If you’ve delved into your Google Analytics, you might find you don’t get much, if any, traffic from Instagram. But don’t let that stop you from curating pretty images for your followers. Instagram is an amazing and personal way to share your life with your blog followers and give them a look behind the scenes. By seeing a photo or two a day from you, your followers will start to get to know you and look forward to your posts, and you will stay top of mind for them.

Personally I don’t click on the live link for brands or other bloggers from my phone very often but the way I see it, that’s not the point of Instagram. That’s why I don’t like to blatently promote my blog on Instagram very often. Instagram is more about building relationships which in turns helps build loyalty to your brand.

Whether you’re a seasoned Instagram vet or you’ve just taken the plunge, take a peek at some of my tried and true tips for making your Instagram account work for you.











1. Follow other bloggers.

Lifestyle and mommy bloggers are all over Instagram. Some of my favourite bloggers to follow are Kyla from House of Hipsters and Jessica Garvin from Little Baby Garvin. Their feeds are chalk full of drool-worthy pictures that will inspire you to be a better blogger, I swear.

2. Share your world.

I like to think of Instagram as the Pinterest board of my actual life! As bloggers, we love sharing photos of our projects but readers want to get to know the real you, too! Share your lazy Sunday or give a sneak peak at an upcoming project.

3. Leave thoughtful comments.

Just like you would comment on a blog post, comment on other bloggers and brands images. Believe me, comments don’t go unnoticed. A lot of the partnerships I’ve formed through my blog blossomed out of interacting on Instagram.

4. Tag Brands.

When you take pretty stylized pictures of a brand’s products being used in your real life, tag them in it! Brands LOVE using pictures from fans and will often ask you if you don’t mind them sharing them with their fans. This equals a shout out to you to all their fans! You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, you know what I mean?

5. Don’t spam.

We get it, you’re doing a giveaway but it’s important to not bug or overload your followers feeds. It’s a thin line to walk between advertising your blog and being too spammy. Unfortunately, if people get the spam vibe from you, you’ll get un-followed.

6. Filters.

Don’t overuse them! When Instagram first hit it big, filters and frames were all the rage but what’s now in vogue is bright, clear, and naturally beautiful pictures. And remember nobody likes Kelvin!

7. Link to your blog.

Instagram gives you a spot in your profile to add a live link — make it a link to your blog! It may seem like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised how many bloggers I’ve seen without a link to their work. And if you really want to maximize that link, try out Link Tree! I use it and I am loving being able to direct people to multiple links.

8. Use hashtags.

But don’t over do it. Find out what hashtags your Instagram role models are using and use those as a starting point. Some of my favorite hashtags in the mommy blogging niche? #makeclothmainstream #normalizeit #wearallthebabies.

9. Don’t over-post.

Instagram isn’t like Facebook — you don’t have to post EVERY photo from your family vacation. I usually don’t post more than 2 times a day and I like to space them out. I’ve definitely unfollowed someone because my feed was getting clogged up by their gym selfies.

10. What do I post?

If you’re stuck, you can never go wrong with a cute baby! They always get a like!

11. Schedule

I love being able to schedule some posts ahead of time. For that, I use an app called Later. With it I’m able to schedule my photos for a certain time of day, which is helpful when I have blog posts going live on certain days and want to let my followers know about them.

Hungry for more blog tips? Here are some of my time-saving blog tools and here are my favourite plugins for WordPress.

Have an idea for something you want me to cover? Let me know in the comments!

PS: I’ll this post contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure policy here.