Transcripts
1. Welcome to the Class!: Are your creators struggling
to grow on Instagram with the same strategies
that used to work before but are not
working in 2025, then you are in the right place. Here's the thing. The
Instagram algorithm has drastically changed in 2025. What worked just a year ago,
like posting regularly, creating videos with
trending audios or posting just reels is not guaranteeing
organic growth anymore. The algorithm now
favors authentic, original and community
driven content. And if you want to keep
growing, you need to adapt. After a break from
Instagram in 2024, I returned with a
fresh strategy. And just in a few months, I organically reached 216,000
followers on this platform. And these aren't just
passive numbers. These are people that
engage with my content, share my values, and
purchase my offers. And now I'm here to help
you to do the same. This class, I'll teach you what works on
Instagram right now, and I share some
actionable steps with you to understand what is the
current Instagram algorithm. Build a profile that
attracts and converts, wake up a sleeping
Instagram account, create video content
that actually performs, and set up your content strategy for organic and
sustainable growth. It's not about just
gaining followers. It's about building an
audience that cares, connects, and
supports your work. I'm Astasia, an artist, educator, and content creator. Instagram has been the heart
of my creative business, allowing me to connect with my dream clients and like minded people from
around the world. So now I'm sharing my
2025 proven system that will help you to grow with confidence, authenticity,
and clarity. So are you ready to make
Instagram work for you in 2025? If yes, then let's get started.
2. Instagram Before vs. Now: Hi, and welcome to the class. Grow on Instagram
organically in 2025. I'm stasia and I'm so glad to greet you in this
first lesson of this class where we
will speak about the major changes in the
algorithm for the 2025. So Instagram
algorithm in 2025 is drastically different
from the 20 24th one. So what worked before no
longer delivers results. So things used to work in 2024 unfortunately are
not working this year, and new strategies are
needed to grow organically. That's why in this first lesson, we will speak about
Instagram before and now. So what used to work in 2024
and what works currently. Let's start with this first one. In 2024 and before, what was relevant is posting as much as possible versus now, the trend is quality
over quantity. So you may want to spend a little bit more extra
time on your content, but be a little bit
more mindful about it, create strategies instead of just randomly posting content, and you will see
that the quality of your content will pay off. Number two, in 2024, what used to work really
well is the trending music. This was something
really easy to use. You could just simply
hop on a trend, get that trending music that was right about to get viral, and many videos could
kind of use this vibe, you know, use this trend to make their videos go
really well or viral. This year, you can still
use trending music. So I'm not saying this
trend is completely gone. I'm not saying using
music is useless. So I would say the
general vibe and aesthetics of your reels and
videos are still important. And if the music helps you to
achieve that, then use it. But the new trend in 2025 is definitely original
audio and voiceovers. Original audios, when you narrate your own stories
with your own voice, this is what brings
new fresh air to your content in 2025. Next, this one is
very important. Actually, I used to say in my previous classes that the shorter your reels
are, the better it is. Just on the side note, you may ask me, why do you always
speak about videos and reels in this class. So I want to be really
clear up front. Reels are still one of the
main assets for your growth. So if there is pretty clear
right now that you are not able to grow your
Instagram account just by posting pretty pictures like
it was a few years ago. If you like it or not,
the trend right now that is here to be with
us is video content, both on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, videos
are everywhere. But the type of videos on
Instagram are changing. In 2024, what worked the best
are really short kind of loop going videos of four to 10 seconds maximum
using trending music. Versus in 2025, we see the
trend of longer videos. I would say 15 seconds is now
kind of a minimal length, but even videos
longer than that. So 30 seconds, up to 60
seconds go really well. And it's kind of logical
because if you look back at the last step
at the last trend, original audio or voiceover usually when you
narrate a story, when you use some kind
of a storytelling, it's also quite natural
that the video is a little bit longer because
it takes time for you to develop a concept
to narrate a story. That's why longer videos are
trending right now in 2025. Next, this one relates quite closely with
the previous one. In 2024, what used
to work really well are these speedy,
quick, busy editing. So a lot of cuts following the beat of
the music and so on. This was quite important, and this used to
work really well. While in 2025,
people got a little bit tired of the
quick paced videos, of the endless cuts and
busy styles and videos, and people like to watch
something more relaxed, something more lay down. Where they can reflect
a little bit more and just relax a
little bit more. That's why slow paced videos
are currently trending, which again is really logical
because if you take into consideration that the length
of the videos got longer, it's also normal that the pace gets a little
