How to Grow your Dogs Instagram- Engagement Tips

Photo by @madpuplife

Hey hey dog lovers! We are back with the 3rd post in our Grow Your Dog’s Instagram Series. This post features the basic tips and tricks on engagement and growth within the Instagram community and exactly how to grow your accounts organically. If you want to keep learning about growing your dog’s Instagram account, keep reading!

And if you missed the first post in this series, "how to start your dogs IG account, don’t worry, just catch up by clicking here! Or the second post, How to grow your dogs instagram, Photography tips, click here to read.

How To Gain Followers 

Social media is a place where most of us go for fun, wholesome content to make us smile or catch up with friends. It is also a place to grow, develop businesses, or become “Instagram famous” and I’d be lying if I said I didn't dream of having tens of thousands of followers - just like most of you I’m sure. So if you want to be successful on Instagram, you need to gain reliable followers. The 6 main tips to gaining these followers are:

Post consistently - whether that’s every day at the same time or every other day - try to make it routine so your followers know when to expect you.

Utilize IG stories - Stories are still on the up and up, so don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera and share you and your pups daily lives, your favorite toys, when you go on walks or adventures, etc. 

Use hashtags - Hashtags are Instagram’s way of connecting like minded individuals. When searching for hashtags, you can find tons of posts and inspiration from people just like you! (we will cover more on hashtags below) 

Engage With Your Followers: The main point of Instagram is to be social - so don’t skip out on it! Comment and like the pictures of people who comment and like yours, search hashtags and choose a few people to interact with, and scroll your feed to connect with people YOU follow, too. 

Tag Companies/ Brands In Your Photos - If you’re posing with a Patchwork Pet toy or eating a cake from Bobby & Bambi Bakery, be sure to tag them in your photo so you could potentially be reposted onto their feed! More exposure from popular IG accounts means more love on yours! 

Post Content Your Followers Want - if you have a business account, Instagram let’s you view your posts insights and analytics. You can see which posts performed better, which had more comments, and which ones reach more viewers. Use these stats to create similar posts to attract more people to your feed. 

HASHTAGS 101

I briefly mentioned the importance of using hashtags above, but because they are so detrimental to your Instagram game, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the topic. Hashtags are great for many reasons, like connecting like-minded people (aka dog lovers!) But sometimes the number of hashtags can be useless or overkill (maximum number of hashtags in a post is 30) You want to use hashtags that convert. You want to stay away from basic tags such as #love #cute #dog and use more specific hashtags tailored exactly to you and your account. It is okay to use a few “basic” tags such as #dogmom #doglover or #goldenretriever, but the majority of your tags need to be ones that aren't over populated. 

For example, if you are a Golden Retriever account that lives in Chicago, you can hashtag #GoldenRetrieversofChicago to seek out your target audience. If you are wearing a Ripley & Rue bandana in your picture, try using #RipleyandRueCrew in your post. The options are endless when it comes to finding relevant hashtags, so try searching IG for some or create your own. 

Hopefully this post helped you learn a little more about engagement within the Instagram community and helps you grow your account even more! Be sure to read the first two posts in this series if you haven't already (find those here and here) and stay tuned for the next one about accessories and props!

Do you have any tips that we missed? Comment below! 

Blog content created by Sydney of @madpuplife 

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