I Want to be a Star!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Sandra Bullock and the numerous movie stars in the entertainment industry today. If you want to be famous be a social media star is the best move. After watching TED video “How to make a splash on social media,” I’m convince social media can help you become a household name. I think of some of the “Insta” celebrities I follow. @jnaty @louisandperals @laurenelise, and many more have more followers than some very famous people around the world. When Instagram took off it made some people “Insta” celebrities.  Here is a list of questions and ideas to kick start you becoming “Insta” famous.

1. Why do you want to become famous on Instagram?

I’m not going to ask why you want to be famous in the first place. That might end up being too philosophic conversation and it’s a topic for another time.

But the main question you need to ask yourself is what do you want to be famous for?

Is it the fact that you’re funny as hell and people are drawn to you because you make them laugh? Is it because you have a great taste in fashion and people turn to you for outfit inspiration? Or are you an expert in your field seeking to help others to become better at something?

The common thing these scenarios have? They all provide value to their audience. You need to provide value, without there’s no fame and following.

End of story.

2. What is your talent/passion?

First you got to ask yourself this question: What is your talent or passion?

Ideally, you want to start your Instagram page around something you are passionate about and you have talent for. This is the surest way to have a great start.

If you have great passion to start a singing career, but you cannot sing at all, then don’t be sad. There are creative ways you could still shine in the spotlight.

For example, you can come forward with your lack of talent and make fun about it. If you’re genuine, people will like you and follow you.

Or why not start an Instagram account about your journey of learning to sing and share your experience with the world?

There are several ways you can make yourself interesting.

3. Get the first 100 to 1,000 followers

We all have friends and family. Be sure to include everybody in your journey. This is something people often forget to do or for some reason just don’t do.

Those first followers are important so you could actually work out your processes and start getting a rhythm of how you want to do things.

4. Develop your own hashtag to become #instafamous

Most brands and big accounts have developed their own hashtag, which is solely used by them and their followers. This is a great way to build your “tribe” and community of engaged people around a specific topic.

Of course, if you’re Coca-Cola or Apple, people all over the world will use your hashtag without actually following you.

Having your own hashtag makes your account look more professional (and bigger than it actually might be) and it gets people interested in you and the movement you’re creating.

Your hashtag could be your account’s name, the name of your product, program, movement, service or just a creative combination of words that are related to your niche.

5. Use a large variety of hashtags

If you’ve done research about using hashtags, you’ve probably found contradictory advice. Some say use only a few hashtags so you wouldn’t look too spammy. Some say you should use 30 hashtags, which is currently the maximum amount of hashtags allowed by Instagram.

Research shows that using more than 11 hashtags gets more engagement. Buffer has put together a very nice article about using hashtags.

I personally recommend using all 30 hashtags per post. Just make sure you keep them relevant and keep changing them once in a while to reach different audiences.

6. Track your exposure with different hashtags

This one is huge!

Most of us don’t realize that people aren’t just browsing their friends’ profiles, but also searching for new cool content.

If you want your posts to be featured in the “top posts” section for certain hashtags you need to gain massive traction in a short period of time after posting. Usually your posts can stay up for around 48 hours. It depends on the hashtag and other accounts using it.

I recommend checking all your hashtags a few hours after posting. Did you hit the top posts section with any of them?

If you didn’t then you’re probably using too broad and too popular tags. Try using less popular ones to get some traction. When your account is already big you can pretty much get to “the explore” even without using the hashtags (Instagram reads other signs besides hashtags as well).

On the other hand, if you did hit “the explore” with all the used hashtags, you should consider using hashtags that are even more popular to reach an even bigger audience.

Keep testing which hashtags work for you and which ones don’t.

It’s not always about popularity as well. I believe Instagram’s algorithm is somewhat similar to Google’s and it also takes into account factors such a CTR (click-through-rate) and account’s activity. So, if people don’t find your content relevant with a certain hashtag, then they’re not clicking/tapping on your post. This gives Instagram indication not to keep it in the top posts section.

Makes sense?

7. Make a list of competitors and idols

This is important for so many reasons.

Firstly, it’s good to get an understanding of their profile. How are they interacting with their followers (could you do something better)? What type of posts get the most shares? etc.

Secondly, it’s better to be friends and collaborate with your competitors, rather than fight for the followers. I suggest interacting with your competitors all the time and exchange shootouts if possible (will get to that later on – so stick around).

Thirdly, if there are certain idols or competitors that you want to interact with, but you don’t really get their attention, don’t take it personally. We’re all humans, and we all have 24 hours in one day. They’re probably just overloaded with everything that’s happening on their social media.

However, you could occasionally mention them in your post captions. If they see that, they just might respond by leaving a comment. In those cases, your post has better chances of being pushed into the explore feed. A comment from an account with a super high follower base is considered very valuable.