Ep. 10 How to grow your social media accounts (IG) – Drop a stitch podcast
Have you ever wondered how your favourite accounts made it big on social media? How an account created around the same time as yours went from 1,000 followers to 10,000 seemingly overnight? In today’s episode Dani spills her secrets to growing your Instagram account quickly and organically.
How was your week?
Dani
- Her week was good. She spent an entire day putting together her tax papers and has been in creation mode, working on projects more than doing computer work, which of course, is more relaxing and allows her more time with her kids.
- It’s also been getting warmer which allowed for some trips to the park with the kids even though they still had to be bundled up.
Nathalie
- It’s been a busy week around here. I’ve mentioned before that we’re working on finishing our basement so that I can have an actual office to work from (instead of working off the living room couch or dining table). My dad has been over all week mudding the drywall in the basement for us.
- Also, my son is almost crawling! He can move forward on his own if he’s really motivated and has been getting on all fours too. That means we’ve entered panic mode trying to get the house baby-proofed accordingly, starting with installing interior doors (yes, we’d been living without doors until this week).
What are you working on?
Nathalie
- Same as last week, my Flax Light Sweater I haven’t had the time to work on much of anything this week aside from a little market prep so I figured let’s go for simple and easy tonight.
Dani
- Nothing at this very moment but she’s spent most of the week working on her new blanket design (which is super freaking cute if you ask me)!
What did you buy this week?
Nathalie
- I bought a footrest for Theo’s highchair. We decided to go with the Ikea Antilop highchair for its small footprint and inexpensive cost but now that he’s grown a little, I really wanted to add a footrest for his comfort, so we ordered this one from Amazon. I’m super happy with it, it’s very study as it holds up to 66 pounds and can be adjusted for kids from 6 to 40 months. Plus, it’s white plastic so it really looks like it comes from Ikea.
- This second thing I didn’t purchase myself, my cousin got it for me for my birthday, but I have been using it a lot lately: a label maker! I have this one from Amazon and it’s great, it connects to your phone through an app and allows you to use any font or emoji you want. I labeled all the things in my linen closet; the pantry is up next!
Dani
- She bought two new crochet stitch books. These types of books are great for finding new stitches or combinations of stitches and they are a great source for inspiration. No matter how many of these books you have, there will always be some different stitches. Of course, many of the basics will be repeated but each book has something the others don’t. Dani loves them.
- The first is A Modern Guide to Granny Squares: Awesome Color Combinations and Designs for Fun and Fabulous Crochet Blocks by Celina Semaan and Leonie Morgan
- The second is The Step-by-Step Guide to 200 Crochet Stitches by Tracey Todhunter
- She also got a blocking board. This is a wooden board with pegs made to be used to block granny squares. She’s planning on make more granny squares blanket with block-able yarn (not the chenille one) and is looking forward to using it.
Now let’s talk about today’s subject – How to grow your social media accounts (IG)
Of course, you can use these tips to grow on any platform you want but we will mainly be talking about Instagram here since it is the platform Dani uses most.
Step one: Determining your audience
The first thing you need to ask yourself to grow your number of followers is what are you targeting. Posting willy-nilly won’t get you anywhere, you need to determine who is your target audience is going to be. For instance, are you mainly selling crochet and/or knitting products are looking for actual customer who will follow your page and buy your makes OR are you a blogger or a designer looking for other knitters or crocheters that are going to buy your patterns? These are not the people who will buy finished items because they can make them themselves.
Not determining your audience will cause some confusion, like is this item you are posting for sale or is it a pattern?
This can get especially confusing when you’re doing both; markets and creating patterns. The key is deciding on your end goal and posting according to that.
Step two: Start putting yourself out there
You need to start posting regularly and consistently.
The good news is Dani doesn’t believe you need to be posting a reel every single day. There are other ways to get your post to go viral or be noticed.
You can choose to be the person posting reels every day, the person posting mixed stuff or the person posting only pictures, all of these will make your account grow either way, just choose what you want to do and do it.
These is no set time to post
Other people, Instagram experts, or Meta people may say differently but in Dani’s experience, the time you post doesn’t really matter.
Of course, there are going to be times of the day where people are more active but either way, your post will end up making it to their feed.
Dani doesn’t usually post at late night but that is mainly because it’s important to stay available to answer comments and interact/engage with your follower once it’s posted.
Step three: Relevancy
No matter what is happening with Instagram’s algorithm, being relevant is key. If your account if getting the interactions (views, likes, saves, comments, shares) it will be shown to people (whether only that post of your account as a whole).
You should experiment with your posts to see what is working while keeping in mind to use nice quality pictures, nice quality videos and trendy audio. When you find a subject that “works’ and people respond well to, wait a few days and do another post or reel with the same topic and see what happens. Repeat until you see what is working for you; in Dani’s case it’s blankets. Every time she shares about her blanket, she gets millions of views. Of course, here it’s important to play around with things you actually enjoy doing, don’t start trying things you don’t like just to see if the interactions are there – it will not work out in the long run.
You always want to encourage people to comment (and respond to them) but saves and shares are super important. When you get these types of interactions on your posts, it’s telling Instagram: “this post is doing really well” and they react with “maybe we should boost it a little bit and show it to more people”. Momentum builds and they keep showing it to more and more people.
Step four: Create savable and shareable content
Savable content are posts that people want to refer back to in the future. Think ressource type posts that teach or inspire people, things like color palettes, crochet diagrams, tips and tricks, how-tos, patterns, etc.
Shareable content are posts that people relate to and want to send to their friends or family. Think the typical “the person sending you this wants to go yarn shopping with you” type posts. Without even thinking, you’ll think of someone this applies to and share it. This also makes people go to (or stay) in the Instagram app, which is exactly what Instagram wants and likes.
It’s okay not to post every day
Dani is a firm believer that you do not need to post every day, in fact when she sees one of her posts is gaining momentum, she prefers to let it get the attention it needs for a few days before sharing again. She’ll use those post-less days to engage in the comments or chat in stories instead.
Your posts and reels need to be genuine and true to you and what your content means/what you are doing for these tips to work.
Step five: Show your face and interact with your audience
People love to see and hear who is behind the accounts they follow.
This is also very important safety feature for your account to have. Having pictures, reels and stories with your voice, showing your work space or your face are a great safety net to have in the event that your account gets hacked and you need to prove ownership.
Being authentic is the only way this is going to work!
As always if you have any questions, comments, thoughts or even podcast topics ideas, please email us at: dropastitchpodcast@gmail.com.
Have a great week everyone!
