How to use Instagram

People Follow You on Instagram – Now What?

/in /by

You start an Instagram account and hope people will find you there. You want to build an Instagram community.

Over time your posts get you followers. Great! And then they start to comment and send you messages. You have created an engaged community on Instagram. Ignoring them can do more damage to you and your brand than not having an Instagram account at all.

How do you manage this community you created? Following are some effective and time saving ideas for managing your Instagram community.

Understand Your Following

The first step is to understand the people in your community. This may or may not correlate with the people you intended to connect with. Instagram’s built-in analytics will tell you the location, age range, and gender breakdown of your audience.

You can go further and research who else your followers follow and look at what they post on their own account.

The more you understand who you are engaging with on Instagram, the more effective you can be in meeting expectations.

5 Ways to Manage your Instagram Followers

1. Post Content That Invites Their Input

You are already posting – now it is time to make sure more of those posts ask your followers to be involved. It’s easier to understand your followers when you have an ongoing back-and-forth.

Post things they like, comment on and share. High quality photos, having a variety of different kinds of posts and posting timely content are all likely to get people engaged. Toss in some insider information that you share only with your Instagram tribe!

You can also outright ask for engagement. Ask a question and ask people to comment. Being direct works!

2. Set Your Criteria for Response

Not every engagement needs a response. Adding “thanks” to every comment doesn’t do much to build your community. Decide on your criteria for deciding whether a comment or share warrants a response.

Now you can quickly scan your engagement and comments without making case-by-case decisions.

3. Respond to Comments Promptly

Replying to comments and DMs in a timely manner let’s people know you are as interested in them as they are in you. It also reinforces that more than a brand, you are a person.

Determine a process that works for you and stick to the schedule – once a day at 3, weekly, or whatever you can commit to. Diving in to interact on a schedule is much less stress on your schedule than responding each time a DM or comment arrives.

If you’re using your Instagram account for business, providing good customer service makes all the difference. Answer inquiries quickly and provide resources and answers.

4. Create Reusable Replies

Instagram’s Saved Reply feature is a keyboard shortcut you can set up to quickly respond to simple inquiries. This is available for both business and creator accounts.

From your profile, hit the menu button in the top right corner of your screen. From there, go to Settings, then Creator, then Saved Reply. Choose a shortcut for your response—when you type this in, Instagram will automatically populate the text field with your predetermined message.

5. Limit Trolls and Bots

Not only are trolls and spam annoying to deal with, but they’ll also negatively affect your followers’ experience and perception of your brand.

To make sure your Instagram content is a positive experience for all, delete comments that troll your account or you suspect come from bots.

Instagram allows you to automatically hide offensive comments.

  • Go to your account settings.
  • Tap Privacy.
  • Tap Hidden Words.
  • Select which comment controls you’d like to set.

You can block comments from specific users by doing the following:

  • Go to your account settings.
  • Tap Privacy.
  • Tap Comments
  • Type in the names of the accounts you’d like to block comments from.