Do you want to become Instagram famous?
If your age-long dream is to become an influencer and get paid for it, there’s no better place to start growing your influencer career than Instagram.
With over 1.2 billion monthly active users, Instagram is an incredibly powerful platform for reaching a large audience. And that’s not all.
Instagram has the highest engagement rate of all social media platforms, according to a study by Quintly. This high engagement rate is the number one reason why personal and corporate brands troops to the platform.
So if your dream is to become Instagram famous, this article will show you some tried and true steps to building an influencer-size following on Instagram.
Let’s help you start somewhere.
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What You’ll Need to Become Instagram Famous
- How to Become Instagram Famous: The Basics
- 7 Powerful Tips to Become Instagram Famous
- Tip #1: Find a Niche You are Passionate About
- Tip #2: Find Your Differentiator
- Tip #3: Get Photography Right
- Tip #4: Share Valuable, Authentic Content
- Tip #5: Leverage Hashtags for Wider Reach
- Tip #6: Engage Your Audience
- Tip #7: Consistency Is Key
- More Helpful Instagram Tutorials:
- Wrapping up
Frequently Asked Questions
Is It Possible to Become Instagram Famous?
Of course. It’s possible to become Instagram famous even if you are today a total newbie.
All influencers you see today on Instagram or elsewhere with millions of followers start from zero.
You can also be one if you are ready to work it.
That’s why we created this guide- to make you the next big thing in the platform.
How Many Followers Do You Need to Be a Celebrity on Instagram?
There’s no magic number of followers that somehow defines a celebrity on Instagram.
According to the Advertising Standard Authority (ASA), anyone with over 30,000 followers is considered an online celebrity.
From a netizen point of view, you need at least 10k followers to become Instagram famous.
But if you want to rise to the status of a major influencer, 100k followers upward is the following count that will take you there.
What is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
After analyzing some of the studies from reliable sources like HubSpot, Influencers Marketing Hub, Buffer, Sprout Social etc., we discover the best days to post on Instagram are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The best times to post are 4 AM -10 AM on Tuesday, 7 AM to -11 AM on Wednesday and 2 PM on Friday.
Again, none of these is written in stone.
Marketing is experimental.
What You’ll Need to Become Instagram Famous
- An Instagram Account: Anyone seeking fame on Instagram should already have an account. But assuming you are new to this, you first need to get hold of an Instagram account. Follow this comprehensive guide on how to use Instagram.
- Photography Kits: Instagram is a visual platform and will always be. The number one rule of success on Instagram is to ensure your content is visually appealing. You may need to invest in a top-quality streaming camera and photo editing tools to ensure your videos and images are well-lit and well-composed with clear messaging.
- Social Media Analytics Tools: You’ll need social media analytics software to track the performance of your content and identify trends in your Instagram activities. This will give you insights to optimize your post and create more impactful content. CoSchedule, Hootsuite and Buffer are 3 great tools for this purpose.
How to Become Instagram Famous: The Basics
Before we get into the nitty gritty of Instagram fame-building, there’s one critical fact you must be aware of- success on Instagram is not measured by the number of followers.
Yes, follower count matters. But looking at it from a business sense, it’s not the only yardstick of a good Instagram account.
The big question is, does this number translate to engagement and interactions? Becoming Instagram famous is not only about ramping up follower numbers.
Does this number influence people? You must answer yes to that question to become a successful Instagram influencer. Hence the name “Influencer.”
Come to think of it- there’s a stark contrast between the two words fame and influence.
While fame is a measure of number, influence is a measure of impact. So does your fame have a real, authentic connection with people?
More so, building a large following on Instagram in an unethical way (buying followers and using bots) is easy.
There are shortcuts to growing your Instagram following from zero to thousands in a few days. That’s why you see hundreds of Instagram accounts with huge followings but no engagement to show.
For that reason, brands look beyond numbers when looking for influencers to work with. They consider how deep and authentic the influencer-audience connection is.
Now that you understand that becoming Instagram famous is not only about numbers, how do you build fame with influence on Instagram? Read on to find out.
