, it's not saying you have to post every single
day.
I actually at this point, post the least I've ever posted yet my account is growing the
fastest it's ever grown.
And so this is where my post less reach more strategy comes into play.
What I mean by this is you want to be very strategic and intentional with the post that
go in your feed and post them in a way that you know is going to get engagements.
So I made a whole other video on this on how I post Instagram with all the steps involved
to max out your engagement and reach, so you're going to want to check that out afterwards.
We'll put it in the links below.
But outside that, it's about using stories.
I don't post on my feed every single day but I pretty much use stories on Instagram every
single day.
Why?
Well, as I said earlier, the more that I use stories, the more I'm keeping people on the
platform and the more I'm building the retention on the platform for my audience which then
shows Instagram that I have an engaged audience, and that they should push me in the algorithm
more.
You don't have to be posting every day in your feed, but you should be active in some
way, shape or form on your stories on a daily basis.
I also have this video on Instagram Story Hacks which should you help you with that.
We'll link to that in the description below as well.
But just think about being on it, and not necessarily having to post every day but being
on it in an intentional way sharing value even if it's just on your stories or doing
live streams because all of that leads to people being on the platform longer, which
of course Instagram loves.
The final piece is post in accounts you engage with, which was said in the statement as well.
So there's a couple of things here.
One factor is getting people to engage with your posts, obviously, which I mentioned.
I made a whole video on exactly how to do that to max out your reach with your posts,
so check that out in the description below.
The other piece here is that it's again telling you that if you want to own the Instagram
algorithm, and Instagram is literally telling you this in the statement if you paid really
close attention.
This is what I've been experimenting with over the last six months and you've seen the
growth that I've had, if you're using the platform actively.
Meaning that on a daily basis, something that I do is I go in and I comment and I like and
I share content from other accounts, because again, that tells Instagram that I'm actually
using the platform.
I'm actually active on it and I'm influencing my audience because the things that I'm sharing,
they're getting more involved in and they're sharing that content on their stories, et
cetera, et cetera.
So it doesn't mean you have to be on the platform every single day.
I usually map out 10 minutes a day to go in and engage with accounts with the similar
audience to mine, talk to people on the comments of some of the posts and captions on these
accounts to further my reach and to my build more relationships and get people over to
my account.
But 10 minutes max, that's all you need.
Go and engage with other accounts outside of your own because again, that's keeping
people in the platform.
It's keeping you in the platform and it's telling Instagram that they should favor your
account because you are actually active and you're not sitting back waiting for people
to come to you which is a strategy that just does not work anymore.
I wanted to share one final note with you that I think should be really encouraging
because when it comes to building your personal brand, especially online, there are so many
factors that go into it.
And there's a lot of advice out there to look perfect, to have a perfect aesthetic, get
a photo shoot done, et cetera, et cetera which all of those things can work but I am noticing
a big trend especially in my own experiments and in my own account of reversing and going
back to real, raw and authentic content as I mentioned earlier and seeing the engagement
spike when I did pieces like that.
Another account that I follow who I love, @JennaKutcher, she is a friend of mine and
just an amazing human and content creator.
And she did a post recently that shows you just how fake and misleading Instagram can
be and just how much people are craving real and raw content, and her post went a little
bit viral.
So I want you to take a look at this.
She's basically showing that within a couple of seconds, she was able to alter what her
face looks like and her body looks like using an app on her phone and then she could just
share that altered version up on Instagram.
And people went crazy over it because we all know that this is happening and we're all
craving real.
Don't be afraid to show up as who you are authentically, real, raw.
That's what people want now.
We're sick of seeing photoshopped, same aesthetic, same preset, all day every day.
It's not interesting anymore.
So take it from someone who has almost a million followers on Instagram, Jenna, and the trends
that she is moving towards.
And for me too in doing these experiments, I've really realized what the platform is
favoring and it is favoring more authentic content.
I hope this helps you in building your personal brand.
Let me know what tip you're going to take from this, and actually start implementing.
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I read your comments.
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That's what I'm here to do.
So thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your comments.
Thanks so much for watching as always and I will see you in the next video.