I know everyone and their mother will tell you to get on multiple social media sites to increase website traffic. And they aren’t wrong. You can gain a lot of traffic just from Instagram growth.
Look, it’s true that social media is a great way to get more website traffic. But, this doesn’t mean that you need to open an account on every social media site tomorrow and just start posting, tweeting, hashtagging and Instagramming until you get some traffic.
You NEED to be strategic. Most people do not use social media right because they simply throw some posts up day after day without any repeatable, scalable strategy.
Start with ONE social media site for now. Once you nail down your strategy for the first one and you gain some ground, move to the next (if you need to).
If you are going to start with one, make it Instagram.
If you don’t yet have an Instagram profile, here are instructions on how to set one up. I recommend you set up a business account. (Note that Instagram will ask you to set up a Facebook Page. This is optional. If you skip this step, Instagram will create a Facebook Page for you but you don’t have to do anything with it.)
If you have never used Instagram before, here are some specifics on how to use the platform.
Should I use Instagram?
You may be wondering if Instagram is the right platform for your business.
While Instagram is a great choice for ecommerce brands, any business that can post compelling imagery can increase website traffic using this platform. From service-based businesses, t-shirt businesses, to local shops to any product-focused business, Instagram is where it’s at right now.
Let’s dive into the four-week hustle to 10,000 followers. Disclaimer: I can’t guarantee you will get 10,000 followers in four weeks but I’ve seen it done. Actually, I’ve seen it done in two weeks!
Even 1,000-5,000 targeted Instagram followers would boost your website traffic and help you snag some brand partnerships (more on that later).
After your initial four-week push you can keep going with these tactics at a slower rate to maintain traffic growth. Or keep up the same pace, it’s up to you!
You don’t have to do it in four weeks either (don’t stress), but the key is to get the steps done and keep it up.
Let’s get to it.
Post 6-8 times a day. (Don’t post crap)
I said this was going to be a hustle right?
For the initial four weeks (and beyond if you want), post content 6-8 times a day. Spread out the posts throughout the day so it doesn’t look spammy (don’t post one directly after the other).
If you want to upload all of your posts at once and schedule them to fire at specific times, use tools like Plann or Later.
This initial content boost will attract consistent followers but only if your imagery is good enough to spark interest. It has to be eye-catching and engaging!
Here are some tips on what to post:
Post images of people
People-focused images increase engagement and draw more attention. Humans attract humans. It’s as simple as that.
Make your products the star
Post compelling product images that showcase your products in their best light. Jewelry and lifestyle brand Puravida does this well:
Post lifestyle images
In addition to product images, post images of people using your products. These images allow viewers to envision what their life would look or feel like if they purchased your product.
Additional post types
Not every post needs to be product-focused. In fact, it shouldn’t. Mix up your images with other types. You may also run a service-based business so posting products won’t make sense anyways.
Here are some other post ideas:
Balielf is a sustainable clothing/shoe brand that manufactures its products in Bali. In addition to posting product and lifestyle images, the brand also posts breathtaking travel imagery:
Travel photos appeal to this brand’s audience and they get decent engagement as a result.
Bonus: Notice also how the brand mentioned the photographer in its comment. Here’s something really cool: You can curate images from other people (this will save you time!) as long as you give them proper credit. Get some amazing imagery/videos on your profile without doing a lot of work.
Extra bonus: When you credit the original authors, they also get notified. This could turn into some content partnerships (more on this later) or at a minimum, some more engagement and followers.
Quote images
These images can also draw interest as long as they are related to your brand.
It’s difficult for a software company like Sumo to create product and lifestyle images since it doesn’t sell a physical product. Instead, the brand publishes branded quote images that speak directly to its target audience of business owners and entrepreneurs who are in the trenches growing their businesses.
Quote images are easy to create. Visit these sites to get quote inspiration:
Then, add the quote text and your logo to a background. Below are my favorite free apps for creating professional-looking quote images (no creativity required):
Here’s another list of nine web and mobile apps for creating quote images.
