What to Know about Your Instagram Following

Most of us are concern about what matters when it comes to our Instagram following, insights should we be checking or what numbers should we know, what our following ratios should look like, and so on. I’d like to share these strategies and tips that I have at the back of my mind about this topic.

Have more people following you than you are following - this can be tricky if you have just started out on Instagram but keep in mind that it’s a red flag for your new follower if your following is higher than your followers for few reasons: 

• they will think that there might be reasons why people you follow don’t follow you back.
• you might be spam following, following of hundreds hoping they follow they follow back but never engaging.

Don’t follow everyone back - I recommend to follow someone that you explicitly want to network with. Hopefully, when you follow someone, it’s because they inspire, motivate, teach, help you grow your knowledge, or grow in some other facet. I suggest capping out who you follow up to 1500. 

You may not need as many followers as you think - an excellent word from Kevin Kelly, saying if you have one thousand true fans or followers who truly care and are invested in what you are doing, then you have the capability of making one million dollars per year. So, relax, you don’t need millions of followers on Instagram to make a living. 

10,000 followers - the goal number of followers on Instagram to shoot for. Once you hit this number, you will be gain the ability to add a link to your Instagram Stories which is a great way to direct your audience to see the link you provide rather than going to your bio to access it. 

10% of your followers are likers of your posts - this is a case to case basis but generally, that’s the ratio of likes from your followers.

Instagram insights - I recommend exploring it, playing, or looking around at all the amazing stats or analytics Instagram has to offer. Look for: 

• What time of day and what days of the week your followers are more active
• Demographics - it’s important to check this just in case we can truly grasp where our followers from, how old are they, are they male or female and will give us a better idea of what they might be into or if we missed some marks. 

You need to be public - Whatever social media you’re on, you need to have a public account for to find you.