I finally hit my first big social media goal. In the last few weeks, I reached 500 followers on Instagram. And I did it with a little trick, a holiday-themed post—some lovely Thanksgiving gourds.
Like most people around the holidays I love the warm vibrant colors this time of year. So I used them to my advantage with this themed image.
The rich color of vibrant holiday gourds attracts attention.
Now, most people post to their social media during the holidays, but a lot of people don’t put much thought into it. They just scroll through recent photos and post one.
A quick snap of your meal or a family pic, although lovely, is exactly what everyone else is doing during the holidays.
Whereas posting an engaging, holiday-themed image stops people scrolling and gets them to pay attention to you.
A pre-planned holiday post will touch the hearts of everyone, not just friends who know you and your family. Plus, by planning in advance of the day itself and having the post ready to go, you can wake up and post in a few seconds.
This way you stand a lot better chance of picking up followers quickly.
I’ve been trying to grow my followers to build my travel writer’s profile, which will help land press trips, show off some photography skills, and grab the attention of editors, PR reps, or anyone in the travel industry who looks for me.
Wrapping my head around all this social media stuff has been a huge learning curve for me. Now it’s finally coming together, so I wanted to share my tips with you.
Starting six weeks ago with 236 followers I sat down and really thought about how to grow. Three essential things have helped me more than double my followers in a month and a half.
First, switching to a business account on Instagram. Within 24 hours I had 10 new followers. It used to take two weeks for me to get that, if I was lucky.
Second, by taking the time to really think about how to grow and implementing a social media marketing strategy. Each day’s post is carefully thought about, planned, and posted with the goal of more followers.
Third, streamlining my process made it much easier to handle and takes less time out of my day. Pre-planning daily posts, having them saved as drafts and ready to go, means my daily post now takes about 10 seconds not 10 minutes.
The success these three little changes brought has left me shaking my head thinking, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
Before I wrapped my head around how to approach social media, I found it frustrating. Now, it’s fun and I find myself enjoying spending time picking out images and putting my posts together.
It’s much simpler now and, as I said at the start, one of the biggest tricks I’ve found to engage people is a theme. Pick a nice image, tell a little heartwarming story, and viola—the followers come rolling in.
So, take a moment to think about the holiday season that’s coming up, plan your theme, and watch your numbers grow.