bit more relaxed. Next, I kind of told you
a little bit about it, but I will repeat it again. In 2024, the only thing you had to do is
just to post reels. So reels were the only
piece of content you needed to create in order to grow on
Instagram organically. That said, reels are not gone. Reels are still here and video content
is super important. But what was added to reels
in 2025 are carousels. So carousels used to be something that people
did not use a lot. So maybe in the
beginning of Instagram, but then it kind of disappeared. In 2025, carousels are back, especially carousels
with videos inside. And I want to mention that the way you see carousels changed. So if before, maybe it was just a random collection
of photos or images, today, carousels should
narrate a story. They should be a
logical suit of images. With a certain storytelling
that makes sense, because otherwise, people will just look at it and
they feel like, why do you show me all of this? That's why two pieces of content you need to
keep in mind are carousels that include both
images and videos and reels. I'm not saying posts
are completely gone. You can eventually do them, but I just want to
be real clear here. Don't think you will grow your following simply by posting images because this is not
working on Instagram anymore. This is used to be the
past of Instagram. This is how Instagram was born. It was a photo sharing platform, but this is not the
case anymore because of the Tik Tok influence and
just the development of, you know, this industry,
but this is a fact. So remember that
reels plus carousels. One more, in 2024, what was most important
are reels and comments. So these were two main metrics that Instagram was taking
into consideration. And this is what we're
making your reals go viral. So more likes you had more comments you
had more interaction you had under your reals. This was one of the main
metrics to make them go viral versus this year, I would say likes and
comments are still important, maybe more likes than comments. Well, I would say, they're
equally important. But the highlight of
this year are shares. So shares are one of
the main indicators for Instagram that your
content is valuable. So shares matter more
than reals or comments. So for example, right now, if your real has a
ton of comments, it doesn't mean it
will go viral versus Instagram sees that a lot of people are sharing your real, it may be a determinative factor because for Instagram,
it means that, oh, this piece of content is
that good that people are willing to take this extra action to
share it to someone, so to spread it across
their own network. And this is considered as an ultimate indicator of the
quality of your content. Next and last one. Last before versus now, I wanted to show you in this
lesson is the following one. In 2024, what was trending
are these long captions, especially when you had this
little teaser on the screen saying something and then directing people to your caption saying, read the caption. It used to be really popular and it used to work really well. So in a very short video, for example, 5 seconds, there was just one phrase
saying a statement and then read the rest in the caption and people
used to go and read. Now people got a little bit tired of this
kind of formula, and people tend to read less, but they want to be clearly
guided, I would say. That's why shorter
caption with a clear CTA, which means call to action
is more effective right now. By call to action, I
mean, for example, you make a real where
you introduce yourself or where you speak generally
about who you are. And then in the caption, you say, I am this,
this and that. On this page, I share
this, this and that. And if you want more,
make sure to follow me. Something like this used to
be a it's not that frequent. It was not that frequent to see something like this before, but we see it more
and more right now, and it actually works. So people actually want to
know what's the next step, especially if you have
something to offer. It depends if you're just having an account
where you share your photography or artworks or whatever your personal life, and you don't have any kind
of goal besides just sharing, then you don't have to
share any call to action. But if your goal is to
monetizing your profile, maybe you want to, you know, get hired more or maybe you want to sell your
artworks or your services, then keep that in
mind that including a clear call to action
is not a bad thing, especially if you have something really clear to offer people. For example, you tell them, follow me for more,
or, for example, you have a free guide, and the topic of your free guide
is in line with your real. Then at the end, you say, by the way, I just gave you
this piece of information. If you want to learn
more, make sure to go and download my free guide and
you tell them how to do it. This way, people
have a logical suit, like a logical call to action of what
they should do next, and this is what currently works really well on Instagram, why not using it since you know, if you are c rating your profile for eventually monetizing it or somehow promoting
your services, this is a wonderful and
free opportunity for directing people where you are elsewhere than on Instagram. For example, you can make them subscribe to
your email list. You can make them download your freebies and
give you their email. You can ask them
for following you. You can ask them for purchasing your products, so on and so on. So I hope now it's clear what used to work in 2024 and
what is working now. And in the last lessons, we are going to develop
this topic even more. So what are the ins and outs? I will see in the next lesson.
