As complicated as Instagram can get, there are loads of little tips and tricks to help get your content in front of more eyes. Many of these tricks might seem obvious, but the more you use, the more Instagram will favour your content! Try to use all these basic techniques together for the best results.

Location tags

Tagging your location in an Instagram post is by far the easiest way to get it seen by some extra people! It only takes 5 seconds; it doesn’t require any research since you (hopefully) already know where your business is located, what area the photo should target, or where a photo was taken; and it can seriously boost the number of people who see it. A lot of times, when people are visiting a new place, they’ll look up the location tag on Instagram to see what people are doing in the area, so this can be a great way to reach an audience that might not normally be in your area.

@curiocitycalgary always tags restaurants using location tags!

Hashtags

You’ve probably heard it before, but I’m about to tell you again! Hashtags are one of the best ways to be found on Instagram. Think of hashtags like categories for your photos. People can search a hashtag on Instagram and see any picture that has been tagged with it! Just like categories, something general like “Dogs” will have loads of choices (meaning more competition against your own post) and a category like “Dogs with tiny hats” will have fewer posts (less competition). If you don’t have the time right now to do a deep dive, try to find at least a small selection of hashtags you can scatter into your posts. Even something general like #sunshine is bound to get your posts in front of a few new eyes!

@wowbakerycalgary uses some basic hashtags to help drive views to their posts

Good Photos

This might seem obvious, but Instagram is a photo platform! The very first thing people see is your pictures. If people come across your page or your posts and constantly see blurry, dull or downright bad pictures, they aren’t going to engage with them (like, comment, save and share). The more engagement a picture gets, the more Instagram pushes it out on its platform! That means a picture that gets 10 likes in 10 minutes will generally be seen by fewer people on the platform than a picture that gets 20 likes in 10 minutes. This doesn’t mean that your photos have to be perfectly curated, just make sure they are clear and portray your brand personality! The goal is to get people to click that like button so more people will get the pic on their feed.

@cleavercalgary finds a nice balance between having in the moment and staged pictures while keeping the look of their feed nice

Answer comments

It’s very common to see brand accounts that get loads of comments, but never respond to most of them! That is a big NO from me! First, responding to comments (even if they aren’t specific questions) shows your followers that you’re engaged in your account. Second, seeing more comments in a post makes viewers feel encouraged to leave their own comments. Third, the more comments you have, the more engagement on your photo, the more the algorithm will push out your content!

Bonus tip: pay extra attention to answer any comments that come in the first hour as soon as possible! The first hour is the most valuable in the eyes of the Insta algorithm.

Even with over 240k followers, @officiallyquigley pays extra attention to respond to every comment she receives

Getting lost with all of these little tricks to help get your photos seen? Check out our social media management packages that will help get the job done for you!