Instagram Followers and Engagers are for learning from. Here are the tips and tactics I use to learn from them when they are not trying to teach me.

There are many reasons for having followers and for wanting to attract comments and likes.

One of the reasons, and when you are a growing account, one of the most important reasons - is to learn from them.

Click through the profiles and then see:

• does the profile attract your attention?
• do the posts trigger you to take action? i.e. click on the post or visit the profile url
• would you want to see those posts in your feed?

For any of the above, particularly if the answer is Yes, take notes.

Attention

Marketing is attention. If the posts and profile don’t attract your attention that is not marketing that works for you. Why is that?

Keep a list of “avoid doing this”

If the profile does attract your attention, then:

• identify why
• do you do that?
• what steps could you take, to achieve a similar effect or to do the same thing?

Don’t copy, be inspired.

Action

If you took action based on something you see in their profile.

• make a note of the action
• reverse engineer the reason

Did you click on the post to see the caption? Why? Was it the teaser text shown on mobile? Was it the image?

Did you click on the link in their profile? Why?

Did you look at their image more carefully? Clicking on the image to see it in a larger view? Why?

Also

Remember to do this on both, mobile and web because you will learn different things on each platform if you pay attention. It is easier on the mobile app, but worth doing on the web.

For accounts that you think did well - have a look at their stories and see if they are using those effectively as well.

Scroll through “explore” and see what posts catch your eye - analyse those that do, check out the profiles of the people there.

During your Hashtag research and monitoring and scroll through for analysis. I normally get more value out of the hashtag scrolling than the explore scrolling.

I find that looking through the people who have followed, or liked, offers me a chance to engage with them, but more importantly, a chance to learn from them.