3. What's Out and What's In in 2025: Welcome to the lesson two of this class on organic
InstrogomGrowth in 2025. And let's speak about the
ins and outs in 2025. Here's what's different in
2025 algorithm compared to 2024 and what works
now. What's out. So this is the continuation of this first lesson where we spoke about the in and out trends. So let's go deeper inside
a bit. What's out? So this year's priority
is fresh content. That's why repots from other accounts are
more or less out. Generic content that feels made with Google or Chad GPT is out, and relying too much on trends is also kind
of fading away. What matters this
year is content based on your own
experience and opinion, confidently sharing your
opinion and thoughts on industry topics and
creating signature series. So I'm going to get back on signature series
again in this class. But what I want to
mention here is that what really matters
is to be yourself. So generic content,
not showing your face, relying too much on trends, hiding behind these
cliche things created by artificial intelligence
or just Googled somewhere or not interesting
anymore to people. So what people really
want is authenticity. So fresh content in
your authentic opinion. This is what matters today. No matter what field, so it may sound like it's only applicable to a certain field, but actually it's
applicable to any fields. Whether you're an
artist, any kind of creative or in any kind
of business you are, try to share your
personal opinion and share your behind the scenes without just trying
to hop on the trends like some people used to do
before. Real connections. First of all, what
does that mean? What is out or accounts
without a personal touch, never showing the
person behind the brand or content that feels distant. So any kind of pure stock
photos or videos are out. And what matters more
this year are mini logs. So behind the scenes of
your work or personal life, quick updates or reflections in the stories or even in your
reels and face to camera, voiceover video style videos. So it's kind of the continuation
of the previous point. So the personal touch is what matters today
about mani blogs, this is basically the same as creating personal content or sharing your behind the scenes, sharing your opinion, and
people really like to see who is the person
behind the brand. So people are no longer interested in
these faceless brands. People want to feel
connection with other people, and this is why they
will buy right now. So that's why this
is really important. And face to camera
or voiceover videos are also really popular. This is the trend that
is coming from TikTok. It started there in
the first place, but it's now getting
on Instagram as well, and you will notice
that more and more, you will see these kind of narrated voiceover
videos in your feeds. And this is currently
what works the best. And actually, it's really
good because it allows you this is your first step of kind of showing your face on Instagram without showing
your face on Instagram. What I mean, you can
just show your videos. You can show your
creative process or your, any kind of logs
you want to create. You just add a voice over without necessarily
showing yourself, and this will already give your videos a personal
touch so that you can have this little safe space before you move forward
maybe to fully, face two camera videos. Be personal. What
does that mean? What is no longer working
overly promotional content, impersonal tone or ignoring comments in DMing
interacting with people. What's in is content
that genuinely addresses your audience
interests and goals, content that feels
like conversation and actively responding
to your audience. Again, this all kind of
sticks to one trend, which means that
people are a little bit tired of trends over promoting all of these
cliche impersonal things. People like to be addressed directly with more authenticity. And that's why genuine content is very important right now. So as the style of your texts, of your videos, I would say, instead of trying to create
something very polished, very perfect, very crated, what is more important
right now is being more authentic and adapting this more of a conversational style. So uh, your voiceover
should not be perfect. Your image should not
necessarily be perfect, and it can still make a huge impact without you
being stressed out about your, you know, image to be perfect or your light to be perfect. Instagram is no longer just the aesthetically
pleasing image, um, platform, it's mainly switching to the more of a value providing
platform, I would say. That's why the connection with your audience is more
important than ever. That's why before a lot of accounts used to ignore
the messages a little bit, ignore the DMs, a lot of people were too
busy to reply to them. Now, the accounts that don't do that are going to
see the decrease in their engagement and following because now it's more important than ever to
engage with your audience, be authentic and be
present for them. That's why the next point in this list is
authenticity. What is out? A feed that looks too polished, avoiding vulnerable topics, or focusing too
much on perfection. This is something I
just mentioned and what's in is cohesive
yet natural feed, unfiltered moments from the everyday life
and keeping it real, sharing both highs and lows. This is exactly
what I just said. So people are tired of seeing these perfectly polished feeds where everything seems to be, you know, nice and
perfect and amazing. People like to see who
you are in real life. People like to see
your highs and lows. People like to see your
behind the scenes. And this way, they
will connect with you. Because otherwise,
I think the trend before was that people tried to follow these try to
how would I say? Uh to go for this
perfect Instagram image, they were thinking
bad about themselves because their life
was not looking like, you know, the perfect life
they were seeing on Instagram. And this caused a lot of
frustration and also a lot of negative feelings of
people on social media. So that's why people
really value who you are and people really value to
see what your business, what your life looks
in the reality. So that's why let go of the
perfect image a little bit. It doesn't mean you should
post absolutely everything or every single mess or
your dirty dishes. I'm not saying this, but just sparkling a little
bit more of you know, your daily life, you who you
are, your highs and lows. This is not going
to show you like, show yourself as a weak person
or a bad business owner. This is just going to show you that you are a human being. You are, you know, like them. And this will create a trust and a stronger connection with your audience and with
