Thursday 29 October 2015

7 Basic Tips for Instagram


So last month for #Blogstorm I spoke about understanding Klout. There are many different aspects to it but I decided to concentrate on the aspect of the social media impact.

This all came about with my experimenting that I have been doing on the blog and through social media. This month I decided to do a post about Instagram and how I increased my activity and tweaked what I posting; in the hope to increase interaction.

Instagram is one of my favourite media accounts. It is different to all of the others and is easy to use; despite it being quite quick paced. However, I found these 7 basic tips really helped!



1. 10 Photo’s or 1?

We are all looking for likes and interactions so it is tempting to upload lots throughout the day. However, putting up 1 photo of really good quality is better than 10 poor photos.
Instagram is all about the photos and when scrolling down you want something that stands out and catches the eye rather than a blurry mess.

2. Ask questions
I found that by asking questions on a photo it created a greater interaction and response. All depending on what you have posted. Put food up? Then ask what everyone else is having for that meal.

3. Cross Sharing
Instagram offers you the suggestion to link up other social media accounts. Take advantage of this and link your Twitter and Facebook.

I found that on Twitter linking more people would click on the link and then like than just being on Instagram. It opens you up to more followers and more interactions.
However, this doesn’t work in the same way when linked with Facebook. If you have asked questions then you are more likely to gain interaction on your Facebook post of the photo.

4. Hashtags
Hash tags are great and you can use these to look for more followers as well as them looking for you. Try and be unique and specific though; you can imagine that people using #Breakfast is going to be increasingly high and subsequently you will be lost in the search within minutes.

Something to note: If you have taken the above point and are cross sharing then remember that using them on Facebook can be a little weird. My advice then would be post your photo, allow it to cross share and then add your hashtags after. You get the benefit of them without filling your Facebook feed with Photos and numerous tags!
5. Use a cross sharing App!

I only found out about this from Vicky and her useful Social media posts. Yet I have loved it since and can totally see why you could use it.
When scrolling down your Twitter feed you do see the links provided . The problem here though is unless you have written something eye catching most will scroll past your link. If you post a photo it is more than likely to stand out and gain a greater interaction.

I use IFTTT (If This Then That) it links to your accounts and will use Instagram Photos and cross share the actual photo not just the link!
6. What to post

I will admit that I am not a master at this in any form as I can have varied scores of likes and comments. However, I have noticed that a few get greater responses.
Food: Food always seems to go down well. Many people love seeing what you are eating especially something that is probably unhealthy! For example: My two highest scoring photos are of Chocolate Brownies and Ice Cream and the other is Fish and Chips.


Children: It is tempting to take hundreds of photos of your children and post them but I have 3 points of advice:
1. Cuteness. If you have a moment to capture your child/ren being cute doing something then upload it.

2. Reality. If it’s a hard day, your child is being more intense and difficult snap it. They destroyed your house? Then take a snap. Seeing people as human is much better than faking a Mary Poppins existence.
3. Stick to your theme. I know not everyone has a theme. But if you’re a food blogger then people would expect to see food. As a Home School blogger a lot of my followers want to see what we have been up to.

7. Edit your Photo's.
I am not a world class photographer and I won’t pretend that every photo I take is going to receive hundreds of likes. I also don’t have time to take multiple photos until I get my perfect one.

So when uploading your photo click on the spanner icon and tweak the picture if you need to.
Do you have any tips for using Instagram? Would love to hear them! 



Life with Baby Kicks

9 comments:

Random Musings said...

Great tips. I really need to work on Instagram at the minute so this has been really helpful. I think I will be cross sharing from now on :) Thanks for hosting #blogstorm
Debbie

Anonymous said...

I've only been using instagram for about a week so this post is really helpful, thank you.

Shaz Goodwin said...

Oooh another app to investigate Martyn (am in the process of doing so now).

I was a bit wary of using Instagram because of the safeguarding we have to sign at school but I decided that because of the photos I was planning to post, I wouldn't be breaking any guidelines so finally took the plunge. I haven't used my name for that reason though (children always seem to find us on our personal Facebook accounts!).

I listened to a podcast a while ago from a business point of view and one of the recommendations was to post quotes for interaction and increasing follows. I haven't done this so can't comment on the effectiveness.

I wonder if it makes a difference at what time the image is posted too? I know it does for my other social media accounts. Just a though.

Great post and has got me thinking.

Thank you
Shaz

Tubbs said...

Really useful tips. I'm terrible at remember to post stuff in the first place!

Martyn Kitney said...

Glad this was helpful

Martyn Kitney said...

Yay! Glad it can help!

Martyn Kitney said...

Glad it's got you thinking. As for safeguarding children...well that's difficult. I tag every photo so I know if someone uses it. Another idea is to do a fair watermark.

Martyn Kitney said...

Haha I was like this. I just built it into my routine though

Unknown said...

Great tips. Thankyou Martyn :)