Over the last decade, you’ve had several online marketing mantras drilled into your head:
- SEO: Never stop optimizing your web presence to help more people find you online.
- Social: Build your audience on the most popular social channels to attract new patients and keep the old ones coming back.
- Reviews: Get your happy patients to share their experience everywhere and often.
So you’ll be forgiven if you think that a tactic that heavily invests in 2 out of 3 of these, Instagram optimization, is worth your time, effort, and money. The reality as we start 2020 is that there are some right ways and many wrong ways to promote your efforts on Instagram and attract new followers.
Taking a Step Back
What do we mean when we say “Instagram optimization”? Most companies that specialize in this, and there are dozens upon dozens, aren’t in the business of helping you create beautiful content or expand your brand message. Simply put, they find ways to get more people to follow your Instagram account, no more, no less.
On a basic level, it’s “optimization” in a similar vein as search engine optimization – your Instagram presence is optimized to attract new users. However, where search engine optimization focuses on improving content and user experience, Instagram optimization efforts have largely been about gaming the system. And that’s where the trouble starts.
The Mechanics of Instagram Optimization
Almost every optimization company claims to have some special recipe for success, but sorry to say, folks, there’s no magic. The central premise is to get your account in front of a targeted audience of Instagram users, who will then start following you. The most common way this is done is through a method called “follow/unfollow,” which works like this:
- You do research to find Instagram accounts that may be interested in following you.
- You follow a specific number of these accounts every day.
- After a few days, you compare who you’ve followed with who has followed you back.
- For accounts that haven’t followed you, you unfollow them a few days later.
The net goal of this effort is to get a few hundred more followers each month, building your Instagram presence over time.
The Risks
There’s nothing preventing an individual from doing this in their Instagram account, besides time and effort. But Instagram gets grumpy when you use automated tools or third-party software to automate this process and dramatically scale up from what an individual user could really do.
And their grumpiness should not be taken lightly. Previously, when they detected that accounts may be using automated software to build followers, they may have sent a warning message, or prevented you from posting to your account for a couple days. More recently, they are suspending accounts, sometimes without any notice, in cases where it’s clear you’re violating their policy. Imagine waking up one day and your past 5 years of work on Instagram is just gone. And then imagine trying to start over. It’s not a fun thing to think about.
Another thing to consider is that you’re essentially being a “fake friend” by following a bunch of other users and then unfollowing unless they reciprocate. Is that really want you want from your practice and your brand?
True Instagram Optimization
We’ve laid out the idea behind growing followers through “optimization” efforts but we haven’t even touched on giving those followers what they want ongoing. You could game the system hard and have 1,000,000 followers by April. Let’s suppose you did just that. Now what? Assuming Instagram hasn’t suspended or closed your account (which they almost certainly would) what are you going to share with all these followers to keep them engaged?
This is where the rubber meets the road if you are truly optimizing your Instagram effort. However many followers you have, you have to deliver content they crave or your Instagram audience will peter out over time. Killer content on this channel involves:
- Remarkable images: Inspiring, educational, funny – you pick the theme but ultimately, your images need to be entertaining and eye-catching.
- Addictive video: Video is booming everywhere on the web, and Instagram is no exception. Short, looping videos are far more engaging than almost any picture or image.
- Tailored advertising: Good ads on Instagram are a lot like good posts – make them visual, reinforce your brand, and start a conversation, not a sales pitch.
There are also some best practices around Instagram posting, with basic things like using emojis and appropriate hashtags to more sophisticated work around split testing, leveraging Instagram Stories, and using Instagram analytics to tailor the types of content you’re sharing.
When it comes to Instagram followers, we’re still fans of the Field of Dreams approach: if you build it, they will come. At the core of your Instagram effort needs to be an amazing attraction. But once you’ve got a plan in place to deliver amazing, engaging content time and again, it’s worth turning some attention to how you can get the word out to as many other Instagram users as possible.
We can help you develop the content your practice needs to be successful on Instagram. We can also help you build fans on Instagram, doing the work of getting the word out without using bots or automated strategies that risk getting your account suspended. It’s all about taking the time to find the right accounts to follow, showing them you’re worth following, and continuing to deliver the content they will love.