your potential clients. That's why, again, daily life, I would not say it should be
90% or 100% of your content, but add some of this unfiltered behind the
scenes kind of content, and just keep it real. Be yourself. Don't
hide your mistakes. Don't hide your imperfections, rather, you know, show people both sides of you both
the highs and the lows. I hope you enjoyed this lesson
and I hope now you have the full list of what is
out and what is in in 2025, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
4. Content that Feels Like Your Brand: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will speak about tips for
growth on Instagram in 2025. I will briefly announce
them here right now. So first of all, video
making continuous exploding, both on Instagram TikTok
and other social media. I wanted to underline the
influence of Tik Tok. I already told you
about it in this class, but I will tell about it again. So Instagram is no longer
platform with perfect images, polished feeds, and so on. So we have more of this immediate raw footage style that is coming from TikTok that is currently
trending on Instagram, and basically we need to adapt. So of course, it
may be challenging. Of course, it may feel
like every single year, you need to adapt a new strategy and invent something new, but this is the
reality right now. So that's why I would
suggest you to adapt the mindset of playfulness to approach content creation
and being present on this platform from the
perspective of trying new things, experimenting and
not feeling like you're trapped or drained because growing on Instagram
is always possible. You just need to grasp what is currently working best and lean towards it instead
of battling with it. Of course, with always infusing your content with
your own personality, what will remain unchanged? Is the fact that who you are
is like you are who you are. So if you are sharing authentically and originally
who you are on social media, you will be beyond any trends. But let's see what is important for
Instagram growth in 2025. What is important, again, is content that feels like your brand or yourself if
you don't have a brand. This is a summary of what we just said in the
previous lessons, and what I just said in the
introduction for this lesson. Being yourself is never
going to be out of fashion. That's why trying to lean into your authenticity and into
your uniqueness even more. These are three strategies
or three tips that can help you to go about it. First of all, as we spoke in
the beginning of this class, creating a serious or your signature series with content that is valuable
for your niche. What do I mean by serious? It can be just like a TV series, for example, you create
different episodes. Let's say, you create
ten episodes on, you know, everyday life
of a travel sketcher. This is who I am, so this is the first
thing came in my mind, but you can adapt it to your
own niche, for example, um, morning routine of, you know, a ceramic artist
or morning routine of a painter living
in a countryside. I'm just inventing right now, but this can be anything that is resonating with your
audience and with your niche. And why is serious? Because, first of all,
it makes it creates a certain continuous effect and it makes people
for wanting for more. People will more
likely follow you, people will more likely
check on you and wait for the next episodes if
they liked the first ones. Also, how to make your
episodes engaging and desired is sharing tips. This is something
that people really like when your
content is not only about you for this single
purpose of being about you, but when you also
give them something valuable that can serve
them in their own lives, in their own businesses or just for their
own inspiration. For example, maybe
you're sharing some interesting recipes or
maybe you are giving them some advice and behind
the scenes and tips that you obtained with
your own experience and that may be
valuable for them. And so on. It may
be educational. It may be more like an entertainment kind
of series, and so on. But this is what works
really well right now. And when you clearly divide
it into episodes and when you announce the number
of the episode in the beginning of each video, and you also talk about it
in the caption, of course. So you tell people that
this is my mini series, this is M series
about this and that. If you want to follow for more, just make sure to click that
follow button and so on. What can also help you to
develop your brand identity. So create content
that feels like your brand is paying
attention to your editing. What by editing, I mean, pay attention to your fonts, the colors you're using. All of that creates
your brand impression. By fonts, so you have already some default fonts
available on Instagram, and actually, you don't have to go and overcomplicate
the things. You can just select
one or two fonts you will be using
consistently on Instagram. So you just pick them from
the Instagram default fonts. Make sure you pick one that is readable that is simple to read, that is not too funny or that I would say describes
your style the best. I mean, if you create
some kind of fun content, maybe you can pick a font font. If your content is more
serious or more neutral, maybe pick something
more neutral. So make sure the font kind
of reflects the style and the identity of your brand
and be consistent with it. So don't pick a new font
for every single video. Make sure you pick your font once or two fonts at maximum, and then you use
them consistently across all of your videos. For example, you can pick
one font for the titles, and then you can
pick one more font for the actual captions. So for the text if you want to share some text alongside with your
videos on the screen. I'm not speaking about the
text in the description, the text and description goes with a regular standard font, but the fonts you are
putting on the video, inside the video, you have the control of picking
one that you like. Same for colors. The other
solution is also to use third party platforms or
apps for video editing. CAPCOT is one of them. This is an app available
on your iPhone. Regarding some desktop apps, you always have Premiere, which is a little bit of a high level kind
of difficult app. You also have iMovie
if you are on MAC, and there are other
programs, of course, but by personal experience, you can actually start
really simple and just start with the editing
on your phone. This is what I do
with all of my reels, and I've been doing I've been on social media for
almost a decade now, and, um, Um, actually, I find it more simple to edit videos directly on my phone, on my Instagram app. This is what I currently use, and this is how I
was able to grow my account for until
over 200,000 followers, without any kind
