There is an activity that many people ignore but that becomes essential when you want to address a specific audience on Instagram: categorizing your account.
No tick to flag, no setting to set and no app to download. All you need is your little hand, a lot of perseverance and a few practical tips (which I’ll give you shortly).
The benefits will be considerable, because within a fortnight you will notice with the naked eye that:
- on the Explore page you will almost exclusively find content aimed at the target you want
- increased engagement under all your content (including stories)
- entry of new followers into the target (net of followers coming from bots, which we can’t handle of course)
In fact, if the strategy has worked on a personal account and more vertical as it can be mine, imagine what can happen when you activate and customize the same strategy on more commercial profiles.
Preliminary remarks
With the account you want to categorize, you’ll have to be willing to stop interacting with content that’s not targeted, and even stop following certain pages.
Unfortunately, you always have to pay a price when you want to do things well and without cheating. But I assure you that the results are guaranteed.
Categorizing an Instagram account
The goal is therefore to make us find – and to be shown by the algorithm of Instagram – to people and / or companies interested in what we do and show.
The steps that I will list you shortly will have to be followed scrupulously, on a regular basis, and every day as long as you wish. Or at least until you address a particular audience.
STEP 1 – Explore page
Open the Instagram app, go to your profile you want to categorize, and start to open and interact (like + sensible comment) daily with target content on your page. Open and interact ONLY and exclusively with target content.
So, if you are a fashion blogger, you will need to view, like and comment only on photos/videos/stories that “talk” about clothing, fashion, trends, etc.. Whether it’s magazine Instagram pages, influencer profiles or brand accounts, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that you go and approach only with target content.
Always remember that there are limits to be respected on Instagram, which we humans are not given to know in terms of precise quantities, so do not overdo, if not risk blocking. But above all, you risk getting tired and no longer follow the strategy within a few days.
It’s better to have about twenty comments and likes well-placed in several hours, than a hundred compressed in a single hour. Just saying.
STEP 2 – following
The time has come for the first real sacrifice.
Go to your followers, click on them and start defolloware all the accounts (people and pages) that you know don’t fit into the target you want to reach. This practice will speed up the process of categorization that starts from the algorithm of Instagram, as it will allow him to understand which theme you are addressing, through your followers.
I know, it is difficult to defolloware mom and morosa, and even your favorite team. I have solved this problem by creating a private personal profile, in which I follow and publish everything that is of my general interest. In this way I did not go to “affect” the account that I wanted to profile well and I do not miss the contents of my loved ones and friends.
P.S.= remember that you can not defolloware more than 60 accounts per hour. Do it sparingly, I recommend. Instagram is watching you!
STEP 3 – caption
No more aphorisms, no more song lyrics, no more sentences. We need originality and verticality, because even the caption has an important role for the IG algorithm, if it shows to be involved.
So start working on text content that talks about you and/or your brand, in target for the people and/or companies that will read you: they must always know who you are and what you do. Last but not least, very important for the strategy, each caption includes a final call-to-action.
You have to invite the public to have their say, then to comment. And you will see that they will start to do so within the first fifteen days of strategy, with this methodology.
A tip: to “help” them further to interact, in addition to the final call-to-action question, add an emoticon like this -> ⬇️
Emoticons are a universal language and strengthen the conviction phase, have a high level of empathy, and develop a concept in a single symbol. Do not underestimate them.
STEP 4 – hashtag
In the latest update of the Instagram algorithm, hashtags were again given a leading role.
In my own strategy, given to the hand, I have not noticed particular differences if I inserted 10 rather than 30, but if I integrated them in the comments rather than under the caption, yes, the coverage of hashtags decreased by at least 20%.
My sincere advice is therefore to integrate the hashtags in the description and never use more than thirty. Better if a little less.
Important, all hashtags should be addressed to the niche you are addressing. Not one less. And some of them must contextualize the shared photo/video.
Example: if you posted a photo of the Duomo of Milan, you’ll have to use hashtags related to travel themes, Italy and Milan.
Did you know this strategy?
Recategorizing an existing Instagram account is a “pro” strategy, which I myself only teach during my one-to-one courses or training sessions. You won’t find it easily online, and probably no one else will give it to you for free.
So I recommend that you treasure it and apply it carefully. You’ll see the results in the first fortnight!
Now tell me, did you already know this strategy? Did you know that it was possible to categorize an Instagram profile independently?
