So You Want To Grow Your Instagram Account To Start Getting Business…

I’ve organically grown my account to over 60,000 active followers. My name is Matthew Stallone From Stallone Media and I’ve been active on Instagram for the last five years. I have figured out some proven ways to get more followers who engage and can show you how to do that.

Steps:

Create one with a profile that really showcases and focus strictly on your business, not your personal life.

What you post should not be your kids or family or what you eat but more related towards what you do and what you can provide to clients. People will follow if it is valuable info or interesting. I usually recommend you post anywhere from 4 to 6 images a day. I know that sounds like a lot and sounds like a full-time job but consistency is very important.

Post in the morning, mid-morning, afternoon, mid-afternoon, dinner time and then right before bed usually around 10 or 11 o’clock. The more you post the more Instagram will showcase you, their algorithm recognizes post frequency and will suggest your post to other followers that they might be interested in your topic.

You want to make sure you use all 30 hashtags that Instagram allows you to and obviously what’s relevant with the image itself. If you’re a photographer that does real estate, make sure you provide the location in the hashtags. For example, I’m in Toronto so I use #Toronto #TorontoReal estate #TorontoMLS #Torontoluxuryhomes #Torontointeriordesigners Etc.

People that are searching for specific hashtags are going to be recommended your post.

The biggest success for me is when I tagged certain high profile Instagram accounts that had hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers. When they liked my content and re-posted it, shared and tagged me in the images, that yielded new followers and people also wanted to do business with me. You might be asking why would they tag me? These large Instagram accounts need us photographers to provide them with images so that they can share it on their social media. Without our photos they don’t have content and cannot grow a business. They are always looking for good high-quality photos or interior spaces that they can share. If they don’t tag you, make sure you reach out to them and say “Thanks for featuring my image, can you please credit and tag me on that post?” Now tagging somebody works differently than hashtagging someone. It directly sends them a notification that you mentioned them and that allows other people to also follow your account.

Cross promoting by tagging and sharing is a great way to grow your Instagram account.

The other thing that is very important is you want to make sure you Reply back to any comments on your post. It’s a great way of engaging with potential customers and Instagram’s algorithm will suggest your post.

As a photographer, I suggest that you educate your clients by showing them behind the scenes of what you do, how you do it and why you’re worth more money than the other photographers that shoot basic photography. Showcasing your work helps to gain new clients and reveals your dedication, hard work and effort that goes into your service. Posting videos on your Instagram account is also a great way to grow engagement. Video has and will become the number one source of engagement for social media, so make sure you make more videos as often as you can even if they’re behind the scenes or just a video saying hello and thank you for following. Being personal with your audience is proven to be well received. Social media is another job in itself, you have to make time to engage with your followers and post content. This took me over five years of constant engagement and photo sharing. I do it on a daily basis and it’s been 95% of my referral business. I’ve met so many people around the world, I’ve had so many opportunities that have come up because of Instagram and Facebook. Any other social media platform that you feel is working for you or that you want to be a part of, just make sure you put as much effort into it and what you put in is what you’re going to get back.

I hope these tips and suggestions will help you grow your Instagram and help you grow your business. I invite you to follow me on my Instagram for more tips. My account is @StalloneMedia and my YouTube channel is Stallone Media.