How to get more Instagram followers by creating separate accounts based on topic
Are you trying to gain more followers on Instagram? Do you have a wide range of interests, some of which may not necessarily be related to each other in the slightest? Then you may have wondered if it’s better to have a single Instagram account or to create an account focused around each of your interests. Although having multiple accounts may complicate management to some extent, Instagram introduced a multiple-account feature in its mobile app last year, which means it’s a hell of a lot easier than it was previously.
If you you’re in the same boat as I am, you currently have one Instagram account where you’ve posted a mishmash of photos without any consistent theme other than the fact that you found it interesting or appear in the photo personally. That’s great for people who know you personally, or for people who by some coincidence share all of the exact same interests, but what if you’re trying to increase the scope of your target audience? Well, there’s only one way to find out if having multiple targeted accounts is better than a single all encompassing one. I’m trying it out and sharing the results with you.
My Instagram account @kendevo currently has 5,962 followers. I previously followed about 7,000 people, but decided a few months ago that I would rather limit my feed to people and topics that I truly care about. After this cleanse, my follower count has been steadily dropping at the rate of about 60 followers monthly (stats by Social Blade). I assume these are mainly people who noticed that I am no longer following them, and people who followed me because I posted a photo related to something they’re interested in but then post too many content that they do not relate with. Fair enough, it’s only logical. I wouldn’t stick around for photos of someone’s cat either if I signed up for fitness motivation.
Considering I have posted only once every three days on average for the rolling year, I cannot be considered a social media addict. Because of this, and since I want to avoid the hassle of switching between accounts all the time, I would like to keep using my main account as a hub. My original idea was to post all content to this account, and based on the hash-tags, automatically re-post the content to sub-accounts. This would be useful not only because it makes things easier, and because otherwise the main account would be deprived of content, but also because some content fits into multiple categories. For instance, when I practice several sports at once. Unfortunately, it seems services like IFTTT and Zapier do not support actions for Instagram since its terms of service do not allow automated posting.
If you’re planning to separate your Instagram accounts based on interest as well, I’d recommend spending a few minutes writing these out to see how related they are, what type of content you will publish, and how much interest there is for each of the topics. Here is my breakdown as an example;
- #Fitness: 226,430,148 posts – This will include training and progress photos as well as recipes for healthy meals.
- #AcroYoga: 1,533,565 posts – This would also encompass #Yoga since it’s encompassed by AcroYoga and matches for the query.
- #Slackline: 808,028 posts – Photos and videos related to slacklining of course!
Anything that doesn’t fit specifically in any of these categories would be posted to the main account until there is enough content to merit a sub-account.
To be continued as I look for a tool which would allow me to automatically post to multiple accounts at once…
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