Instagram Tips and Trick 2019

Would like to share to you what I had been doing on Instagram since last Friday.

I had 3 accounts on instagram, but only 2 have been active. The first is @sianykitty a personal account that is linked to my facebook account. The second is @lesbijouxdesiany this is where I post almost all of my jewelry creation. The idea at the beginning was to get more exposure, but after awhile I feel like it doesn't give me any purpose except for stress.

Everyday I had to figure out what to post in terms of the image as well as the caption.  This is nothing for some but for me it had given me stomachache! Worry because I have a lot of unanswered questions like: Would people like it? Who will see my post? Who are these people? Who do I address to? Should I describe the item like I do on Etsy, or talk about a completely different thing but show the jewelry? How much of a personal stuff can be shared through this platform and would they care? Who are they?

Unfortunately there is no answer to these questions yet..

Ok so what will I share then?

First, my goal is to grow this account. For the moment, forget about the whys and let's skip to the hows.

Last Friday I had found this note from etsy community that I found helpful. The writer basically gave list of tips on how to take great photos, the list that you can read it here. To make it short, the image has got to be shot with soft natural sunlight and clean background.  She also mentioned the most liked image on Instagram have been the photos with an image of an ensemble of products.

So I followed the tips and here are the three items that had been posted on @lesbijouxdesiany the hearts for the consecutive images are 55, 39, 41

The result had been positive for me because so far my most favorite image had been 39 likes, and that's a selfie. I had a hunch that those who liked them are my real friends back home who misses me and were happy to see me alive and well here in France. hehe just kidding.

Solution, I will keep in mind of the group shot every time I have a chance to do it.

Second behaviour, I applied some of the stuff that my husband @dinh did a long time ago in 2018, I know this might be a has-been but it works to find out the 'why' eventually. At least for me. read along.

Let me take you to what I do step by step.

STEP 1
Is to find the best hour to post, you can look at your statistic on the top right menu and click on insight. For this you need to switch your account from personal to business

STEP 2
Post. in my case I pick my group image, I caption whatever comes through my mind that day and voilà

STEP 3
Pick 30 hashtags and post them in the comment right after the post you did. I linked my post to my facebook business page, so if I do the hashtag together in the caption there will be too crowded and eventually won't get full caption, so I prefer to do it on the comment. If you have other solution, or you think otherwise, you are more than welcome to convince me :) Now, how to do hashtag? for the moment I just look around on the images I like and just copy some of them accordingly. I also hashtag the name of my etsy boutique that way in case I have an old client who try to find me, they can find me through the #

STEP 4
Scroll through my follow list (the feed that appears when you click the icon home on the lower left) and like them, but not all! just the ones I really like.

Then after, this is when I start applying @dinh's technique. To like the images that are fresh uploaded.  The fresh post that are uploaded in less than 2 hours, the owners are perhaps still online, and will like back. You can scroll through those who like the image and start liking the image who liked the image. get it? hehe. sounds silly.

I am doing slightly different than him though, instead of only like I also leave a 4 letter comment. for example "What an amazing shot!" "I love the background of your image!" I don't do that every time though I also read the caption, respond to it, or try to answer the question if there are questions posted in the caption. Now this is there the 'why' gets answered. With leaving comments I am forced to interact with other instagram members, and if she/he read the comment and reply, it might be a start of an interesting conversation, if it's only positive vibes brought to the table, you can only reap goodness, thus friendship. Isn't this cute? After all Instagram should be a community of like-minded people.

STEP 5
Hearting. See who made comments on your instagram posts, and heart all of them. Reply if there are comments. Remember, 4 words minimum.

STEP 6 (optional)
You can also following other likeminded users, remember just those who you like, not all of them. I need to share you an embarrassing story, one time (actually last weekend) I had been banned from instagram from liking because I had liked too many images. oops. lesson learned. sorry Instagram god.

STEP 7 the final! finally!
Post the story. I notice that those who scroll through instagram would either scroll through the feed or story. But very rarely both. You can post the story and say that you just uploaded new image, or if you are someplace gorgeous you can put it up on the story. And don't forget to hashtag, not 30, just 1 or 2. You can hide the hashtag with a sticker. It would be amazing if you ask questions in the story, or run a poll. Some people told me to also tag a location, but I don't.

OK THATS IT.

This is what I had been doing since last Friday, and today is Tuesday, I had augmented my instagram followers from 230 to 290 today.

Please note that this is my personal experience, so the result might be and will be different. But this doesn't mean that you can't try what I did. Please go out there with more tips and come back to tell me if I am right or not so right. You are welcome to say hello via instagram here or here 24/24 I love to meet new people.

Enjoy your Tuesday! ciao and bisous!