INSTAGRAM 101 - PART 17/18

How to Promote Your Instagram Guide

The Explore Page

The Explore Page is a fantastic way to promote your content and build your following.

Users can search for keywords and hashtags in order to find new content, and Instagram recommends them posts on the explore that they think they will be most interested in based on their past activity.

It is important for your content to stand out, which means having attractive images and slides in order for people to engage with them.

Like the Explore Page, there are comparable feeds available for IGTV and Reels.

While not available at launch, Instagram announced that soon Guides would be added to the Explore Page. Potentially this would change into a separate feed for Guides--although at the time of writing this was not available. Nevertheless, learning to increase the chance of your posts ending up on the Explore Page (by using hashtags and encouraging engagement) will be a beneficial skill.

Post every post as if it will end up on the Explore Page of thousands of people—meaning it needs to be high quality and entice your audience to head over to your page, scroll through more of your posts, and hit the follow button.

In essence, you need to learn to understand the algorithm. Or if you do not understand the algorithm--because not a lot of us truly understand how it works, you should instead understand what it can do for you. The algorithms use machine learning to try and gauge what users would like in order to get them to continue to spend time on the apps.

Features

Getting featured on other user’s Guides is a great way to end up in front of new audiences. And, featuring other users in your Guide may cause them to share it, too.

Direct messages

Users can share your content directly with other users. Encouraging your audience to share your posts with their friends is a great way to start discussions and open up your Guides to new viewers.

Basically, any kind of “share” that you can encourage from your audience, and other users, is a fantastic way to reach new people, but also indicate to the algorithm that your content is valuable and worth pushing.