As a creator, it is important to grow your local following.
Why? Well in an industry that relies on data and demographics, the location of your audience is an important consideration for brands looking for collaborators. Often, Vamp’s clients want to connect with specific customers. For example, if an Australian brand was looking to reach local customers, they’d be looking to collaborate with influencers with a high percentage of Australian followers, so they can be sure they’re reaching the right people.
So how can you grow your local Instagram following and increase your chances of being approved on a local campaign?
Firstly, take a look at your audience insights. There you can discover what your top five audience locations are. Instagram’s insights have recently updated, so here’s how to find your audience analytics:
#1 Go to your profile and click the Insights button found just above your Story Highlights.
#2 Under Overview, select Total Followers.
#3 Scroll down to Top Locations and select Counties. This will show a breakdown of your top five follower locations.
After delving into this data, you should have a better understanding of where the work needs to be done. We suggest setting a reasonable goal to hold yourself accountable. As we mentioned, brands generally want to work with creators with followers in the country they want to market to. For a lot of our clients this sits at around a minimum of 20%, so make this percentage of local audience your starting goal.
Now it’s time to put in the work. Here are seven ways to grow your local Instagram following:
1. Follow and interact with your local community
Interacting with likeminded users on Instagram should be a top priority when growing your following generally, so use this same method to grow your local audience, but stick to engaging with the locals.
Follow and interact with users who live in the same country as you – like their posts, leave meaningful and thoughtful comments, reply to Stories and respond to DMs. A little bit of community management each day will help you organically grow your local following.
2. Geo-tag your location
Use this tool on both your Instagram posts and Stories to maximise your local audience reach. If you’re at a popular location, such as a trendy cafe or beautiful beach, make your geo-tag specific to that spot. If not, just simply geo-tag your city and within no time you’ll get you on the radar of the locals.
Geo-tagging content can also lead to local ‘word of mouth’ as followers can share stories with their friends and the tail-on effect means your local Instagram following grows.
3. Use local hashtags
Similar to geo-tagging, using local hashtags is a great way to get on the locals radar and have your content reach the right people. For example, if you’re in Dubai, use popular yet Dubai-targeted hashtags such as #dubaifitfam, #mydubai or #weekendsindubai.
Other Dubai residents who frequently use or even follow those hashtags will be exposed to your content and decide to follow you for more of this same content.
4. Dedicate a Story Highlight to your location
If you’re constantly out and about, geo-tagging your local cafes, stores or beaches, dedicate an entire Story Highlight to your city. This could also work for your home country if you’re a big inter-state traveler.
Curating your local Stories into a Highlight will allow potential new followers to relate to a shared experience in their home town, and could perhaps look to you for recommendations of places to eat, shop, see.
5. Speak the lingo
If the country you’ve just moved to, speaks a different language, take the time to learn it. Include a translated version of your caption to please both audiences or try including some hashtags in the native language.
When locals come across your page, they’ll be able to understand and relate to your content much easier. This could just be the trick to getting them to hit ‘Follow,’ joining your local community for good.
6. Get local brands to notice you
Getting your content re-shared by any brand is the perfect way to get organic follower growth. But getting local brands to notice and re-share your content, is how you’re going to ensure those new followers are mainly locals.
Anywhere you go and snap a shot for Instagram, always tag and mention the brand, company or location. This will give them the potential to first notice your content, and second have the ability to re-share your work on their account.
7. Create high-quality content that will resonate with locals
Creating quality content should always be your number one priority. When locals come across your page, you want to give them a reason to follow you and not leave. Shoot content that you know users from your location will appreciate.
Shoot at iconic spots around your city or country and turn them into pieces of art – play around with camera angles, lighting, props and editing apps like VSCO or Photoshop, to offer your audience quality work from locations they can share an experience with.
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Grow your small business with these eight Instagram features
