In this article will be focused on marketing and growth. And the key to that is understanding Instagram's algorithm. See, once you understand the algorithm and you see what's happening, it's much, much, much easier to figure out how to get more followers, more likes, more comments, more engagement, and maybe your profile grow virally.
The algorithm optimizes for user experience and dwell time. In essence, the longer people spend on the Instagram app, the better you're going to do. So if your photos, your videos, your profile cause people to spend more time, they're going to be happier with you. And that's really the key because that causes them to make more money. If they make more money, they're happy. And the key with that comes to creating valuable content. And by creating valuable content, you'll be able to keep users engaged with more views, likes, and shares. And it creates a win-win scenario, as I discussed.
If you want to make the algorithm work for you, you need a post multiple times a day, and consistency really make Instagram love you, because if you keep posting consistently, people have to keep coming back to the app to check out your content, which again, makes them more advertising dollars. 
You also want to utilize all the features that Instagram has to offer, from comments, to working with influencers, to direct messaging. All these things help people engage and stay on their platform as well. And the real formula is content feed plus us your IG Story plus highlights plus going live plus IGTV plus direct messages and comment engagement. If you combine all of that, which is the main core features of Instagram, that's when you're going to do really well, even if you also start using reels too.
In addition to that, as I mentioned, you need to post content consistently. 
You want to remix, reuse, repost your top performing content. You don't want to do it word for word, but you can adjust it, spin it. And if you also find that there's other pieces of content that are performing well on your other social profiles, you want to consider testing those on Instagram as well. You also need to keep a close eye on your analytics to see what's working and what's not. And when you get stuff that's working, people start engaging with you. You want to engage back, because when you engage back, it's going to keep getting people to come back, comment, like, share.
So now let's break down how to start marketing on Instagram.
First off, the blue tick verification.
Now this is optional, not everyone has it. And people are like, oh my God, if I get this, it's going to be amazing. I'll tell you this, I know a lot of accounts who have them, I notice a lot of accounts who don't. I have one, I don't notice one bit of a difference from when I didn't have one to when I have one. It's not a big deal, it does build trust. And if you want it, from the Setting, tap account, then request verification. Enter your information, like name, brand name, select a category, submit the official documentation, it's going to vary country to country. And then just wait 30 days, and you'll know if you're going to get it or not.
With likes and comments, I want you to go on other people's profiles who are similar, and you can do this by searching for hashtags. And I want you to like their photos and videos that you like, if you don't like them, don't like them. And I want you to start commenting and engaging with their audience as well as them. This will cause some of those people to come back to your profile and engage with you. It's a lot of work, you have to grind it out, but it's very effective in the long run. It's one of the key strategies to Gary Vaynerchuk success. He was doing this all day long, back in the day on Twitter, and a lot of the other profiles, and still does it today as well as I do because it works.
I also want you to post several times, some influencers post six to seven times a day. 
That could be a lot, aim to post at least once every 48 hours on a consistent basis. Ideally, you want to post at least once or twice a day. You want to do it yourself. If you can't do yourself, have a staff member do it or use scheduling tools. But the key is if you don't post consistently, even if your profile is doing really well in the short run, it starts dying down and it becomes really hard to build it back up.
Also consider doing collabs with other influencers. 
Determine your audience objectives. What are they looking for? Find other influencers in your space that you can work with that can help you determine your objectives or help you reach your objectives and has a similar audience. I want you to analyze their content, find synergies. You can even do things like go live with them. And if you do collabs with them where you create content together, whether it's videos or just images, it can do well because your audience is going to follow them, and their audience is going to start following you.
When you post images, videos, or any type of content, I want you to use the correct hashtags. 
From geolocations to keywords that people may be searching for, there's a hashtag generator, you see the URL on the screen, you can use that. You can also put hashtags in your comments to get more impressions, it works really well. I don't know why more people don't do this. You also want to come up with an interactive branded hashtag, share your locations if you're traveling all about. And you can use tools like Ubersuggest to type in keywords, it'll show you what's popular, to give you idea if a hashtag is great or bad or worth it or not worth it at all.