of external apps. So that's why if
you think you need more applications or any editing skills,
you don't need them. You just need your phone
and Instagram app. And one more tip I wanted
to share with you, which is actually
really important is the importance
of using B roles. So I'm going to explain
now what are B roles. So they are more important than ever to keep your
audience engaged. And actually, B roles
are also one of the easiest ways of creating
engaging content without necessarily creating any kind
of super effects or without going out and preparing for a shooting or
without necessarily creating a masterpiece
every single time. By be role, I mean, just a background image
that you put there and that you use as a purpose as a background
for your storytelling. For example, I'm going to give you a really simple example. You can make a video
of you brushing teeth simply as simple as this. You show this video
and then with the text overlay or with the voiceover, you
narrate something. A story, something interesting,
something engaging. So you brushing the teeth is not the purpose of the video. It's just like a
background image. You show you give us a pretext
to speak about something. So this is a really
simple example. You don't have to film yourself brushing your
teeth if you don't want to. But if you're an
artist, let's say, you can show behind the
scenes of you unpacking your art supplies or cleaning your table before painting
or after painting, cleaning your palettes, cleaning your art supplies,
or simply painting. This all can be used as a. And also if you make
these kind of videos, your editing is going
to be way easier. For example, if you make any
kind of storytelling videos, especially if
they're quite long, so like 30, 60 seconds, it's quite boring if
you just speak on camera without
anything happening. That's why you need B roles. So B roles means images
or clips that will illustrate what you're
saying or that will give some variety to your videos. Let's say you start
your video when you speak and then at some point, maybe 10 seconds past, you can switch to a B roll, so you can switch to
an image of yourself, let's say, that paints
or that cleans. The art supplies or that, you know, walks outside
or something else. So something that happens and
your words may follow it, so you may describe what you're doing there
or you just can use these videos as like
a background image. That can just add diversity and variety
to your narratives. V roles are super easy to film. You just need to think about different plans of how
you can shoot yourself. Maybe you from a
distance walking, a close up of your hand
painting or a close up on you taking your art supplies or cleaning your art supplies
or something like this. I'm giving the examples relative to my niche
because I'm an artist. But again, you can totally
adapt it to your own niche. And use these B roles to diversify to sparkle some
interest in your videos. These are the three
tips on how you can keep growing on Instagram in
2025 through video content, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
5. Content Structure That Works : Welcome back into the lesson
number four of this class. And let's speak about
content structure. As I said already in the
beginning of this class, the content on
Instagram is changing, and what is currently trending
is longer form content. So it doesn't mean hours, of course, or dozens
of minutes on YouTube. But by longer content, I mean content up to 1 minute. This is what currently
works on Instagram. So it doesn't have to be
necessarily always 1 minute. It can be 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50
seconds, 1 minute. But it is always better
that you adapt this scheme. This structure, I'm going to
share with you right now. This is one of the most
important rules to follow for the creation of your
video content in 2025, and this is what will facilitate the task of creating
good performing reels. First and foremost, what is the most important
thing is a hook. So a hook is a visual,
how would I say? This is a reason people will
watch or scroll your video. You should have a strong
hook efficient hook that will make people engage with your audio
with your video, sorry in the first 3 seconds. So we can discuss a
lot about hooks here, but a simple there are
some simple hook ideas, those that work with
the a surprise effect. So something really
unusual that happens, it may be an unusual
action or unusual phrase, like controversial phrase or
just something interesting. It can be as simple as this, something interesting
that happens in the first 3 seconds. By something
interesting, it can be also something extremely
if you're an artist, you can show, like the beauty of your creative process like something really pretty
right in the beginning. So don't hide these
beautiful videos or these interesting shots for the middle or the end
part of your video. Show them right
in the beginning. Show the best you have right in the beginning
so that people are hooked so that people are interested to
watch the rest, and then you follow with the rest of the
content structure. So keep that in mind. People
are deciding whether they will watch your content or
scroll in the first 3 seconds. So if you don't
give them a reason to watch or to keep
watching, they will scroll. I would suggest it
may be a little bit hard to grasp what exactly
I'm talking about. But I'm sure if
you scroll through your Instagram feed and you
pay attention to the videos, you will notice what
a hook is and try to analyze what kind
of tricks people used in the beginning
to grasp your interest. And then you can even
write them down. You can make a little or you can even ask Child GPT if you want to get some fresh ideas on hooks relevant in your niche, and it can give you
some fresh ideas. The part number second
part, after a hook, really important, your
real should have a body. So it's a central
part of your piece of content that should
be narrated ideally. So, it's always better if you include a sort of storytelling
or like a logical suit. So it can be visually narrated, so it can be visually
logical to watch, or it can be narrated with
your voice or with the text. So one easy way of
including narratives in your videos is by using
voiceovers or text overlays. And it's very important that this part of your content
is the value part. So this is where you speak
about what you want to speak. This is the message where
you want to transmit, or the inspiration part you
want to give to people. This is where it should go. The fourth part of the
content, this is an optional, but this is something that works really well is interruption, or when you create kind of
a suspense with a change of the scene or a
