If you are reading this article, chances are that you are a music artist and that you are struggling to keep up with the Instagram algorithm: I bet you are spending hours thinking about content ideas, captions, video editing and content creation and even though you are wasting half of your day thinking how to promote your latest release you are not gaining traction, engagement, followers and most of all new fans.
The Instagram algorithms (yes, there is more than one eheh) are changing every day so it can be extremely frustrating to keep investing time and efforts in something that simply does not bring you results. Check out my top 5 tips on how to make the Instagram algorithm happy this fall.
1 - Use Instagram's new features
Every time Instagram releases a new feature, make sure you use it right away as the platform will reward you by pushing your content to your followers as well as to new potential ones. The best way to stay up to date on new features is to follow Instagram's boss Adam Mosseri or their official Creators account: by following them, you will learn in real time what is new on Instagram and you can integrate their new tools right away.
2 - Engage with your community
Whether we are talking about your existing community or new potential fans, it is vital that you engage daily with people in your niche: liking, commenting, sending DMs and following like-minded profiles for 15 minutes a day will really help the Instagram algorithm in pushing your content and therefore to gain new fans.
3 - Post interactive stories
Stories are a great way to keep the communication open with your current audience. The best way to make sure that you are at the top of people's story bar, is to create content that is highly engaging by asking people to take action on it: interactions include answering to polls and open Q&A boxes, clicking on a slider or a countdown sticker, liking and commenting. Try to ensure that 80% of your stories include a small call to action and avoid overselling by posting links (as they will have the opposite effect on your reach)
4 - Check analytics weekly
The best way to predict if your content will get in the good graces of Instagram's algorithm is by checking how your old content performed: spend a bit of time every week analysing what worked well and what didn't and start creating content that gave you good results in the past.
5 - Create SEO friendly captions
Instagram has been increasingly rewarding captions that are SEO friendly as they slowly want to move away from hashtags. Therefore, ensure that each caption you write includes keywords that explain what your content is about as by doing so, Instagram will push your posts to users who have similar interests.