Follow me on Instagram

That's not where it stops though, there plenty of other strategic ways to get out there. Here is a list of 5 things you should start doing to help heighten your growth on Instagram.

1. Ask Questions

This is a huge one for me. People do not ask enough questions on Instagram, often times we'll go to a page and say "Nice pic" and keep it moving, that's great, but everyone is doing that. Really engage, comment and then ask the right questions. Get to know your follower. Recently I had someone write me a mini paragraph, they let me know how much they liked my photographs and then they started to talk about a post from my blog... Bonus points, to finish their statement they asked how old I was.

Now maybe my age doesn't matter, however, I'm sure what they meant was how experienced are you, but that question got a response, we went back and forth a little bit, chances are if your dialogue is similar then you'll get a follower and now you have someone interested in your work.

2. Respond To Comments

Don't limit yourself to just asking questions to followers you want to connect with, talk to the people on your page too. As a photographer it's common to get a "nice pic 👍" from a random Instagrammer. The typical response is always "thank you". Stop doing that, thank you is a conversation ender, no one is going to keep complimenting you. Really talk to that follower. Hit him with a thank you and then again, ask questions.

You have to treat everything like it's face to face. If you were in public and someone said "hey great suit!" and you just said "thank you", they'd probably walk away. But if you said, "thanks I actually got it on sale at Mr. Porter, my name is Keenan by the way, are you into fashion?" Well now you have some decent dialogue going on.

Related: Engagement is Content

3. Hashtag Immediately

Hashtagging is frowned upon by many, but it's important to get the right people to look at your photographs. Hashtagging brings a select crowd to your images. Be sure to use the right ones to go with your photograph. Having a hard time keeping track of them all? Download the app TagsForLikes, they also have a pro version that's $2 in the App Store. This pro version of the app allows you to store custom hashtags that are ready to be copy & pasted at the price of a button. I organize mine by camera brand, I have some for my Fujifilm camera (street and portraits) and then some for my iPhone and GoPro as well. Remember you can only use 30 hashtags on an Instagram post, so use them wisely.