How about some behind-the-scenes content? Don’t be afraid to show your customers your brand personality and culture. Leading Australian digital marketing agency King Kong posts multiple behind-the-scenes images weekly.
Note: King Kong could have also just shot a pic of this employee. But instead it included subtle brand inclusions with the Instagram caption photo background.
If you are just starting out and you don’t have any employees, behind-the-scenes content could include you working on your website, ordering samples, in an important meeting, etc.
How many different image types should you post daily?
There isn’t a hard and fast rule here. Just vary up your post types and see how your audience responds. If you notice your audience likes quote images the best, post more of those. Easy, peasy.
Add hashtags to your images
Hashtags help people find your content. Without them, you will not get many followers because no one will know you exist. Think of hashtags for Instagram like keywords are for Google.
Add 20-25 hashtags to each post. Choose 5-8 high-performing hashtags that have millions of posts, 5-8 that have fewer than 100,000 posts and 5-8 that have fewer than 10,000 posts.
High-performing hashtags have more people searching for and using them, but this comes with higher competition. So your post will likely get lost in the users’ search pages if you use only high-performing hashtags. This is why you want to vary up the hashtags between high, mid and low-performing.
Where to find hashtags:
- Find relevant hashtags for your business using Hashtags and TagFire
- Search your competitors and top industry influencers and use some of their hashtags.
- Use Instagram’s Explore feature to find trending hashtags. Notice how Instagram lists the number of posts next to the hashtag. This is how you know how competitive the hashtag is.
- Use popular hashtags that pertain to the day of the week
I recommend gathering a group of hashtags that pertain to your brand and its industry. Gather enough that you can rotate them periodically, at least three sets. Then, for each individual post, add some unique tags that relate to the image.
In this example below, I pointed to some hashtags that may relate to the image only. You will likely not find them on every image this brand posts.
Tip: Post the hashtags in the first comment so they don’t clutter up your post caption. Add five dots, one under the other, so the hashtags aren’t visible to viewers upon first glance. This is what the comment looks like opened up:
Engagement
The key to greater engagement on your Instagram posts is to make people want to respond. You can do this by asking questions, urging people to “double tap” to like the post, and asking people to tag a friend.
Here’s an example of a caption urging followers to tag a friend:
Share for Share / Shout for Shout (S4S)
Share for share (or Shoutout for shoutout / S4S) simply means that you share or shout out a person’s profile, and in exchange this profile does the same for you.
Here is an example:
Here’s the breakdown of how this works (we will go into more detail in a second):
- You find a related account to yours that has a similar number of followers and good engagement. The account also targets the same audience you do.
- You message the accounts and ask them if they want to do a S4S.
- If you move forward, you review this partner’s account and identify which image would appeal to your audience. The partner does the same with your feed.
- You share the partner’s post on your feed mentioning the partner and telling your followers to follow this account. Your partner does the same on his feed and urges his followers to follow you.
I know, I know, I can hear you asking…”How can I get someone to share my content if I only have 100 followers?”
First, I advise you wait until you have at least one hundred to a few hundred followers before you contact people for shoutouts.
Second, don’t go asking a profile with 500,000 followers if they can shout out your one-month-old Instagram profile. Ain’t nobody going to take you seriously. The value (and number of followers) must be mutual.
Promoting a New Instagram Account
Having said that, if you are looking to get some exposure for your two-week-old account, you have a few more things to offer besides followers:
- Offer free product – this works especially well with influencers. We will talk more about influencer marketing later in the post.
- Money – You may need to pay for a shoutout or share early on. How much? Anywhere from $10-$50 each for a profile with 100,000+ followers.
- Become a regular commenter for a high-profile account.
- If they have two times the number of followers, offer two shoutouts for their one shoutout.
How do you know which accounts to work with?
The account should be related to yours but not a direct competitor.
