Digital beauty is the name, and social media is our game. With over 80,000 followers on our Instagram and 20,000 in our Chic Community, we might know a thing or two about having a great social media platform. In our Digital Beauty class, we go over the basics and fundamentals of what you need to learn in order to market yourself, your brand, or product on various social outlets. We help students learn from the ground up: which apps they need to download, how to navigate through them, how to create amazing content, and finally, post that content to the masses and reach an audience beyond your followers. With so much to touch on, we know that social media can be overwhelming especially if you’re new to every platform. We’ve found Instagram to be the most prevalent and it can be a bit confusing to navigate. Here are our top social media tips for the socially savvy and not so socially savvy!
Create a consistent schedule
Whether it’s once a day, once a week, or once a month — create a consistent schedule when it comes to posting! Due to Instagram’s latest algorithm, it might seem hopeless to get noticed now (especially if you’re seeing posts from a minute ago to 15 days ago) but don’t let that discourage you! Feel free to post high quality and amazing content at a time and day that’s easy for you. You have followers for a reason and you’ll need to give them content once in a while to interact with. The percentage of them unfollowing will increase if you create an account and don’t do much with it.
Use Instastory
One of the best ideas stolen from Snapchat! Instagram took this feature and completely updated and improved it. We’re still stuck with unpleasant filters but features like polls, location, Giphy, questions, and adding posts to the story have definitely made up for it. As mentioned in the point before, sometimes your post could get lost in the algorithm. Instagram has added a feature where you can add this post to your story and have your followers click on that post to interact with it. If you have a business account and have more than 10k followers, you’re able to add links to your story so people can buy a product you’re using, learn more about your business… the possibilities are endless. These features help boost up your engagement as you’re able to ask followers questions and advice. They get to know you a little bit more and vice versa.
Hashtags
The more invested you are in your social media, the more you realize the importance of hashtags. You should choose generic hashtags but also pick a couple brand specific and curated ones. Those smaller hashtags will help you gain more visibility in the community you’re in. Now when it comes to the number of hashtags, this is always a cause for debate! Some people say only use 5 great hashtags, but you do have the option to use up to 30… USE THEM UP! When it comes to posting, put 1-5 important hashtags in the caption. These hashtags can be “#sponsored” or a hashtag that is mainly for you and your brand. Then as soon as you press “post” put a list of 20 more hashtags (the generic and more curated ones) as the first comment. Having you post as a first comment will enable your photo to be seen in that hashtag.
Be #Relatable
Instagram gets a bad reputation for being too polished and too curated at times. If I’m out partying, whatever goes on my Instagram is completely different than the mess that is my Snapchat. For Instagram, you put up this front that your life is perfect, everything has a VSCO filter on it and rule of thirds is your life. It can be tiring to have such a polished life, so post up memes on your Instastory, include a hilarious caption of how you achieved a photo, engage with your followers and actually comment something back genuine other than a string of emojis. Don’t be a mess but be a human being! Posting stories of you blacked out in the club might not be such a good idea, but posting a story of the outfit, bottle service, and music would be more audience appropriate.
Don’t buy likes or followers
It might seem enticing to inflate your numbers in order to look legitimate. Don’t do it! The important takeaway: focus on your target audience and build your community! Even if you have 50 followers or 1,000 followers — make them count. If someone new follows you, go to their page and “like” at least 6 of their photos and comment on one. It will leave an impression that you notice everything, especially someone new, and want to share the love! Go to the hashtags that you’ve curated and start engaging with other posts in that tag. Social media was built to create a community and you don’t want to taint it with fake numbers.