change of perspective, when you drastically stop what you were saying and
you say something else or say something different. So again, this is
kind of a bonus tip, a bonus piece of structure
in your content, but this can be really
effective because, again, the attention of people on
social media is really low. So once you hook them
with a nice hook, you got it. They're
going to watch. Then you give them a nice body, so a nice piece of content, and this is the risk. Maybe if it's going too long
or it's too monotonous, maybe they may start
scrolling again. So you can use this
interruption tool to kind of hook them again. So it's like a second hook basically that can
help you to transit into the last part of
the video where you say your final words or
where you give them a CTA. So what is a CTA is
a call to action. So this is the part where you tell people what
they can do next. So you can invite them
to follow you for more. You can invite them to
download your free guide or your free PDF or, you know, sign up to your newsletter, get your product
or something like this without being too selsy, so it should not
come out of nowhere. It should not be just, like, a random invite, you know, to buy something
or to follow you. This would be a logical suit. So you gave them a
nice piece of content, and if they want more,
they can do this. Or you showed them
something amazing. You showed them, for example, if you launched your product, let's say, I'm going to
give you my own example. I have my own brush set. So if during my video, I'm showing how to
use my brushes, I'm showing how I'm
painting using my brushes, and I'm showing, you
know, mixing colors. I'm showing the brushes,
and at the end, it's logical that I tell them where they can
buy them because, you know, this was maybe the
whole purpose of the video. Um, CTA, call to action is
something that works well, but you don't have to include
it every single time. Actually, I want you to
be mindful about it. People don't like the
over promotional mood, I would say, so don't include call to action
in every single video. I would say make at
least one neutral video, so no call to action, just video for the
purpose of educating or making people engaged and maybe showing
them something, you know, engaging in nice maybe with a light CTA of
just going and following you. And then the next video, if you want to promote yourself, this is where you can actively promote your services
or products. But don't make every single real a promotion of something. Don't make every
single real you know, for a sales purpose
because otherwise, people will get tired
of it and will say, Oh, she's just, you know, promoting herself
every single time. So people get tired
of this real quick. So I hope this will
help you to structure your reels and your
video content better, and I will see you in the next lesson where I
will start to give you some valuable tips on
what you can start doing in 2025 to grow
your profile organically.
6. Tips to Grow Your Account in 2025 Part 1: Welcome back. In this
lesson number five, we will start about
the 25 tips to grow your account in 2025.
So let's dive right in. Tip number one. I'm going to start right from
the beginning. Upload update your bio, and make a clear
description of who you are. If you know, I bet you
know what a bio is, so this is the first
impression of your account. This is where your
profile picture is. This is where the information
about your profile is. An kind of links you
want to include. So make sure you read what you have there and
make sure it's up to date. Your bio has a limited
character number, so it should be a
really short text that explains who you are and why you're there really concisely and
really effectively. So if you, I would say, if you are an artist, let's say, I'm going to give you an
example from my niche. If you're an artist, don't
just say, I'm an artist. Tell a little bit more what
kind of artist you are. What if you are a nature
inspired artist, put it. If if you are using a certain technique or if something is
typical to your art, make sure to add
it, for example, I'm a watercolor
artist specializing in nature or in animals or
in botanicals and so on. So make sure that you
get this description as as close to what who
you are as possible. Don't just stay vague. Make sure you give some specific information
about yourself. And if you have
anything to promote or to offer to people, any kind of freebies
or any kind of paid offers or paid products, make sure you include a link. You have a right to include
only one link on Instagram. That's why I usually
suggest you to use, free services such as
Link tree or Top Link where you can basically create a little page
with several links. If you have several links, if you want to show, for example, links to your other social
media, a link to your website, a link to a specific product, and so on, you can include all of these
links in one link. Use that for any kind of
services you want to promote. But generally, just make sure your bio is up to
date and just imagine being a a person that sees your profile
for the first time, what kind of impression
they will have from you? Is it clear for
them who you are? Is your profile inviting
to follow you for more? Look at this from this
perspective and try to adapt and change it
accordingly if needed. Tip number two,
professional picture that represents
well who you are. This goes together
with the profile, again, with the bio, but your profile picture is equally important as the
description in your bio. Make sure you first of all, it's really important
to show yourself. This is the trend on Instagram and sometimes
even a requirement, for example, if you
want to get certified. If you want to get the blue
check mark on Instagram, you're actually required to show your real face
and it should be visible and usually facing the
camera or just be visible. So it's better that you have a nice professional
looking picture of yourself better if it's with some kind of attributes or something that gives a
hint on your profession. For example, if
you're an artist, you can be there with your
artwork or with some brushes, or if you are a nature lover
or nature inspired artist, you can take a picture with you, with a nice green background or plants on the background
or something like this. If you're an artist who travels
in a van and your blog, like your account is about van life or something like this, why not take a picture of you? Um, near your van or something
like this, you know, but basically, just
make sure it's a high quality picture where
everything is visible. It's better if
you're smiling or if your picture is appealing and telling a little bit
more about who you are. I would say it's better
to use a picture of yourself instead of a
picture of your artwork, especially if you are in the