Let’s say you sell makeup products. You probably won’t want to reach out to another makeup brand (unless you know them personally), but you may want to talk to beauty stores, female-focused fashion profiles, and skin care brands.
You can get even more niche-specific. For example, if your makeup is vegan, partner with some vegan skincare brands or environmentally-focused women’s clothing or green home products retailers.
Besides looking for partners who have similar follower counts and audiences, make sure they also have high engagement rates, at least 1-3%.
This means that the last 8-10 posts gets at least 1-3% of likes/comments compared to the total number of followers they have.
If you want to check the legitimacy of an account, use an app like SocialBlade to review the analytics/engagement data of any Instagram profile.
I entered a profile name into SocialBlade and it shows me the engagement:
If you see low engagement, the profile could be a bot or simply not draw engagement. Partnering with them will do nothing for your account regardless of how many followers they have.
How to find people to partner with
Search for related brands directly in Instagram. When you find a couple, search for related accounts by clicking on the arrow here:
Instagram will then show you more related profiles to search.
Where to connect with S4S/Shoutout partners
When you find some people to partner with, contact them on Instagram direct message or email them if you can locate their email address.
Instagrammers generally use Kik to communicate about S4S opportunities. Shoutout groups are typical on these platforms as well. When you get into a shoutout group, you and your group can periodically share each other’s profiles over and over to increase exposure. Can’t find a shoutout group? Create your own!
It might feel intimidating to just email a person out of the blue and talk about S4S. But, it’s common practice with Instagram.
If accounts have a few thousand followers or more, they may already know what S4S is. You simply have to ask if they are interested in doing one with you. If they have fewer than 1,000 followers, you may need to explain it to them.
As long as you are courteous and offer equal value, people will be happy you reached out to them. It’s a WIN-WIN for both parties.
How to turn your Instagram followers into traffic
Getting 10,000 Instagram followers is great, but we need to turn them into website traffic. Isn’t that what we are talking about here?
To get people to your site, you have to direct them to it!
Include calls to action (CTAs) in your posts, which are messages that tell people what action you want them to take. Don’t overdo it though! One out of every 5-10 posts, you can include a CTA to a lead offer or sale.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule though. I mean, if your images look like this from the Brightsidebakeshop, people are going to want to get their hands on these guys as quickly as possible.
As long as your images are highly compelling and add value to your viewer’s visual experience, post away. Too many product-focused/salesy images only become an issue when you are simply posting any ol’ image just to get your website links in there. This is spammy and won’t get you anywhere with traffic.
Bio links
Add links to your bio whenever you post an image that directs people back to your website. Note that you can’t include clickable links in your caption. One workaround is to change your bio link when you post and add a call to action to click on your bio link in your caption:
The 4-Week Instagram Hustle Formula (Recap)
Implement these tactics and watch your Instagram following (and traffic) start to rise. Keep going with it after four weeks and you will consistently increase website traffic.
Here’s a recap of the four-week hustle:
-
- Post 6-8 times a day
- Vary up the content with product, lifestyle, behind-the-scenes and quote images or any content type that will attract your target audience. You can also curate some of the content as long as you credit properly.
- Add 20-25 hashtags in the first comment of your posts
- Include engaging captions and calls to action to visit your website (link in bio)
- Get involved in 1-2 S4S campaigns a day, or at a minimum, 3-5 or more a week. A third of your content can be shoutouts.
Once you hit your target, keep up with this momentum or slow it down a little. It’s up to you. Below are some Instagram tactics you can implement once you get your profiles going:
- Keep posting consistently and keep up the momentum
- Leverage user-generated content (UGC) – Reward customers for posting an image with your product and hashtag.
- Continue S4S
- Consider Instagram advertising when you start bringing in some money.
- Post Instagram Stories regularly and add highlights to your profile
- Use shoppable Instagram Stories stickers
- IGTV (publish videos up to 60 minutes)
- Use Shoppable posts so followers can shop directly from your Instagram images (Jackpot!)
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