Easy answer – the type of content you’re excited about. Your audience is drawn to you, your art, and your personality, not computer-optimized posts. Harder answer – a combination of traditional posts, stories, and reels, with the occasional Instagram Live or IGTV feature that shows off your strengths and works in favor of the oft-feared algorithm. In this installment of “Building Your Brand,” we’ll take a look at how to use the algorithm to spur organic growth, as well as how to use each type of post to your advantage.
THE ALGORITHM
It’s a scary word with negative connotations, especially to smaller influencers who may believe that the algorithm works against them. Fortunately, there are several simple ways to make your posts more algorithm-friendly.
The main goal of the Instagram algorithm is to show your posts to the people who want to see them. For a personal Instagram account, it takes into account the people you interact with most on the app, such as close friends and family. Professional accounts are no different, and engaging with your current followers is the best way to continue having your content show up on their personal feeds. Even if your audience is small, engaging with them tells Instagram that people consistently engage with your content, and as a result, will show your content to more people. You can do this by replying to comments on your own posts in addition to liking and commenting on posts from people you follow. By doing so, the algorithm will start to get an idea of the types of posts your content is similar to and can start showing your content to new accounts via…
THE EXPLORE PAGE
Each individual user has a tailored explore page meant to show them content they’ll be interested in. If Instagram can learn from your activity that you’re a model or photographer, people who interact with similar accounts may see you on their explore page. This is a huge reason why accounts can grow authentic followings so quickly, as the explore page shows your content to people who don’t follow you but algorithmically are predicted to enjoy your content. There’s no way to guarantee a spot on someone’s explore page, but interacting with your followers and other accounts should do the trick.
TYPES OF POSTS
STANDARD POSTS
These are your typical posts – a picture or group of pictures with a caption. You should be sharing these posts at most once a day, at least once a week. This is where you put your professional pictures, show off past collabs, anything you would want people to see when they first visit your page. These posts are also where you’ll utilize hashtags. About 5 per post should be enough, and you can hide them under a “read more” by utilizing dashes or dots to create a vertical gap between your caption and the hashtags. This is a great way to push your posts if your content falls under any niche, as a specific hashtag may reach people outside your typical audience
STORIES
Stories are a great place for more casual posting, as they only stay on your account for 24 hours. Stories are the place for selfies, reshared posts, brunch pics, etc. If you do post stories that you want to save on your account, you can add them to Highlights, making them slightly more permanent. Highlights are a great place to share sets of images, behind-the-scenes photos, or whatever you think fits your profile enough to be saved to it, but not enough to be in your main feed. A quick note – you can add stories to your highlights after 24 hours by accessing your archive.
REELS
Reels are videos ranging from 15 and 30 seconds in length and are one of Instagram’s newest features. Reels are pushed to audiences who will find them entertaining, so they’re a great place to share more of your personality and interests. Examples of reels that may perform well are tutorials and other educational content, comedy skits, industry “storytimes,” and more. Like the explore page, Reels are shown to people who don’t already follow you, broadening your overall reach.
IGTV AND LIVE
IGTV is the place for long-form videos. It’s one of the lesser-used features, but if you create any content over a minute long, this is where it should go. This is also a great place to show off a side hustle if you have one, as the longer video length gives you more opportunities to share your skills without overloading your story or reels.
Instagram Live is a great way to connect 1 on 1 with your audience. As daunting as it may be to be live on camera in front of a large group of internet strangers, it’s a good way to introduce your audience to the person behind the profile. It’s also a fun way to collab with other influencers by adding another Instagram user as a cohost.
