Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

If you’re trying to grow a brand (maybe to sell some of your homemade syrup, or open an online shop, or blog about your homestead… ), knowing how to grow your reach on instagram is really important.

A sweet new friend of mine, Vea Carpi, joined me in episode 7 of season 2 of the Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy podcast to share great tips on growing an instagram page.

Meet Vea on her ig page right here.

Vea’s 6 Tips for Growing Your Reach on Instagram

1. Attract the Right People

Take advantage of the fact that people come on instagram to find others who have similar interests as their own. Make sure you are showcasing your interests in your description on your instagram feed and by what hashtags you use.

2. Keep it Pretty

Always make things aesthetically appealing, especially on your feed, where those first 9 little squares are where folks are going to get their first impression of you and decide if they want to follow you.

Brush up on some photography tips like ones I share here.

And always choose a new photo that looks great with the ones proceeding it. (Vea recommends the Preview app to help with this.)

3. Do Video, Right

Learn about all your video options and choose the right one for the “job.”

While it’s sometimes very handy that an igtv can go much longer than a simple story, always ask yourself if your followers will want this longer content.
Live videos, often intriguing for your audience, can also be very stressful for you, so consider having someone else there to help you and read the comments as you deliver your live.
Reels, because they are ig’s newest video option, are very popular and will most likely be seen more than other options.
Stories are the backbone of ig and are a wonderful way to bring others along, step by step over a longer period of time in your day, and give useful tutorials or encouragement. Save ones that your audience may want to refer back to in your highlights.

4. Enjoy Yourself and Be Creative

Enjoy learning and growing on ig, always be genuine, and take advantage of the fact that building your presence there tends to boost your creativity, and that’s always a good thing, yes?

5. Set Goals

Be assured that you can, in small ways, begin monetizing your instagram account, even with a rather small following. The key is to have a final goal and then work towards that. For Vea, the goal was to draw in-person customers to her family’s farm restaurant on the weekends and she found it was doing that after only growing to a few thousand followers.

6. Encourage Engagement

Encourage engagement in every way you can!

Ask friends to give your ig posts and stories lots of love as you’re growing this platform.

And feel free to, once in a while, outright ask this of your followers too. Because every time a post is liked, commented on, saved, and shared ig decides to show it to more folks.

And be sure to answer your comments, reply to your DMs, repost things you are tagged in, and be eager to engage with others. All of these little things can add up big on ig.