Taking and curating the best possible photos and videos is only the start of ensuring that you’re using Instagram to its fullest potential. In a previous post I’ve already covered the basics of using social media such as Instagram to improve your content output, therefore, in this post, I’m going to outline how to make Instagram instrumental to your blog, which will then drive more traffic to your website.
Add context to your photos
Making your snaps part of a story when promoting your blog (in conjunction with stories!) is a great way of adding context to what you’re posting. Adding hashtags is valuable too but for those of you who would prefer clutter-free captions, there is a way to hide your hashtags as https://www.tailwindapp.com/blog/how-to-hide-hashtags-on-instagram shows. Similarly, if you’re tagging others in a photo, tag them all in one corner so the tags don’t clutter the picture, rather than tagging people or brands all over it. This will give you an extra layer of discoverability and help you grow your audience organically.
Always be engaging
Instagram is a platform where you’re going to benefit from becoming ‘Instafriends’ with peers and influencers. If people comment on your posts, it’s a good idea to be reciprocal. Engage back, comment on and/or share their posts, and stoke the fires of friendship. You need to invest time in engaging with both your audience and contemporaries to build relationships and keep them engaging with you too.
Similarly, make sure your blog content itself is engaging too. Write how you naturally speak and always be genuine. There’s little point creating Instagram posts to promote your blog if readers aren’t going to find anything of substance once they’ve left the platform and landed on your website!
Don’t be afraid to curate the comments
Providing that you’re posting regular, relevant, good quality content and engaging with others, they should be engaging with you too. However, as your account grows, there’s always the possibility of receiving negative comments. Trolls will be trolls, unfortunately! Learn how to hide and delete content with links like https://backlightblog.com/edit-hide-delete-instagram-comments for any unsolicited marketing, nasty comments or weird remarks. Keeping your comments clean and positive creates a sense of positive social proof. Remember, it’s your account and you have every right to hide or delete unsavoury comments, or block people altogether!
Get to know what works
There’s no need to guess which of your posts have been the most popular. Or judge them by likes alone. Instagram has some good analytic tools, but you can dive deeper into them, and in more detail, with https://www.hootsuite.com/platform/analyze. This can give you an overview of all of your posts and how many clicks they get. It will also show you how many people follow the links on your photos to your blog posts. This way you can better learn what engages your audience the most, and what they would like to see and/or read more of.
Optimize your bio
The few lines just below your name is your Insta bio and that’s where you have to shine. That’s where you need to sum up exactly what you’re about in a limited number of characters. An effective way to do this is to use one of the top search result tags that you’re trying to conquer and include it in your profile. For instance, it can be ‘editor’ or ‘indie author’ or ‘book blogger’ or something else particularly relevant to you. It helps you appear higher in the results for people searching using those tags.
In summary, you need more than a pretty Instagram grid. You need to know what’s working, what isn’t, and to use Instagram as a tool for driving people to your blog and website. By following the tips above, it can be a lot easier to do just that.
If you’ve found ‘How to Make Instagram Instrumental to Your Blog’ helpful, check out these related posts:
Why Do Writers Need To Be On Social Media?
10 recyclable social media content ideas for authors
How to create a social media content series and turn it into an ebook
4 thoughts on “How to Make Instagram Instrumental to Your Blog”
I’ve never actually thought to connect both accounts, since Insta and blogging are very different creative outlets for me. Great pointers here. Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome Stuart! Linktree is great for creating a direct link from Instagram to your blog too (for those of us who don’t have the swipe up feature yet!). 🙂