TheSoloAct
Junior Member
- May 12, 2019
- 159
- 154
I don't want to come off as an expert on Instagram or any other social media channel, but I recently started giving more time to social media and over a month, I've had some really good return from social media channels and insights that I'd love to share. I'll share what I found the key ingredient of Instagram to be:
Consistency.
Instagram loves a lot of things. You can use hashtags to perform better (a single hashtag improves your engagement by about 21-23%), you can actively like other pages, you can experiment innovatively with your stories and make them interactive, etc. But above all, I've found that if you post consistently, your followers increase steadily.
No matter how good your content is, if you're not consistent in posting that stuff, Instagram won't pay much attention to you. This is real and although I'm not saying it will be the same for everyone using Instagram, this is pretty much how things work.
Imagine a page that has a lot of good stuff and rich content to post. Now, if you steadily post content, your follower base will keep on rising. One day of inactivity, and you'll see a bunch of people unfollowing you. Remember two things:
So, what happens is this: there's a whole segment of Instagram users who want to follow you and see your content. But Instagram limits how many of those actually discover you.
If you keep posting consistently, Instagram will keep lifting the limit on how many people see your content. And if you suddenly stop posting, your follower count will go down depending on how many followers you have.
Instagram knows which people actively unfollow. Let's call them volatile users. These "disappear". They will go if you don't post often. Most of these take a look at the pages they're following on a daily basis. Person X might take a look at his/her list today, Person Y might take a look at his/her list the day after.
Instagram also supplies you with non-volatile users. If you stop posting altogether, there will be a huge chunk (like bullet point two: 90/115) that will be left there. It's the non-volatile userbase.
In principle, there should be more non-volatile users, but Instagram keeps a good balance (that must be depending on the niche/category, I think) and supplies volatile users as well as a bigger slice of non-volatile ones if your content is rich.
If you had 90% non-volatile users, your follower count won't decrease if you stop posting. But Instagram gives you an increasing number (maybe 1-5% at the beginning but quickly a good 20%) of volatile users so that you feel you should be posting more often or you'll lose something.
Cut the crap, how frequently should I post?
As I said, I'm no social media or Instagram expert, so don't take it literally. But here's how I feel.
The main mantra here is consistency. How?
Same unfollows, the same pattern of follower growth, and the same likes-to-follower ratio. Engagement started inflating after 10 days and remained consistent no matter how many posts I did. I just had to keep posting the same amount.
Post either two posts a day or 20 posts a day, but keep it consistent.
When should I post?
I tried smart auto-posting, scheduled posting at specific time intervals (12 PM, 12 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM, 9 PM are the best times according to Instagram stats), posting randomly, and posting all at once (like all 5 posts of the day within 2 hours and then no posts for the other 22 hours).
My finding? There was absolutely no difference regarding what time you choose to post.
So, the only distinction between a steadily increasing follower count and a decreasing one is keeping up the interval at which you post. Stay consistent and you'll be good to go.
Consistency.
Instagram loves a lot of things. You can use hashtags to perform better (a single hashtag improves your engagement by about 21-23%), you can actively like other pages, you can experiment innovatively with your stories and make them interactive, etc. But above all, I've found that if you post consistently, your followers increase steadily.
No matter how good your content is, if you're not consistent in posting that stuff, Instagram won't pay much attention to you. This is real and although I'm not saying it will be the same for everyone using Instagram, this is pretty much how things work.
Imagine a page that has a lot of good stuff and rich content to post. Now, if you steadily post content, your follower base will keep on rising. One day of inactivity, and you'll see a bunch of people unfollowing you. Remember two things:
- Instagram is insanely active.
- And at the same time, there are so many people on it to push your content to.
So, what happens is this: there's a whole segment of Instagram users who want to follow you and see your content. But Instagram limits how many of those actually discover you.
If you keep posting consistently, Instagram will keep lifting the limit on how many people see your content. And if you suddenly stop posting, your follower count will go down depending on how many followers you have.
- When I started this Instagram project and had 10-15 followers, I experimented with different posting schedules. No-post days penalized me with 2-3 follower reduction.
- In a week, I had 115 followers. A no-post day penalized me with 10 followers leaving. Two no-post days were penalizing me by 20-30 followers. But after that, even 5 days of inactivity kept me at 90 or so followers. I didn't take any further risks.
- In three weeks, my follower count was 1k and each no-post day was penalizing me with 50-80 unfollows. I didn't experiment two consecutive no-post days.
- Right now, I've completed a month and have 1.5k followers, and I get penalized about 80-120 unfollows if I don't post for a whole day.
Instagram knows which people actively unfollow. Let's call them volatile users. These "disappear". They will go if you don't post often. Most of these take a look at the pages they're following on a daily basis. Person X might take a look at his/her list today, Person Y might take a look at his/her list the day after.
Instagram also supplies you with non-volatile users. If you stop posting altogether, there will be a huge chunk (like bullet point two: 90/115) that will be left there. It's the non-volatile userbase.
In principle, there should be more non-volatile users, but Instagram keeps a good balance (that must be depending on the niche/category, I think) and supplies volatile users as well as a bigger slice of non-volatile ones if your content is rich.
If you had 90% non-volatile users, your follower count won't decrease if you stop posting. But Instagram gives you an increasing number (maybe 1-5% at the beginning but quickly a good 20%) of volatile users so that you feel you should be posting more often or you'll lose something.
Cut the crap, how frequently should I post?
As I said, I'm no social media or Instagram expert, so don't take it literally. But here's how I feel.
The main mantra here is consistency. How?
- I tried posting 2 posts per day for 5 days.
- The next experiment was 10 posts per day.
- I also tried a 20 per day for 3 days.
Same unfollows, the same pattern of follower growth, and the same likes-to-follower ratio. Engagement started inflating after 10 days and remained consistent no matter how many posts I did. I just had to keep posting the same amount.
Post either two posts a day or 20 posts a day, but keep it consistent.
When should I post?
I tried smart auto-posting, scheduled posting at specific time intervals (12 PM, 12 AM, 3 PM, 6 PM, 9 PM are the best times according to Instagram stats), posting randomly, and posting all at once (like all 5 posts of the day within 2 hours and then no posts for the other 22 hours).
My finding? There was absolutely no difference regarding what time you choose to post.
So, the only distinction between a steadily increasing follower count and a decreasing one is keeping up the interval at which you post. Stay consistent and you'll be good to go.
Keep up the good work!
