Following and unfollowing is a tried and proven Instagram marketing strategy. You only need to pick the industry leaders or niche influencers on Instagram and then look for their followers.
The idea is individual users following this niche influencer are more likely to be interested in your niche. After all, they’re not following these people because they have nothing else better to do. They’re definitely not following them for their health.
There’s a reason why they’re following people who are closely identified with the niche you are targeting. The concept is simple. If you follow these followers of easy to identify niche leaders, chances are enough of these people will follow you back and would be interested in whatever niche content you post. Sounds pretty straightforward?
Here’s the problem. It is deceptively simple because these people might be passive followers. You have to remember that in any group of people, the vast majority of participants are going to be passive. They’re not really passionate. They’re not really ready to make some sort of commitment.
In many cases, they just have some sort of passing a low level or superficial interest in your niche. A lot of experienced Instagram marketers call these audience members to tire kickers. They’re not quite there yet. They’re not ready to sign on the dotted line, much less make some sort of form commitment.
The problem is if you build your Instagram brand around the loyalty of this type of people, you probably are not going to get the kind of marketing results you have hoped. These people, remember, are not ready to make a commitment. So, even if you have a lot of these people on your list and you’re sending them the right messages, there’s no assurance that they will react the way you want them to react.
Focus On Return On Effort
If you want to be successful with your Instagram marketing strategies, you need to pay attention to the right tips.
There’s no shortage of Instagram success tips on the internet. In fact, they’re a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, following and unfollowing niche specific followers, despite all the time, effort, and energy you put into it is not a slam dunk. It has never been.
To seal the deal, you have to look for enthusiastic followers. These are people who are verbal, vocal, and visible regarding their interest in your niche. They have actually put in the time to participate fully in the communities that have developed around your niche.
The good news is these people are fairly easy to pick out. You need to only pay attention to their comments. I’m not talking about one or two-character emojis here and there. That’s not enough of an expression of commitment or enthusiasm to build your campaign on.
Instead, zero in on people who have actually put in the time to craft well-composed comments. These are people who are actually contributing real content and value to the conversation regarding specific topics in your niche. This requires thinking. This requires a certain level of commitment. This definitely involves a tremendous amount of enthusiasm.
Do This Before You Follow The Right Eyeballs
Now that you know who to target, I want you to take a step back and focus on your content. You may be thinking to yourself that you have all the very best content. You just need the right followers and you can see dollar bills stack up in your bank account. I can’t say I blame you.
After all, if you line up your ducks just right, things will happen. Instagram marketing success is not speculation. People do make a lot of money on Instagram. The problem is your content has to do the heavy lifting and this is where even the most otherwise intelligent Instagram marketers completely fall apart.
They fail to see the empty restaurant problem. If you’ve ever travelled to a place you haven’t been to before and you pass by an empty restaurant, chances are you’re not going to walk in and order something. Why should you? Who knows why that restaurant is empty? The food may not be safe. The food may not be all that good. So, in doubt, you stay out.
This is completely understandable and predictable. This is how most intelligent people will respond to the same situation. Well, guess what? Your Instagram content is not much different from an empty restaurant. When people see your photos or your short videos, they can’t quite make anything out of it. They can see that it’s related to your niche, but is it really worth their time and attention?
After all, these people are scrolling through an Instagram feed that probably involves hundreds of thousands of pictures every single day. To make an impact, you have to erase the doubt in their minds. In other words, you have to give the message loud and clear that your content is worth taking a gamble on.
This is where social proof comes in. Whether you buy Instagram video views or Instagram likes, it doesn’t matter. You have to have some sort of social proof so people will engage with your content.
When you get real organic engagement in your content, this can trigger a chain reaction where more people are pulled out of Instagram, thanks to your highly targeted hashtags. They then engage in your content, which then triggers another round of engagement. Before you know it, you are able to get the right people to engage with your content which can then translate to traffic to your website and then conversion and sales later on.