7 Powerful Tips to Become Instagram Famous
- Tip #1: Find a Niche You are Passionate About
- Tip #2: Find Your Differentiator
- Tip #3: Get Photography Right
- Tip #4: Share Valuable, Authentic Content
- Tip #5: Leverage Hashtags for Wider Reach
- Tip #6: Engage Your Audience
- Tip #7: Consistency Is Key
Tip #1: Find a Niche You are Passionate About
It’s possible to have a lot of interests and talents. Photography, fitness, fashion and more can all be second nature.
And you are free to post content for all these categories on Instagram. The problem, however, is that you can’t find one audience interested in all niches.
If you keep pushing out content on all these categories, you will end up attracting no audience.
Why?
People see you as a jack of all trades and treat you as less important.
To avoid this, select what you are most passionate about. It is a must you do this for good reasons.
First, it allows you to consistently produce relevant content that addresses a target audience’s interest.
Secondly, doing what you love makes you commit time and energy since it’s what you enjoy doing. And the more you love what you do, the less it feels like work.
Becoming Instagram famous isn’t just about creating content to garner likes and follows. Rather, It’s about sharing your unique perspective that brings value to the audience in your niche.
And from experience, niche followers are very loyal.
Creating content that speaks directly to them makes your relationship less forced. You must be niche-specific to attract more followers and build a highly engaged community on Instagram.
Tip #2: Find Your Differentiator
Once you figure out a niche you are passionate about, the next thing is to think outside the box and look for what can make you stand out.
Whatever niche you finally settled for, you’re probably getting into a hyper-saturated market.
Consider what you can bring to the niche others are not already doing. And if they are doing it, think of how you can do it better. Finding a unique perspective will make you stand out.
For instance, say you run a fashion blog. You can look into posting content that turns outdated fabrics into modern, stylish clothing.
It doesn’t have to be something huge. It can be as simple as advancing on what’s existing.
To help you, check out what famous Instagrammer in your niche are doing and ask the following questions;
- What are they doing right, and what could they do better?
- What kind of content do they create, and what type has more engagement?
- What new tweaks or things can I introcduce?
- What are they not doing?
Do this enough, and you’ll find your differentiator, no matter how crowded your niche is.
When you make contributions that add value to their live, they’d be glad to share your content, thereby expanding your Instagram poplarity.
Tip #3: Get Photography Right
If becoming Instagram famous has one must-have skill, It’s going to be photography.
Instagram, at its core, is a visual platform. Your images have to be superb to give your content credibility.
No one will follow an account that’s filled with poor-quality images when there are hundreds of alternatives killing it.
The only way to get reasonable views and attract followers is to ensure whatever you post on Instagram is visually appealing. People see the quality before the content. Any low-resolution image is an outright turn-off.
You have 3 options to get this right:
1. Use Your Smartphone
When starting, investing in a newer model smartphone like the latest iPhones and Samsung versions will do. Plus, there are tons of photo editing apps to make it look as professional as possible.
But as you grow, you’ll realize that your smartphone and Instagram filters are not enough for the game.
2. Hire a Professional Photographer
The second option is to hire a professional photographer to follow you around and make shots for you.
This options is not sustainable as it might keep you from being the real you.
It’s also cost prohibitive if you aren’t some Instagram rich personalities like the Kardashians who charged a million dollar per sponsored post.
3. Invest in Photography Kits and Learn the Skills
The last and most recommended option is to invest in quality photography and editing tools.
After that, you may need to take a photography course to improve your skills. Learning the art requires investing time and money.
You can find a good quality camera at a decent price in online and there are tons of photography courses on online learning platforms.
If you really want to become Instagram famous, you have to give your audience a reason to take you seriously. It starts with getting your photography right.
If you’ve got great photography out of the gate, you’ve climbed half the stairs to Instagram stardom. The other half is the value and authenticity of your content.
When people follow you on Instragram, they aren’t only interested in the stunning visuals. While the image quality does well to reel them in, what makes them stay is the message you are passing through your post.
How valuable is your content? You must give them content that makes them want more.
