7 tips to help you build an Instagram audience

If you’ve tapped into social media as a means to acquire a new audience, you’ve likely learned that it takes a bit of effort.

While carefully crafting posts for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram, the simple act of experimenting can quickly help you determine what is resonating with users versus what isn’t.

However, sometimes it can be difficult to identify exactly which social media strategies will prove to be most popular, so we’ve called on one urban farmer with a substantial following in Instagram to share his tips about how to maximize each and every post you put on your page.

Kyle Hagerty is the founder of Urban Farmstead, a nonprofit supplier of produce grown both indoors and out in Hagerty’s backyard in Sacramento, Calif. From pear trees, to raised beds, to leafy greens grown in hoophouses, Urban Farmstead offers a wide variety of fruits and vegetables free of charge through a farmstand in front of his house. Those who receive the produce have the option to give a donation, which gets funneled right back to the farm.

“It’s really been a passion of mine that’s been evolving and self-taught through a lot of different sources,” says Hagerty, a full-time firefighter and paramedic who turned his hobby into a nonprofit after the city passed an urban agriculture ordinance in March 2015.

Urban Farmstead’s Instagram account is filled with more than 150 colorful posts of all things farm-related. From raw images of the garden, to pests that he’s discovered during production, to artfully arranged gatherings of leafy greens after harvest and even his cute pup in the backyard, Hagerty’s posts attract more than 1,000 “likes” on average, and regularly spark more than 200 comments on a single image.

1. Find your niche.

“People will follow you for a number of different reasons,” Hagerty says. “Some of them might be interested in looking a pretty pictures of flowers, so if that’s your niche, and you have a page that has a lot of pretty pictures of flowers, anyone who comes across that and is interested in that is probably going to follow you.” He says that especially when it’s a hobby, like growing produce, we can all learn from each other, so we should use it as an information exchange in that arena. Instead of talking to your audience, talk with them. Also, it probably wouldn’t be wise to post pictures that don’t relate to that topic, because you’ll lose the focus of your following. Always find a way to connect your post with what your overall message is.

“Whether you’re learning how to manage a certain pest, or you’re learning about a new variety of lettuce, you can gain a lot of that from other people just on Instagram,” he says. “Reaching those people would be as simple as just sharing what you’re doing.” 

2. Right market, right time.

While much of Hagerty’s Instagram posting is calculated, much of the reason his posts relate to Millennials is that grow-your-own and local produce is a trend that’s come back strong, and doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

“I do feel like urban gardening in itself is popular with Millennials right now,” Hagerty says, adding that he doesn’t feel as though he does anything specific to target them. He’s also finding response from other generations, too. “Growing food and gardening is still continuing to be popular with all of the generations before them,” he says. 

3. Put thought into the photo.

Hagerty says it’s difficult to know what’s going to resonate best with his audience, but he does have a general rule of thumb:

“I feel like any time you have a picture, when you can just glance at it quickly for a second, and you’re kind of pleasantly surprised at the image without having to look too closely at it, you’ve got something good there,” he says. In other words, don’t make the viewer spend time determining you’re trying to portray. (Hint: They likely won’t even try, and will keep scrolling down their feeds.)

“If it’s a really detailed picture where you have to look closely at what you’re trying to capture in it – like if I take a picture from far away and I try to highlight something that’s maybe hard to see … then you’re not going to get the response that you would if you took a picture of tons of red tomatoes [for example], where you’re flipping through [and it] really pops out. And you just instantly ‘like’ it or click on it to see more about it,” he says.

Although, the image itself doesn’t necessarily have to be a close-up image every time, he adds, but something that can “quickly be appreciated.” 

4. Use your smartphone.

With the advancement of cell phone cameras in recent years, it’s not necessary to purchase a fancy and expensive camera to take the best photo for Instagram. While Hagerty is a photography hobbyist (and highly recommends taking a beginner’s course in photography if you really want to create stellar photos), he leaves his advanced digital camera in the house when he heads out to the backyard to snap some pics.  

“I just like doing it more on my phone,” he says. “I think it’s a little more simple and accessible – and that’s part of what Instagram was designed around anyway.”

5. Engage, engage, engage.

To truly create value on social media, you need quality content, but you also need to interact with those who interact with your post. If your following feels valued, then they’ll continue to follow you, engage with you and share your posts with their own followers.

“If somebody says, ‘Wow!’ or puts up a ‘thumbs up’ emoji – no matter what it is – you should be responding to their comment,” Hagerty says. “Sometimes I’ll write entire paragraphs to people when I’ve had over 100 commends on a picture. I take that extra time to give a full, quality response to people because their engagement is important to me, so I need to make them see that.”

6. Make the caption count.

Hagerty says you can ask questions in your captions to help promote engagement (i.e. posting a photo of aphids you found on a plant, sharing and asking, How do you manage aphids in your garden at home?).

“That prompts people to put out other advice, and you will continue to thank those people who commented,” he says.

7. Post regularly.

Consistency is important, Hagerty says, no matter how often you do end up posting. “If you post once a week, then post once a week. Don’t just post five days in a row, and not post for a month, and pick it back up again,” he says. Urban Farmstead’s account is updated about twice a week, even less so occasionally – but the pattern is consistent, which is key.

“And if you’re too busy to keep that consistency for your social media, then maybe it would be a good idea to look into hiring somebody to manage social media for you, because it’s a really important thing,” Hagerty says.

Photos courtesy of Urban Farmstead’s Instagram account