Instagram, launched on October 6, 2010, as another social media under the Meta universe. The purpose of launching Instagram is beyond the likes; it's about giving a platform to build a thriving community. A community where you can connect with like-minded people and spread your ideas, message, and innovation with them. In this blog post, we are going to bust the myth about why it is more important to build a community than to get more likes.
Community Vs Likes
The question is, why is it more important to build a community than to chase likes? The short answer is long-term benefits. Building a community is a lifelong endeavor; it will endure as long as you continue to nurture it. On the other hand, a like is a temporary fix; it can give short-term happiness, but you will lose it all once they get a better creator.
Other benefits of focusing on the community are
- A community grows your brand, not just your analytics
- Community can give you permanent followers that grow exponentially.
- A community can last offline, not just on Instagram.
- You can sell your products or services easily to your community.
- Once you have a community, getting likes is just a piece of cake.
How to build a community on Instagram?
Building a thriving community is not an overnight success; it takes time, but it's worth it. It took about 15 years for Instagram to create a community of 2 billion users. But now it's growing on itself. At the start, you need to put a lot of effort into building a community on Instagram, but as you grow, your community can grow through automation.
There are a few phases you need to pursue to grow your Instagram community:
- Choosing your Motivation
- Finding your Niche
- Finding your audience
- Building Connection
- Creating Content
- Building a Network
- Expansion of Community
Choosing your Motivation
Building a community can take months; that's why it's necessary to choose your motivation first before starting to work on it. A motivation can be your daily hobby, your passion, a desire to help others, or a drive to bring about change in society. Motivation will help you be consistent in creating content and to think beyond likes.
Pro Tip: Never choose money as your motivation. That can be your desire, but it won't motivate you to create content on Instagram.
Steps to find out your motivation:
Ask yourself these questions to find out your motivation:
- What is that one thing you can do without anyone's help?
- What kind of task can you do endlessly without getting tired?
- Does that task help you earn money?
- Does the content solve someone's problem?
- Is it legal in your country?
Asking these five questions will surely help you decide on your motivation that leads to building a community on Instagram. Once you are ready with the answers, we can proceed to the next phase.
Finding your niche
A niche is nothing but a category or subcategory you choose to create content for. It can be cooking recipes, diet food, home yoga, hair care, gym tips, gadgets, how-to, etc. An Instagram niche can be of the following types:
- Broad Niche: Health care, fashion, technology, finance, governance, education, etc.
- Narrow Niche: Yoga tips, Clothing for women, smartphone accessories, money investment, etc.
- Micro Niche: Yoga tips for old age women in the Philippines, traditional Indian clothing for newborn babies, and budget smartphone gadgets for Android under 100 dollars in the USA.
A broad niche gives you a wide range of topics to create content for, but you will face more competition. A narrow niche has less competition than a broad one, but it will also limit your content ideas.
Give enough time to finalize your niche, because once chosen, it shouldn't be changed in the future; otherwise, you will break the bond with your Instagram community.
Finding your Audience
Community can't be built with one person; it requires a lot of people to share the same motivation. Instagram's large audience of 2 billion users is a great place to find like-minded people who can join together as your Instagram community.
How to find your audience on Instagram?
Instagram audiences can be found either in hashtags, groups, or broadcast channels. Let's understand each one of them in detail
Hashtag Audience
Instagram has special tags to understand the context of your content. It introduces hashtags to let users explain the microcategory of your posted content. Instagram also keeps a record of all posts that are tagged with specific hashtags and who is interested in those hashtags.
If you search for any keyword with the '#' symbol in Instagram search, you will find all related hashtags for that keyword. Instagram allows following hashtags as well. You can follow the hashtags related to your niche so Instagram considers your account part of that community.
Instagram groups
Instagram groups are not publicly available like Facebook. To join Instagram, you need admin approval, or you can join via a member of that group. Once you are in, you will have access to a large number of like-minded people who can join your community.
Broadcast Channel
Broadcast channels are similar to Instagram groups, but only admins can send messages in them. They can moderate the channel, set rules, and spread any message they want. You can contact any of the channel admins or even do a paid promotion to get more eyes on your account.
Building Connection
Even if you find your audience, they are still not a part of your community. You need to start building connections with others. It can be via DM, comments, or a collaboration. The aim is to reach out to people, create a bond through conversation, and share your goals and ideas. The more connections you build, the stronger your community gets.
DO NOT approach people for a like-for-like or follow-for-follow strategy. It sucks and will ruin your first impression and your community's credibility.
There are various ways to connect with new people, which is a big topic to discuss. You can read about those strategies in our blog, 7 Secret Growth hacks to grow your followers overnight
Creating Content
You need to give to receive something. Content is a way of communication; you can share new ideas and make them aware of your motivation and your goals for starting this community. It encourages them to join and participate in the growth of your community.
Try to make your content engaging so they not only like but also interact with your posts, either comment on or share them with other people to spread your community further. You can take the help of AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to generate ideas.
There are different strategies you can follow while creating content, depending upon your niche, but the golden rule that always works is to follow the trend. Whatever is trending, create content around it, and you will never miss the shot.
Building Network
We have already read about building connections, so how does it differ from building a network? Building a connection is just a one-to-one connection with someone, but in a network, everyone is connected to each other. You act as a medium for them to connect with others in your community.
In a network, everyone has the right to speak and share ideas with others. Your account will become a part of that network. Everyone will help in growing the network together
How to build a network on Instagram?
Remember these key steps to build a network on Instagram:
- Encourage content sharing by shareable content ideas
- Ask your audience to subscribe to your newsletter, join a group, or watch your broadcast channel.
- Reward them for contributing to the network; it can be small gifts, a free shout-out, etc.
- Retain them with personalized content made just for them.
Expansion of the Community
If you have reached here, you have already built a full-fledged, thriving community on Instagram. It's time to expand it further. The expansion involves growing your network and giving the steering wheel to others so they can continue growing your community for generations.
Here are a few tips that will help you expand your community:
- Create leaders, not followers. Make connections with people who can lead your community.
- Bring your community to the ground level; meet them in person, and create a personal bond.
- Share more, save less. Do giveaways frequently, and launch new products, ideas, and solutions.
- Dare to set a higher milestone, say a global community, not just within a country.
- Push the limits of content creation, endure new technology, and think bigger.