While it may be tempting to post as much as you can on Instagram, you need to priortize quality over quantity.
It’s the same for any type of content creation. Top-notch content less frequently will forever beat frequent subpar content.
In addition, you have to make your content authentic and original. If possible, get personal with your followers to make your content more relatable.
People will follow you, not because you are the only creator in that niche, they want more unique perspectives on the topics that interest them.
And they won’t mind unfollowing you if all you do is regurgitate the same old knowledge in circulation. Writing a catchy, descriptive captions for your post makes people want to interact with your content.
To get this right, you’ll need some research into what captions are performing great in your niche, and tweaking things to twist your narrative.
You can also look into your previous posts to see what type of caption brings the most engagement. Analyze well to find what works best for your audience.
Like keywords in search engines, hashtags are the keywords on Instagram. They are what users search for when looking for content.
Using the right hashtag in your content ensure that instagrammers looking for your type of content will find you.
For instance, people looking for fitness content on Instagram will most likely use the #fitness, #health, #wellness etc or if there’s a specific name for what they are looking for. Content with these hashtags will appear upon searches.
There are several ways to find relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts.
You can look for other accounts that are similar to yours on Instagram, check their posts and find the hashtags they use.
There’s also many instagram hashtags tools you can look at. TagFinder and TagForLikes are great options.
Once you find relevant hashtags, you have to prioritize them to avoid overusing them. Although, Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post, several studies have proven 6-12 as the most effective.
Tip #6: Engage Your Audience
On Instagram, there’s a premium on engagement. The Instagram algorithm uses engagement to determine how frequently to show content to users.
A high level of engagement can significantly increase your exposure and get you to the dreamland in little time. But there are other reasons to take audience engagement seriously.
If you are the type that never responds to followers’ likes, comments or questions on your post, they’ll have it easy to cut ties with you.
Your inaction speaks volume about how unimportant they are to you. The more people interact with your post, the more exposure your post will get.
Here are some tips to increase your Instagram engagement:
- Add captions that contain questions to your posts. Make the question thoughtful, open-ended and even sometimes funny.
- Mention other Instagram users in your caption if something that might interest them in your post.
- Use Instagram polls to ask your follower’s thoughts on scenarios, events, etc.
- Ask them the type of content they want to see more
- Keep an eye on your post comment section for repeat questions or comments.
- Use powerful call-to-actions, CTAs in your posts.
You can only be as famous as the level at which people are ready to interact with your content. You must be ready and willing to create time to engage your followers.
That’s the only way to build the loyalty that makes them stay and even share your content.
Tip #7: Consistency Is Key
Instagram fame won’t come in one day. You must first build trust, credibility and authenticity for people to associate with you on the platform.
And that only comes with consistency. The logic is simple- the more you post, the more your Instagram account grows.
When Tailwind studied 100,000 Instagram posts for 3 months, here are the results;
- Accounts with 100% more posts during these three months saw a 19% increase in engagement rate. This proves that frequent posting boosts engagement.
- They also discovered that the findings are true, regardless of the account size. And that posting more than seven times a week increases follower growth rate by 56%
While there’s no hard rule for the number of times to post on Instagram. Once in a day is the benchmark for consistency in most marketing books. You can always run the experiment to determine what will work best for you.
More Helpful Instagram Tutorials:
- How To Get More Followers On Instagram: Getting more followers on instagram is easy. You are only yet to see a detailed guide. This guide teaches how to get more followers on Instagram.
- How To Sell On Instagram: Are you wondering how to sell on Instagram? Learn how to sell on Instagram in 8 simple steps. You’ll also learn useful tips to boost sales in this guide.
- How To Get a Sponsor on Instagram: Are you a creator on Instagram? Do you want to land a sponsorship deal and earn thousands of dollars for sponsored posts? Here’s how to get a sponsor on Instagram.
Wrapping up
If your goal is to go viral on Instagram, you have to commit religioshly to using the 7 tips above.
They will help you set your Instagram fame-building journey on the solid foundation.
We hope you find it helpful.
Do you some other tips on how to become istagram famous? Share them with us in the comment section below.