How to Grow your Instagram account in 60 minutes a day!

Believe it or not, Instagram is more than just a place for pretty pictures. It’s a place for connecting, sharing stories, and sharing tips and tricks. It’s also a place to find your tribe and create deep meaningful connections to them. And, get this, you can grow your Instagram account in as little as 60 minutes a day!

How to Grow your Instagram account in 60 minutes a day! Click To Tweet

Yep! That’s really all you need to create lasting effects and massive growth on your Instagram account.

Of course, you can spend as much time there as you want as well, but it’s not necessary to see substantial growth.

Learn How to Grow Your Instagram Account in 60 Minutes a Day (or Less)

With all that you have to do nowadays to get noticed online, spending countless hours on social media doesn’t have to be one of those “to-do’s” on your list. If you’re smart, follow a plan and know what you should be doing each day it can make your life so much easier.

If Instagram is your jam, and you’re wanting to massively grow your account and reach a larger audience I’m going to share with you my top 6 ways to grow your Instagram account that won’t break the time bank.

#1 Schedule the Time in Your Calendar

If it’s not scheduled it won’t happen. You can plan to do things all day long, but if you don’t have it blocked off in your schedule it means you don’t value it.

The number one thing you need to do is get serious about your business enough to be serious about your growth tactics. Because they are tactics and you need to be consistent in order to see growth.

You need to have a daily routine of when you’ll post your pictures when you’ll take your pictures or source them, when to write your captions, when to follow other accounts and when to go on a liking/commenting spree.

By planning it all out it will give you a guideline to follow on a daily basis so that you’re never guessing.

I would lay it out like this:

• schedule about 5-10 minutes in the morning to like and comment on photos in relevant hashtags that you use
• spend about 10-30 minutes on photo creation (unless you batch create)
• 5-10 minutes in the evening doing more liking and commenting on photos in relevant hashtags.

You don’t have to follow people every day, but I would set aside about 5 minutes each day to go to a popular person in your niche and follow people who are following them.

(Note: A great app for this is Crowdfire because this app allows you to follow the most engaged people following your top competitors.)

#2 Plan out your posts (something like Later)

This is something that can save you LOADS of time. Literally.

When you batch plan your post, know what you’re going to write each day, draft it all up and schedule it in something like Later it’s amazing. It will leave you free to like, comment, follow and cultivate your community.

This also means you need to set aside at least a day or maybe two each month that you schedule all of these posts.

I batch schedule one post per day in this way so that I don’t miss a beat. Any other post after that is just a byproduct of having time to actually post and not worry about it.

Batch planning also allows you to keep things on brand. Which is majorly important when posting on social media.

#3 Create amazing graphics

If a picture can say 1000 words, then your graphics for Instagram better be on point. Instagram is a photo app and without great photos, it’s likely your account won’t be around very long.
Your graphic is the thing that will stop a person and either get them to click through or keep scrolling. We want them to click through and browse more of our photos and not to keep scrolling.

Creating a great graphic:

• lighting
• composition
• rule of thirds (google it)
• if it’s not a picture of a person or things, make sure the colors pair well
• use readable fonts
• use 2 fonts, 3 fonts MAX
• use a watermark (people need to be able to know where to find you and that you made it)

If you’re still not sure what would make a graphic great – go research! Fly on over to Instagram land and check out a hashtag you think your audience would be searching.

Look at the photos that make you stop and look or read. Take note of what you like about them or don’t like about them. What could you replicate? How can you get that same feel?

When you know what makes a graphic great you’ll be likely to create great graphics too.

#4 Keep a note of your 30+ hashtags (for posting AND interacting)

Hashtags are king on Instagram.

On Instagram, hashtags are what make the world go round. You search via hashtags and you can be searched via hashtags. So, it makes sense that using hashtags would be something you’d want to do.

You can add up to 30 hashtags to your posts, but you don’t necessarily need to use them all.

Not using them all, of course, is up for debate.

Some people say, “You can use 30 so why not use all 30?”

Others say, “It looks trashy and you don’t need all 30.”

Me? I say, “Do what feels comfortable for you.” And, if using all 30 is what you want to do, then go for it! Ain’t no shame in that game.

Word of advice:

• Post your photo with no hashtags
• Create a note on your phone and put in your 10-30 hashtags but have periods on 5 lines before it (see image below)
• Copy that and then past in a comment
• Publish photo

#5 Batch design or take photos

If you take your photos, please for the love of all that is holy, batch your photo session. It will save you a ton of time and you can lay out 30-90 days’ worth of images in a single day.

If you’re designing your photos, the same thing applies.

There is nothing worse than trying to figure out what the heck to take a photo of or create a photo about and you have 10 minutes until your dedicated posting time.

Stop the madness. Batch. Batch. Batch. And then, Schedule. Schedule. Schedule.

Easy right?

#6 Create your plan

This one probably could have been listed here, but we’re gonna stick it here.

Creating a plan around your post schedule and brand helps you to keep your post topics about things your audience wants to see.

There’s nothing like scrolling through hashtags and seeing something way off topic. For instance, you’re hunting for great camping photos or hiking photos using the hashtag #ourcamplife and you run across some girl running in the city… lame.

Don’t be that person. Plan your posts and plan your hashtags.

Planning what you want to post, what kinds of posts you’re wanting to post and what themes you’re posting makes things so much simpler for you. Not to mention it makes creating a plan around the holidays much easier too.

***Bonus*** Hire it out

When all else fails? Hire that sh*t out yo! There are people who literally L-O-V-E to be on Instagram all.day.long. And, they love helping others grow their accounts. So, if you simply don’t have the time then maybe consider hiring some or all of the social media management portion out to someone who does love it and has time.

These are the same tricks I’ve used to grow my account from 0 to 11k in 5 months.

Epic Camping started as a test for me, and then grew into something I actually enjoyed growing.

It grew from ZERO to 11,000 followers in 5 months from the end of February to the end of July beginning of August.

Now, you might say, “Brianna, you’re only at 11,300 now. What happened since then?”

And, that’s a fair question. It was a test project that turned a bit heavy passion project, but it’s not my business. As in, it’s not what pays my bills.

My client load increased and some things slipped and Epic Camping was one. I’ve since then scheduled time each day to curate this feed. I’m using an app called Later (https://app.later.com) to schedule all of my posts so that I don’t stress and freak out when it comes time to post a photo each day. The best part is you can post 30 photos a month FREE.

I’m a wife, mother, and entrepreneur that helps moms start a business, to manage their time, and explore their creative sides. I love horses, dogs, and cats, and I love to hunt.

Mom Blogger and Virtual Assistant at www.mommaworkstoo.com