10 Tips To Get the Most From Instagram

Do you love instagram as much as I do?

As a quilter, I am completely in love with this social media app. It is fast, easy and so engaging. Whether you do it to try and drum up quilt business for your store, teaching, or for your own pleasure, these tips will help.

1. Take the time to find your theme.
That doesn't mean that you can only post things that are pink if that is your favourite colour! What that does mean is take a moment to find out what you want your Instagram account to do for you, and try and stay within that boundary. For example, for the most part mine is on quilting. I try and keep a consistent light background with my images and since I love pink, if I am designing graphics, I throw that colour in there. That doesn't mean that you never see a pic of my kids or a sunset, absolutely you will. But for the most part, you will get a feel when you scroll through my account.
Another one so you can get a feel for the theme, is Amanda Herring Designs. She is a fabric designer and you can see her color palette as you swipe through her feed.

2. Good Pics Make for Good Posts
It doesn't matter what social media platform you are using, pictures make the story. Ensure your pictures are clear, concise and tell the viewer something. Watch too much clutter in a background and your lighting as well. There are some wonderful apps that can help brighten up and edit your photos. Use them, they make all the difference in the world.  Instagram has some editing features built right in, don't be afraid to play around with them.

3. Add your name/watermark/logo.
I will always add my quilt name when posting pictures of finished pieces. It is one way of making it more difficult for someone to 'borrow' my photos.  I will often use an image resizer like Image Size to bring the image quality down. It doesn't show up on a screen, but if they went to print it, they would get a very grainy and blurry copy.

4. Write good content.
Along with having a fabulous picture is the story you write to associate with that image. Make it meaningful, share a bit about yourself, and make it genuine. Readers want to relate to you, that keeps them engaged.

5. Be Sure to Like and  Leave Comments 
While it is always fun to see who liked your post and what comments were left, it is equally fun to return the favor. Be sure to check out your feed and like posts that you find interesting and leave comments often. Plus it is a great way to make friends and have more people follow you.

6. When To Post
This can be debated till the cows come home, but get to know your audience. Use your insights on Instagram and you can learn alot about your activity, content and audience.

You can find it at the top right corner, the 4 little lines that look like a graph. Take a look around.
You can see that Fridays, noon and 9 pm are good times for me to post.

7. Use hashtags.
Those pesky little # signs are vital in Instagram. It is the search engine that allow people with similar interests to find you, and for you to find them. Instagram allows you to search by people, tags or places, making it easy and fun. Take some time to figure out what hashtags work for you. As well create your own specific hashtag. Make sure no one is using it and then use it so you can easily find your own work. If you are a part of a contest or quilt along, or group project, often a hashtag will be created just for that project so you can use it so others in that group can see what each person is doing.

8. Tag
Don't be afraid to tag others on Instagram if it is relevant to them. When I use a specific fabric  for a project, I tag that company by using the @ sign and the name they use on instagram. It alerts them that their product is being used and often they will like or comment on it, thereby increasing engagement.

9. Be Regular
Try and post on a regular basis. If you set out to do it once a day, try to ensure you have content built up in advance so if life gets in the way, you have something to fall back on. That doesn't mean you have to create a quilt every day. Use progress shots, or images of your favourite threads, tools etc. And that 'Repost' app can come in handy on occasion as well. Don't post to simply to throw a post up, while being regular is important, being authentic is more important.

10. Be You
Your Instagram should be a reflection of the story you want to tell, whether you are an online quilt store, or a quilter at the North Pole, figure out the story you want to portray and work on that. Nothing is more important than being genuine and honest. Only you know you, so don't try and copy the instagram icon that has 40,000 followers. Be You. Because that is pretty awesome!