beginning of your journey, I would say it's better
to use your own face as a face of your brand unless you feel really
uncomfortable about it. So if you feel really
uncomfortable, then of course, you can use
a picture of your artwork. Tip number three, use keywords in your bio that
represent who you are. As we said in the
beginning of this lesson, bio is really important, but it's even better if you include some keywords
in your bio. By keywords, usually
it's just going to naturally come to you once you will start to fill your bio. Let's say you say, I'm a watercolor artist
focused on botanical art. So we already have the keywords
in this phrase, right? We have artist,
watercolor. Botanical art. So we have these three
keywords that Instagram will analyze and will know who
to propose your profile to. So usually this
comes automatically, but it's also better if you
know about it in advance. So that's why I'm
giving you this tip that you are a little
bit more mindful about writing your bio
and making sure you are including these
important keywords, for example, if you are
a watercolor artist, I bet you want to connect with other watercolor artists
or watercolor lovers. That's why it's
important to include a word watercolor in your bio. Also, if nature is an
important part of your art, if you are inspired by
nature and if you want to attract people that are
also inspired by nature, it's worth mentioning
it and so on. Tip number four, pin three value content reels
on top of your page. This one is a really
powerful tool of how you can create
how you can use the first three pinned reels as a tool to tell people
more about yourself. So because let's be honest, a profile picture and a bio are just a
little small pieces of content that people
will analyze in seconds and kind of decide whether they
will follow you or not. If people want to discover a
little bit more about you, they have two places
where they can do so. They can use your highlights that are getting a little
bit outdated, though. I think people are
more likely going to check on your first reels
rather than on your highlights. That's why take this
tip into consideration. Usually, people
tend pinning their most like their best
performing reels in the beginning of their page. This may be an
option, but what is better is that you create some specific reels that tell the story about you so that they present
who you are. And if you have any
kind of services to promote that
present your services. For example, I'm going
to give you an example. You can make one pinned
reel about yourself, one pinned reel about your um let's say about your
business in general, about who you are
as a professional, it may be a third reel
about your main offer, about your best
selling product or about your products in general. This way, people can watch these three short pieces of content and have
a more complete, more full overview
of who you are as a person and what do
you have to offer them. Tip number five, reply to
comments on your posts. This is something we
already told about we were talking about in the
beginning of this class, but I wanted to
specify this again. Interaction and
authentic connection with people is more
important than ever. That's why don't underestimate
your direct messages, your comments, and make sure
you check on them regularly. Tip number six, create four
reels per week consistently. Consistency is key on Instagram and
especially with reels. One of the most frequent
mistakes I'm seeing is that people maybe
make one reel, two reels once in a while. They see no results, and then they feel
discouraged because they say, I spent so much time creating these reels,
they don't work. Um I'd rather stop, you know. And this is I would say, this is the easiest way
of how to just give up. But the important
thing to know is that you need to create a
lot of content in order for it to start working
because you need to discover what works for you and what your audience
is awaiting from you. What is the unique thing
you can offer to people? And sometimes it's
not the first thing that will come in your mind. Sometimes you need to experiment
a little bit and upload different pieces of content in order to understand what
works and what doesn't. That's why it's important to
adapt a certain time frame, so a certain pace to your reel. So making a real once every two or three
weeks doesn't work. That's why you need
to have consistency, and of course, it will depend
on your schedule and so on. The ideal thing
would be to share four reels per week if you
are a beginner account. If you are a more
developed account, you can go and post two reels per week and maybe add a few carousels if you
have the possibility. But if you are just
growing your audience, if you are under
1,000 followers, then basically more
reels you make, more chances you will have
to grow your profile. But again, you need to maintain this balance between creating content and not
getting burnt out. That's why I'm not
recommending you posting three times a
day or every single day, because let's be honest, it can easily lead you to burnout. That's why adapt three, four reals per week if you are planning to
massively grow your account. And it's better if you prepare
your content in advance so that you don't just
stare at your phone every single day wondering
what are you going to post? Tip number seven, collaborate
with other creators. This is something that works. First of all, I want to say this works because for Instagram, when Instagram sees that other creators interact
with your account when they see any kind of collaborations
or re posts from others, this is usually a really
good sign for Instagram that your profile is interacting with others and other people
are interested in it. Also, it's a really
nice way of attracting audiences of different
creators to yourself. For example, what
happened to me lately is that I was featured on a page on a of a person that is really famous
in a certain country. And I got lots of people
from that country that went and followed
me just because they were following that person. And I was featured in his reel, and they followed me
as well, you know. And after this, I saw a significant increase in
my engagement in general. So it's not only
going to bring you some real, like, engaged, interested followers, it's also going to tell
Instagram that, look, um other people followed this creator because this
other creator told about them, maybe their content is
interesting, you know, maybe they will push you
even more to other people. So interaction and
engagement brought from other pages to yours is always
a good sign for Instagram. That's why collaborating
with other creators, especially in your niche
is a really good thing. Of course, if you're
