The post you’ve been waiting for – This post will provide some instructions on how your Instagram posts can gain more likes and exposure.

The Big Picture:Are you trying to grow your Instagram but struggling to get increased post traction? These are probably your biggest problems.

Content:

The number one mistake of up and coming Instagram influencers is posting bad quality photos and content. Do your followers a favor by only posting good quality photo’s – Most of you should be fine with the camera quality of recent phone releases. Photo quality is the initial drawing point for most users, the better the quality the more likely the consumer is going to stop, look and like the photo. Minimal editing is also best – slight editing, enhancing the brightness and colours never hurt anybody but stay away from heavy filters and body enhancement – these are very noticeable and detract from your authenticity as an influencer.

We’re not going to lie, photos taken from a professional camera tend to do best for most influencers. It may sound like a big job to get the photos from the camera to a computer and onto your phone for easy upload but a tool we have found super useful to make this process easier: planmypost This website allows you to upload your pictures straight from the computer, captions included. The coolest thing about this website is that you can schedule your uploads to popular post times, which brings us to our next most important point.

Post Timing:

Have you noticed that some posts get more exposure and likes than others? This could not only be due to the quality of the content but also the time at which you’ve posted.

Peak post times as mentioned on hashtagsforlikes are relative to your time zone but social media influencers in 2018 have ranked 11:30am – 1:30pm and 7:00pm – 10:00pm BUT there are also better days to post on that others! Monday and Thursday were rated the best days, followed by Wednesday with Sunday being the least optimal posting day. Also make sure to factor in the time zone you are wanting to target, if you want to target the UK or USA and you don’t live in that specific country.

This is where planmypost comes in most handy – If you live in a small country and your posts aren’t getting noticed by the big boys this is a tool you might consider! By using planmypost you set schedule the post upload to the optimal load time for any country you want, just make sure you do your research. Planmypost also has a hashtag function which allows you to add appropriate hashtags for each post.

Hashtags are a huge component to post exposure, each hashtag you use increases the potential of other users to come across your post. The more likes your posts get initially, boosts the Instagram algorithm to recognise your post and push it out to other Instagram users. Luckily there are a lot of different tools for the most effective hashtags such as hashtagsforlikes this website provides the most popular hashtags for so many different categories they have you covered no matter your Instagram page theme.

Limit Affiliate Posts:

Sometimes influencers get caught up in promoting too many products in order to monetize their Instagram page. When this happens too quickly along your influencer career, it may hurt your reputation. Your audience may notice and become less interested in your truthful content. In our opinion it is better to build your following on an honest basis and limited affiliate Instagram posts in order to gain the following. This doesn’t mean to disregard affiliate posts all together, but only posting things you really believe to be beneficial will gain the trust of your following. Once trust is established and your audience believes you to be credible you can expect much better engagement with your affiliate posts and make more conversions or sales per post!

Sponsored and affiliate posts on all platforms including Instagram have to noticeably show that they are affiliated with the company, essentially showing the consumers that whoever is posting will receive a small commission as stated on an article by The Verge.

This makes the audience aware that the influencer is getting paid for each sale made, and depending on their reputation on Instagram, it is not always for certain that the influencer believes this product is beneficial. It can be seen as a way to make money through commission sales, but if you have built up an honest following and only post products and services every once and a while your followers will take your word for it and you may be more successful with sales through your honesty!

With these tips in mind you can grow your Instagram without questioning if what you’re doing is right or not, speak your truth and if people enjoy your content the rest will follow! Make sure to check out the tools mentioned to increase exposure even more.