Jason Stone, the face behind Millionaire Mentor, already had a successful business when he started his @millionaire_mentor Instagram company. In a few short years, the business was earning him more than $100,000 a year in affiliate sales earnings. Today, the account boasts more than 5.5 million followers.
Reaching that level of success, however, feels unattainable to many. While not every Instagram business can become a million-dollar company overnight, there are many you can use strategies to earn slow, steady growth.
Most articles will give you tips like "Use Instagram stories!" or "Increase engagement." This isn't terrible advice, but it's also not going to help you stand out in a sea of millions of other businesses.
You need to get a bit more strategic.
So buckle in and get ready for five Instagram tips you won't find everywhere else on the internet.
1. Grow Your Followers List the Right Way
If you really want to see explosive growth on Instagram, you need at least 10K followers — that is when Instagram lets you add "swipe up" links in your Instagram story, which you can use to drive traffic — and sales—- to your website.
Here's an example of what that can look like from the creator of the Strange Planet cartoon:
So how do you get there?
For starters, don't buy likes. Seriously. Besides being gross, it also won't help your business and risks getting your business publicly shamed. It's not a good look.
Instead, work to grow your followers organically:
- Search hashtags related to your industry and engage with folks posting about those topics.
- Run Instagram ads, which targets folks interested in your actual brand and industry.
- Run contests that offer prizes that your target audience will be interested in (bonus points if you pair with a related brand to increase your reach).
There is no easy way to go quickly from 0 to 5.5 million followers. Aim for steady growth and increasing your reach over time. You don't want 100K fake followers; you want actual people who are interested in what you have to say — and sell.
2. Make Sure Your Site Supports Your Traffic
A lot of Instagram tips focus on the actual platform, which is all fair and good until your site crashes because you were too busy growing your Instagram presence to notice you are still using the same cheap shared hosting plan you got a decade ago.
Whomp, whomp.
If you are going big, make sure your website — and web host— can support that traffic. A standard shared host might be okay for low traffic, but a VPS plan is ideal for medium to high-traffic sites. If you sell products, you'll also want to look for e-commerce security features like an SSL certificate and malware protection.
3. Reel in the Hashtags
Hashtags have been a staple for Instagrammers for years — but are they still the most effective way to grow your engagement? Research is starting to show they might not be the golden ticket so many have claimed.
According to a recent report, hashtags can actually hurt your engagement. The shocker? Instagram posts with 0 hashtags see the most engagement — and the more hashtags you include, the lower your reach gets.
Now, these stats might be slightly skewed by famous folks like Beyonce who don't need hashtags to reach their audiences. There are also a ton of banned hashtags that will tank your engagement.
I won't tell you to never, ever use hashtags — but be careful with them. Test a few and see if they make a difference. And don't list 45 unrelated hashtags!
4. Use Shoppable Posts
Shoppable posts are a new-ish Instagram feature that hasn't gotten a ton of attention, which is a shame. Basically, these posts allow businesses to tag products in their actual Instagram photos. Here's a peek at what they look like in user's feeds:
In just a tap of a button, users can buy your products without ever leaving their Instagram feed. To use this feature, you will need to make sure your business meets Instagram's requirements and have a product catalog associated with a shop on Facebook.
5. Cross-Promote Your Instagram Business
If you were building a brick and mortar store, you wouldn't take out one ad in a local paper and run it forever, would you? No, you'd use a variety of verticals so you could reach the greatest number of people in your local area.
Your Instagram business is no different. If you want to see real growth, you need to be promoting your business through Facebook, email, content marketing, and maybe even paid search ads. Nearly any other business or platform can become a cross-promotion partner for your Instagram business.
Summary
Slow and steady growth is the only way to build a successful Instagram business. Take the time to actually engage with your audience and use the authentic strategies above to stand out rather than paying for fake followers or engagement.