just starting out, it may be a little
bit intimidating and daunting, but I would say, reach out to accounts that maybe are same level are you
or a little bit higher. You can also reach out
to people that are much more famous than
you are and knows? Maybe they would like to feature you on their
page if you have something to offer if they feel that what
you share is valuable. So I would say, don't be afraid of reaching out to
people, and of course, not everyone will say yes, but it's better to try and hear and no than
just never trying. Tip number eight is analyzing
your data regularly. If it's important, by the way, that you check if you have a business account on Instagram, if you want to have access
to this kind of data. And if you have a
business account, you have access to a specific
tab where you can see, for example, best posting times. So when your audience
is most engaged, you can see what are the um, the areas that people
are following you from. What are the top
locations people are following you
from and so on. It's important that you
check on these metrics from time to time to adapt
your posting times or to adapt just general
direction of your content. Tip number nine, try
trends in your niche, but be careful with
them. I would add. As I mentioned in this class, trends were really
popular in 2024, especially in terms of music
and just trends in general. I would say this
is something that will keep working be just mindful about hopping
on the trends that are relevant to you and not
only every single trend, but sometimes it can spark
some new ideas in you and it can potentially help you to boost engagement
a little bit. So if you find any I would
say don't rely on trends. So don't just try to hop
on every single trend. But eventually, if you find a
trend that you find fun and interesting and that is relevant for you and your niche,
go ahead and try it. You know, trying different
things is always good. And tip number ten, repurpose or create similar content
that had success. So you can use same media or similar topic or
even a similar hook. That's why, first of
all, it's important to create lots of
content, of course, and eventually you will see that some pieces of content will
work better than the others. And then it's really
important to analyze why. So analyze this
successful video that you have that gained way more reach, way more engagement than others, and think what was so unique, what was so good
about that video. Maybe it's an engaging hook. Maybe the images were
just really nice. Maybe the topic you were talking about
was really relevant, really interesting
for your niche, so on and then try to
replicate the same, as I said, with the same media, same hook or a similar topic. And in the next lesson, we will speak about
the remaining tips, so I will see you there.
7. Tips to Grow Your Account in 2025 Part 2: Welcome to this lesson where
we will continue to talk about tips on how to grow
organically in 2025. And we are currently
in tip number 11. Tell about your personal
experience and use storytelling. Again, I'm going
to repeat myself, but I think it's worth
mentioning here. So any kind of
impersonal or cliche or Google HAGPT
style communication is not working anymore. So use your personal approach,
your personal experience, and little behind the scenes
from your life or business. This is what currently trends on Instagram and on all the
social media, I would say. Tip number 12, create a series. Again, repeating myself, but I'm going to
mention it again. Try to think about your content as not only one single video, but as a series of videos
united by the same topic. You can call it again, my morning routine, series
or can be whatever. So just find something that is relevant for your
niche and announce it. Announce it both in the caption, as well as in the
beginning of the video. Start the video
by saying it with the text episode number a la of M series or
saying it with voice. This is episode number
six of My series about this and that
and then go ahead. Then at the end, it's really important to include
a call to action. Say follow me for more if you want to see
the next episodes. Again, this will work only if you have something engaging, interesting, or informative
to say or inspiring or fun. Try to come up with some
fresh ideas of why people would like to watch your series. And then you can
actually plan it out just as a regular,
you know, script. So topics for each series, a script for each series, and make sure there is a logical suit so
that you start from something and that you
have a logical transition until the end of your series, and that there is
a clear call to action at the end
of each episode. Tip number 13, drive traffic
from other social media. This is optional, but if
you have, for example, a Facebook page or YouTube
channel or a TikTok account, why not connecting them with your Instagram and
inviting people on other social media to follow
you on Instagram as well. This can also allow you to bring fresh audience from
your other accounts that may be following
you already somewhere, but not on Instagram. Tip number 14, create a freebie, especially if you are
selling your services. I think it may be valuable
for products as well, but I think most you can get the most of it
if you sell services. For example, if you're
selling online courses or any kind of one on one consultations or
something similar, a freebie can be a really
wonderful way, first of all, to, get people engaged, potentially get their emails. For example, you can use form to collect their emails and to
get a freebie in return. And this is just a wonderful way of bringing them somewhere
else from the platform. Of course, Instagram is amazing. Instagram is a great platform, but eventually you
want to gather the contacts of
people outside of the platform because you
never know what will happen. We hope it's not
going to happen, but maybe you can get banned or Instagram may change
the algorithms and you're not sure you're
going to be able to stay on track with them or just one day you want
to stop posting on Instagram or maybe one
day Instagram disappears. You never know what may happen because you don't have the
control over these things. That's why if you have a more direct
access to these people, for example, through
an email address, it's always better
because this way you can have your own
promotional strategies, your email marketing
strategies that you can apply, and you are not
that dependent on third party app that
does not belong to you. So keep that in mind
that a freebie is a really nice way of gathering these
contacts, for example, and a really nice way of
getting something extra, giving a free treat
for your subscribers, for your followers and
people always appreciate it. