Social Media Instagram

Jon

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I know the stories can seem a bit boring but they increase the chance of your posts being seen (if your on insta as a business) so if you post a story then later on it will increase the reach.

Also if you get a comment try to reply within an hour of getting the comment, even if its one of the annoying generic blanket responses, still reply to it as insta pics up the engagement and will show your post to more people.


tailwind is a decent program for pinterest and insta, and it also now can do scheduled posts (thank god!) it analyses your feed and engagement and will predict the best time to post, you can run this completely from your laptop. I think there is a free trial at the moment for a couple of weeks. But at least no need to get the pics to your phone..

the more likes you can get within an hour of posting the better as well, so I will literally text friends and family to go like my post, and also let them know about it so they support me by always liking stuff (same on facebook)

Never knew any of this. Thanks for letting us know @Asacornsgrow

I've heard of Tailwind but one of the few social media service providers I pay for (Buffer) are now offering Instagram scheduling as well https://buffer.com/instagram?source=marketing-site
 

Asacornsgrow

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ah thats good
Never knew any of this. Thanks for letting us know @Asacornsgrow

I've heard of Tailwind but one of the few social media service providers I pay for (Buffer) are now offering Instagram scheduling as well https://buffer.com/instagram?source=marketing-site

ah thats good to know. I hadn't researched it, and tailwind said they had it as they were a partner and it was my presumption they had official permissions or something, so could well be worth shopping around. 2-3 posts a day is optimal apparently, but at least with scheduling you can have a break from it so to speak
 

Jon

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ah thats good


ah thats good to know. I hadn't researched it, and tailwind said they had it as they were a partner and it was my presumption they had official permissions or something, so could well be worth shopping around. 2-3 posts a day is optimal apparently, but at least with scheduling you can have a break from it so to speak

As someone who hasn't got a kid at home and workings a 9-5 most of the time I would struggle to come up with 2-3 pics a day..

It's fine for fashion blogger as It's just part of the norm for them in terms of the pics they would put up but someone like me I just don't live an interesting enough life to put up 3 pics worth a day of it lol

Come to think of it maybe everyone else is the same and that's why i see endless 'money savvy' bloggers uploads pics of receipts and discounted food en mass lol
 

Jon

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Well I'm now at 400 followers on Instagram

Engagement on there is just so damn hard to do in terms of getting people to go from IG > Your Blog

I think it's a great network for creating a persona outside of blog posts which Is always important and there's no doubt you are exposing your 'brand' to an audience that's completely different to that found on Twitter or Facebook which is all positive but I wouldn't look at it as a sure fire way of increasing blog traffic and instead rather another string to your bow which you can use when pitching to brands or charging for sponsored posts.
 

Jon

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Now at 502 followers

I continue to post pictures as much as I can and interact everyday with those I follow both in stories and those posting static pictures

I still enjoy the social media platform. In some ways it is 100% less effort than say Twitter or Facebook as it's just about pictures (though that isn't the case for beauty/fashion bloggers but I've got a blog post all about in the coming weeks!)

I still find it odd that there are people on there that don't have a website / blog or whatever and their content, their brand it 100% just an instagram account!!
 
V

VirtualWombat

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Like Jon, I'm on a Mac so have the advantage of photos being synced instantly between my computer and phone.

For anyone using Windows 10 though, there is an Instagram app in the Windows store that might be useful. I can't speak for its quality though.
 

Joraffe

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I tried most of the suggestions on this thread ( for getting photos from laptop to instagram ) and have found the easiest way is to use dropbox. Still a bit of a pita, but it is what it is! Thanks @Topaz for the suggestion :)

Am just throwing the odd pic on there every now and then, really just trying to maintain a presence there - need to work at building more of a following.
 
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Jon

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I'm still plodding along with Instagram as well

Sometimes I do feel hindered by the fact I'm at work 4 days a week so it's hard for me to put up exciting and engaging content compared to parents who are out and about doing things but I shouldn't compare!!
 

Joraffe

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I know what you mean, I'm at home most of the time and childless and there are only so many photos I can post that have been taken out of my bedroom window! My plan is just to put photos up of meals out, freebies that come in the post etc.

As you said in an earlier post it's less time consuming than twitter - I have just been spending 5 mins a day on it, usually in the evening with something on in the background.

Only thing I don't like about it is that it's difficult to see who is following you on it, so have downloaded an app - but not sure if I have got the best one.
 

Jon

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Has anyone tried using IG TV yet instead of Instagram Stories??

I don't quite get the difference between the two!
 

Asacornsgrow

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Has anyone tried using IG TV yet instead of Instagram Stories??

I don't quite get the difference between the two!


Well in some ways there's not a huge difference, but the main things are;

- stories you can put static pictures on so not necessarily video content and it comes with the sticker option which means there's lots of functionality.

- at 10k followers on stories you can swipe up and send people directly to link which helps getting people where you want them

- they both take portrait video, but you can only go live on stories

- you can post much longer video on IGTv, it depends on your number of followers but around ten mins, stories is much much shorter

- you can put 30 hashtags in the caption for IGTv this is more difficult on stories and you can only do a few really. Which makes IGTv way more searchable than stories.

