How to Manage Your Instagram Account (and Maximize Organic Growth!)

One of the myths we frequently see floating around in the Instagram community is that schedulers can impact your organic growth because they are treated by Instagram in the same way that bots are. But let’s debunk this here and now. If you use a scheduling tool that has access to Instagram’s API, you won’t run into any problems, because yes, you can schedule. What’s more, is that Facebook has its own scheduling tool in their Creator Studio, which actually allows you to schedule to both Instagram and Facebook in one place. Here’s how to use it:

Managing your content from one place is helpful because as you create, you can directly upload it to your Creator Studio. That way, you have content to pick from as you schedule in posts for the week, and you won’t have to worry about forgetting or sharing things last minute.

In part, successful Instagram content is highly driven by spontaneity, so don’t let your schedule restrict you. If you have a good idea for a Reel, create it and post it – just use your schedule as a guideline so that you don’t run out of things to post.

There are a lot of moving cogs when it comes to what determines the success of an Instagram account. Having a solid strategy based on the time or frequency you post, the type of content you post, and the hashtags you use are all proven ways of helping accelerate your organic growth. However, if you do everything at the last minute, you might be missing out on the benefits of a thought-through, analytics-based strategy.

Let’s talk about hashtags for example (after all, we are hashtag experts!). If you take the time to research which hashtags are likely to perform best for your account, you can create Collections of hashtags that can be easily exported and ready-to-go when you post or schedule. If you are just finding hashtags right before you post, you could be missing out on ones that help you rank, or those that could potentially skyrocket your reach.

Having a bank of relevant hashtags to use is key, but also exploring the analytics behind those specific hashtags can give you even more insights into how well they are working. Using Flick’s Analytics Suite you can see which hashtags you are ranking on, and which hashtags are underperforming, so that you can adjust your strategy and keep moving.

Don’t do your hashtag research just before you post. Take time to flesh out the type of content, the competitiveness of the hashtags, and more to draw up a solid strategy and start creating Collections of strategy-driven tags. If you’re not sure where to start, you can try out our 8 post-challenge on the Flick Academy, or check out our full hashtag strategy guide.

If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that the brands and influencers that win out in times of crisis are those that have a genuine, dedicated community. The secret to a successful Instagram account (in terms of both followers and engagement) is a well-developed community. But, how do you develop a community on Instagram? You can’t just create an account and expect a community to appear – you have to directly speak to your followers, listen to them, and cultivate the right atmosphere.

One of the easiest ways to foster your community on Instagram is by replying to every comment, DM, and interaction. Not only does it help up your engagement, but it also shows your followers that you are listening and that you care about their opinions and what they have to say.

Another way that you can build your community on Instagram, is by asking questions and encouraging interactions. You can do this by posing relevant questions to your niche on your stories, or reaching out to your followers directly in a caption. Start a conversation, and it’s likely that your interested followers will jump in. Each and every member of your community follow you for a reason, so ask yourself what that reason is, and frame your conversation-starters around that!

Download an app like Combox.app to help you manage, reply to, and save responses for your comments across all of your Instagram accounts!

Don’t just post content blindly. Some people get caught up in posting as much content as possible, but it is both important and extremely useful to reflect on what you have already posted. As we mentioned before, an all-encompassing strategy is at the core of successful organic growth, and this goes for the posts you might have even published weeks or months ago. Take some time to monitor exactly which posts are resonating with your followers the most. Unpick any trends you see and build a better picture of the type of content you should continue to create, and the type of content that might not work as well. Compare your hashtag performance, the time you posted, and the way you publicized your posts to see if a spike or dip in engagement is due to external factors, or if it is just because people liked or disliked your content.

This is one of the ways you can optimize and manage your Instagram account in order to ensure you give your profile every chance of achieving organic growth.

We hope you enjoyed this article on our tips and tricks on how to manage your Instagram account effectively. If you’d like to get started with an easy hashtag strategy, just click below!