Instagram has been around since 2010, and it has definitively changed the digital landscape during its lifetime. The early Internet was a place filled with early cat memes and online forums, and it was thanks to social media apps like Instagram that things started to spice up. That’s why many people want to know how to become Instagram famous. After all, who doesn’t want a piece of the Internet fame cake?
No one can guarantee that you’ll be successful in becoming Instagram famous. But there are ways to make that road easier and less traumatic. Keep reading to find out how to become Instagram famous.
Fame Vs Influence
First, let’s take a look at these concepts for a better understanding. They may look the same, but they’re vastly different.
What is Fame
Well, according to the dictionary, fame is “the state of being known and talked about by many people”. So reaching fame is basically when people see your face and recognize it. Usually, the more people know you, the more famous you are.
What is Influence
The dictionary offers us a definition of what is influence. It says that it’s “the effect that somebody/something has on the way a person thinks or behaves or on the way that something works or develops”. So it’s basically when your words or actions have a deep effect on other people’s lives.
Knowing the difference is important. Why? Because being Instagram famous is more about connecting with your audience rather than just hundreds of likes. Fame is great, but developing a real and authentic connection with your audience is better.
Growing Your Account
If you want to go big, you better do it the right way. And that means following the right steps to reach your Instagram fame dreams. Things just work better when you take a moment to make a plan and get a clearer understanding.
Mix Passion (and Talent?)
Follow your passion. Yes, you’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. This advice is as old as time, and for a reason. You can never go wrong with the things you love, right? Well, yes and no.
While there are certainly no wrong passions, there are wrong ways to show it to the world. Let’s say you’re into cooking and you want to create an Instagram account about delicious foods. You could make a boring photo collection of you having dinner every night with some captions—I’m sure that’s informative. But it’d be better if you could create a space where you share your favorite recipes, teach people to make them, recommend restaurants or new ingredients. A place where you add value. A place where your passion is fully explored and shared.
And now let’s talk about talent. Don’t get me wrong, but not everyone is good at what they love. Loving video games won’t necessarily make you a good gamer. But this rule won’t apply to you if you know how to be creative with the things you love. You can create an Instagram account about video games without being a pro and talk about video game reviews or news.
So don’t shy out for not being good at what you love. It’s good if you take the time to educate yourself on the matter, of course. But after all, it’s all about the perspective you give it and how much “you” there’s in it.
Start Your Research
As with anything in life, you need to know what you’re doing before going serious about it. Before you take the Instagram fame road, you’ll need to settle on certain things:
- What colors or tones better define you and the energy you want to transmit?
- What story do you want to tell?
- Do you know how to take Instagram-worthy photos?
- How can you stand out in your niche?
Benchmarking
There’s a very helpful technique called Benchmarking. It consists of making comparisons (or benchmarks) of other people’s strategies and processes and then, apply their best practices to your benefit. This means following other people’s accounts and see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it to spot strong and weak spots and apply them to your account.
You can follow Instagramers on your niche and then see what they do. We’re not saying you should copy and paste their style, that’s not the point! The point is to compare strategies and decide which you think could work better with your potential audience. Once you have settled on a strategy, you need to add yourself to the mix to create an amazing account and become Instagram famous.
Just Be Yourself
In the same order of ideas as the last point, being yourself is a vital aspect of being Instagram famous. Don’t try to be or pretend something that you are not, the Internet is full of people like that. If you want to connect to a real and human level with your audience, you’ll need to be yourself. That means showing your imperfections, your mistakes, your victories, and your personality
Do’s:
- Post pictures of yourself.
- Be authentic.
- Have fun.
- Try different approaches.
- Work on your passion.
Don’ts:
- Act like a machine.
- Spam 24/7.
- Buy followers.
- Fake your experiences.
- Recommend something that you wouldn’t do or use.
Improve Your Photo Skills (and Your Editing Skills)
Well, you know that Instagram is mostly… photos.
That means that you’re gonna need a lot of photos and you’re gonna spend a great chunk of time choosing and editing your photos. Whether it’s for a post or for a story, you want (and need) good-quality pics.
You don’t need to become a photography professional from one day to the other. But a little knowledge wouldn’t hurt either.
Photoshop
Photoshop is the classic to-go tool for image editing. You’ll probably need a little bit of time before being your best self around the tool. But it’s still worth checking out if you’re going serious about being Instagram famous.
