When it comes to building a profitable audience on Instagram, it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.

Follow our top 10 tips to grow your followers and line up more leads for your social media business.  

1. Make your bio count

We’re amazed when we see social media managers’ bios which don’t clearly explain what they do and – more crucially – don’t include their names.

We don’t need to tell you how important this prime piece of real estate is on Instagram. So, if you haven’t updated your bio for a while, make sure you optimise it today.

2. Post regularly

This one’s a no-brainer. 

As a professional social media expert, it’s crucial that you regularly show up on your own Instagram account. 

If you don’t, how will you find and nurture new prospects? 

In our experience, future clients can follow you for months – even years – before asking for your help. And there’s nothing more off-putting than an inactive account.

Posting regularly future-proofs your business. Even if you’re busy with client work now, you never know what will happen further down the line. 

3. Stop engaging with other social media managers

You know how the Instagram algorithm works, right? The more you engage with another account the more you’re shown each other’s content.

This means if you spend your time commenting on and replying to other social media managers’ posts, you’re effectively telling the platform that they’re your people. They’re not!

The best way to support your fellow social media pals is to NOT comment on their content. 

Instead, spend your time engaging with businesses and hashtags in your niche. 

4. Talk to your audience

Every day we see social media managers posting brilliant social media content, which they’ve clearly put a lot of time and effort into.

So what’s the problem? It’s not clear who they serve. (Spoiler: ‘Small businesses’ is not a niche).

Your content should be laser-focused on targeting your dream clients. You should speak directly to them, calling them out in your copy and tailoring your examples to suit them.

5. Use our 3P Framework

One of the most common problems we hear from social media marketers is that they don’t know what to post on their own Instagram accounts.

We get it. You’re so busy creating content for your clients that when it comes to creating your own, you’re all out of juice.

That’s why we developed The Content Bank – an instant-access Trello board packed with over 200 content ideas for your Grid, Stories, Reels and Guides.

Based on our exclusive 3P Content Framework®, The Content Bank will help you to win more clients and make more money. How? By giving you ready-to-use content that resonates with your audience and positions you as an expert.

6. Raise your Reels game

We absolutely love Reels! They’re the perfect place for us to connect and engage with our ideal audience. They’re also smashing it on the reach front.

In other words, Reels are currently one of the best places for you to get new eyes on your content.

7. Create eye-catching graphics

Creating scroll-stopping images is something a lot of social media managers struggle with. 

So, if that’s something that’s holding you back we’ve got the perfect solution. 

We’re obsessed with Your Template Club’s Instagram templates and use them all the time on our own account. 

The templates can be tweaked to suit your branding and require minimal faffing in Canva!

Best of all, once you’ve bought them, you can also use them for your client accounts. No extra licence is needed.

8. Go Live

With Instagram prioritising video right now, going live is a great way to get a push from the algorithm.

But here’s an even better idea. Go live with up to three other people. Why?

Because when you collaborate with other accounts, it won’t just be your followers who get a notification, all of theirs will too! 

But the key here is to be strategic. Collaborate with accounts or influencers in your niche rather than other social media pros. 

Think about whose audience you want to reach and how you can help them.

9. Be a hashtag hero

There’s still a lot of conflicting information doing the rounds about hashtags on Instagram which is why it’s so important you get them right.

Hashtags are the best way for people who are interested in your services to find you. You should also be using them to find and engage with your own dream clients.

Here are some pointers:

• You can include up to 30 hashtags in a grid post. That’s 30 opportunities to be found in search.
• Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your content – it will bring you more of the right people
• Put your hashtags in your caption, not the comments
• Follow your niche’s hashtags, so they show up in your feed

For more advice, check out our blog, How to be brilliant at Instagram hashtags.

10. Optimise your content for search. 

As well as using hashtags to match searcher queries on Instagram, the platform also scans your caption content.

Make sure you include the kind of keywords and language your dream clients might use to search for your service. 

Don’t get too hung up on cramming keywords into your copy because, once you’re following all of the tips above, it will start to happen naturally.

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