So practically speaking you can use stories to help with engagement on your posts, I personally like it for more relaxed stuff, behind the scenes, and I do a daily story with a theme each day, so Friday is always follow Friday and I recommend another account to follow for example.

IGTv is a place for video content like what you might do on YouTube. I personally however find it's difficult to get people to stick with the longer videos and I think this is because IGTv is very new and people aren't used to longer content on there. So I do a regular video that's very short, as in 25 seconds and I hashtag the crap out of it to bring new followers my way and to also get my own followers used to the fact I do IGTv. It just adds value to the account.

Stats sure that generally the younger audiences engage with video more so this may affect your viewing numbers. You can take a look at my Insta if it helps at https://www.instagram.com/she_hustles_inc/
 

Jon

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Well in some ways there's not a huge difference, but the main things are;

- stories you can put static pictures on so not necessarily video content and it comes with the sticker option which means there's lots of functionality.

- at 10k followers on stories you can swipe up and send people directly to link which helps getting people where you want them

- they both take portrait video, but you can only go live on stories

- you can post much longer video on IGTv, it depends on your number of followers but around ten mins, stories is much much shorter

- you can put 30 hashtags in the caption for IGTv this is more difficult on stories and you can only do a few really. Which makes IGTv way more searchable than stories.

So practically speaking you can use stories to help with engagement on your posts, I personally like it for more relaxed stuff, behind the scenes, and I do a daily story with a theme each day, so Friday is always follow Friday and I recommend another account to follow for example.

IGTv is a place for video content like what you might do on YouTube. I personally however find it's difficult to get people to stick with the longer videos and I think this is because IGTv is very new and people aren't used to longer content on there. So I do a regular video that's very short, as in 25 seconds and I hashtag the crap out of it to bring new followers my way and to also get my own followers used to the fact I do IGTv. It just adds value to the account.

Stats sure that generally the younger audiences engage with video more so this may affect your viewing numbers. You can take a look at my Insta if it helps at https://www.instagram.com/she_hustles_inc/
Interesting

I agree with you that people on IG don't want LONG content.

Heck 99% of the time i'm tapping through stories with the sound off anyway so something has to interest me enough to MAKE me want to put the sound on lol
 

marriedmeeples

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Well in some ways there's not a huge difference, but the main things are;

- stories you can put static pictures on so not necessarily video content and it comes with the sticker option which means there's lots of functionality.

- at 10k followers on stories you can swipe up and send people directly to link which helps getting people where you want them

- they both take portrait video, but you can only go live on stories

- you can post much longer video on IGTv, it depends on your number of followers but around ten mins, stories is much much shorter

- you can put 30 hashtags in the caption for IGTv this is more difficult on stories and you can only do a few really. Which makes IGTv way more searchable than stories.

So practically speaking you can use stories to help with engagement on your posts, I personally like it for more relaxed stuff, behind the scenes, and I do a daily story with a theme each day, so Friday is always follow Friday and I recommend another account to follow for example.

IGTv is a place for video content like what you might do on YouTube. I personally however find it's difficult to get people to stick with the longer videos and I think this is because IGTv is very new and people aren't used to longer content on there. So I do a regular video that's very short, as in 25 seconds and I hashtag the crap out of it to bring new followers my way and to also get my own followers used to the fact I do IGTv. It just adds value to the account.

Stats sure that generally the younger audiences engage with video more so this may affect your viewing numbers. You can take a look at my Insta if it helps at https://www.instagram.com/she_hustles_inc/
You can a lot of hashtags in stories but picking a background colour for the text so it hides it. It's time consuming but hashtags like "#fruitoftheday# has got me hundreds of views eventhough no one can see the hashtag in the story ;)
 

Jon

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You can a lot of hashtags in stories but picking a background colour for the text so it hides it. It's time consuming but hashtags like "#fruitoftheday# has got me hundreds of views eventhough no one can see the hashtag in the story ;)
Do those hundreds of views translate into views through to your blog though?
 
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marriedmeeples

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Do those hundreds of views translate into views through to your blog though?
Probably not but I feel popular for a few seconds. I don't really use instagram to drive traffic to my blog. I do put up a post when I've published a new content but I don't force it like I used to.
 
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Jon

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Probably not but I feel popular for a few seconds. I don't really use instagram to drive traffic to my blog. I do put up a post when I've published a new content but I don't force it like I used to.

I think i've come to accept this as well lol

How unearth you are meant to drive people to your site if you have less than 10,000 followers and don't have the 'swipe up!' feature I don't know!!
 

marriedmeeples

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I think i've come to accept this as well lol

How unearth you are meant to drive people to your site if you have less than 10,000 followers and don't have the 'swipe up!' feature I don't know!!
Beats me too. I'm tempted to try the linktree thing (if that's how it's spelt)
 

Bethdb

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I have made an Instagram account for my blog and added the corresponding icon to my blog.

Not really sure what to do with it though, since it seems I can only load up photos from my phone and all my blog photos are on my laptop.

The idea of photographing the images on my laptop with my phone and then uploading them to instagram seem ridiculous!

What do you guys do?

You can log in to Instagram on a laptop and upload photos from there, if that helps
 

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