VSCO
For those of you who feel a little intimidated with Photoshop, there are alternatives like VSCO that come to the rescue. This well-known app will allow you to edit your photos like a pro without being a pro. It’s easy to use and you can create great photos with this. Sure, you could do it better on Photoshop, but you can still create great photos with it. You can find VSCO on for Apple and Android devices.
Canva
Canva is a magical tool that every next Instagram star can use in their advantage. It allows you to craft creative posts for your Instagram feed. It’s a great tool if you’re still learning the basics of graphic design or you don’t have time for that. It’s not as professional, but you can make decent-looking posts with it.
Quality and Quantity
Just to stay clear, we all know that quality should go over quantity. Why? For many reasons:
- One: People hate spammers.
- Two: People don’t like accounts that post just for the sake of doing so.
So, if you’re going to make a post, make it count and make it valuable. Now, I’m not saying you should be a once-a-week poster. You can make one to three posts per day on Instagram and that’s actually a powerful strategy! Just be sure that the content you’re posting actually brings something to your audience.
If you already made a nice post in a day and you’re out of ideas at the moment, leave it like that.
The more posts you have the better you’ll be on Instagram’s algorithm. And if these posts are valuable, sincere, and help you connect, that’s a few more points to your account. So don’t stress out if you’re not making four posts every day as longs as you’re producing good content and being consistent about it.
Keeping Up With Your Audience
Once you’ve started out your account, you’ll need to maintain it. Starting out is great because you got the hype and the energy to do so, but this is where many people give up their Instagram careers. It’s not easy to be an Instagram celebrity, but it’s surely not an impossible task.
Engage
Your audience is everything, literally.
If it wasn’t for every single follower, most Instagramers would be without a job, so it’s important to be in touch with them. Take time to interact and let your followers feel that they’re talking to a real human on the other side of the screen.
Follow the accounts of your most active users, post interactive stories, create polls, make contests or giveaways, make an Instagram Live and answer their questions. There is a very long list on the things you can do to build engagement, here are a few ideas:
Curate Tagged Photos
When accounts grow big they start getting user generated content, and that’s always a good thing. It means that people are starting to see you as a trustworthy source of info!
One good strategy is to upload to your stories most user generated content. This is one way to say “Hey! People trust me”. But sometimes you’ll get tags from shady accounts. So it’s important to change your settings so that your tagged photos won’t appear unless you approve them first,
Respond to Comments and DM’s
Part of looking like a human and not like a corporation involves actually taking time to respond comments and DM’s. This shows that you actually care and show interest to help your followers and will make it will make people more likely to leave comments.
Call to Actions
Using Call-to-Actions in your posts will increase your engagement. Sometimes it’s better to tell people to do something than to expect them to do it by themselves. Tell people to share, tag, like, follow accounts and more things!
CTAs are something like:
- Double tap if you liked this.
- Tag a friend if you found this useful.
- Leave a comment and share your experience with others.
Hashtag Your Way Up
#HastagsAreImportant
They matter a lot. They help to bring exposure to your account and reach people that would otherwise be unreachable
One great strategy is to use medium-level hashtags to rank higher. What does that mean? Well, I’m sure that #Makeup will look tasty, but think about all the people using that hashtag and trying to rank with that. On the other side, a hashtag like #IThinkIAmInLoveWithMakeup will probably have a low reach. Ideally, you’ll need a hashtag that isn’t too competitive and isn’t too invisible.
You could also check how your hashtags are doing. Something we recommend is checking all your hashtags after a few hours have passed. Check and see if any of them ranked higher than others. Use different hashtags with different posts and track them, combine, experiment, don’t be afraid to make mistakes!
Creating your own hashtags is another great alternative. Whether you create a new diet, a new product, or you want a hashtag to help your audience feel closer to a community, creating a hashtag will be a good idea.
Keep Making and Persist!
Don’t give up and don’t quit on the first week after making five posts!
Being Instagram famous takes time and dedication, sure. But it’s a great way to help and connect other people—even behind a screen.
If you stay true to yourself, to your passion, and to your audience, success and fame will come after some time. Just remember to keep going and not stopping.
Summary
No one said that being Instagram famous was an easy chore. People usually see Instagramers with thousands of followers and think that they got to that point magically overnight. As you may have noticed, learning how to become Instagram famous is not an easy task, and Influencers and Instagramers have to do a lot of things.
But in reality, it takes time, energy, and resources to grow on Instagram. But if you follow these tips, you can be sure you’ll be on the right path and you’ll learn how to become Instagram famous.
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