There's also a lot of automation tools that are worth checking out, like Instashot for photo editing, it can help you create tweets for Instagram. I do this a lot. I'm using Instashot for that. There's also Commenbot for automated comments, good for pushing traffic to page and increase followers, like this works somewhat well. Not as well as you want. Custom manual stuff always works better, but worth a shot, better than nothing.
You also want to try to get featured on big accounts. 
These accounts right here, if your content is interesting, they'll share it, they like it. It's a great way to get way, way, way more followers, especially relevant ones. Because these aren't paid promotions, right? If someone's posting your content naturally, it's because they like it. And if people see it and they like it, they'll start following you as well.
The types of content that I found that get the most traction are vertical based videos, like videos that are specific to your industry.
Instagram stories do extremely well. Try to post personal ones. Influencer marketing works. Instagram Shopping, going live, interactive content, all this stuff adds up. And really when you combine it, does well, especially when you do stuff like behind the scene images or videos. I love the do it yourself images, and you break down like, how to make a pair of shorts out of jeans, or how to optimize your code for SEO, content, giveaways, motivational quotes or images, they always do well. Bright images tend to do better than darker colored images from what we're seeing. Seasonal trendy images do well too. And of course, don't forget the quotes.
When you're writing for Instagram, you need to do a few things. 
One, you need to make your caption very relevant. If it's not relevant, you won't do well. Keep your paragraph short, try to keep it with lines so it's easier for people to read because they are on their phones. Show value sooner than later, don't take a long time to explain to people what the real benefit is for them. And tell your followers to engage with your brand and your content. Don't be shy asking them to comment, to like, asking them questions. And use your most followed accounts in your space for inspiration. So like go look to see what's popular in your space and see what's working for them because that should be your inspiration and give you a lot of ideas.
There's also SEO for Instagram.
I know a lot of people are like what? SEO for Instagram? Well, you can optimize your profile with keywords. You can use tools like Ubersuggest to see what keywords are popular. Make sure you include that in your bio data because that can help you get more traffic as well, and more finds, more followers. And you want to include those primary keywords in your display name or your username, or within your description. You can also use your secondary keywords in your bio as well and treat your as keywords.
As I mentioned, you can use Ubersuggest to find these keywords. You just type in any keyword, go to the keyword ideas report in the left hand navigation, and you'll see a whole slew of relevant keywords. I want you to make a list because you want to keep going back to this list and use them as you're posting.
In addition to using those keywords within your description, within the comments, you can also use them in image captions, take advantage of the alt text in Instagram. You want to avoid black hat techniques or things that are like, get a lot of followers quick, even if that's, "Hey, we can boost your, we can get a lot of fake likes." You don't want to do any of that stuff. Just make sure you grind it out. Do all these good longterm tactics because that's how you're going to see results over time, and get to that 100,000 account.
Your workflow that I want you to use for organic growth is a few things. 
- Blue tick verification, optional, doesn't provide the biggest lift.
- Like, comment on accounts similar to your own.
- Posting frequency, ideally once a day, remember, worst case, once every 48 hours. So once every two days, worst case.
- Leverage collabs with influencers, even go live with them, use a variety of relevant hashtags.
- Do your keyword research.
- Get featured on big accounts.
- Type content that has traction, so like look at the types of content that have traction and use more of them. You can see that based on your competitor's profiles.
- Do the SEO stuff as well.
So some action items, go to neilpatel.com/training, where you can download these worksheets. Click on Instagram Unlocked, go to week two, video one and I want you to download the Instagram promotion guide as well as the tagging and filters guide. So that's it. I want you to start using these marketing strategies to promote your content on Instagram and you'll start getting more followers. If you have any questions, just leave a comment below.
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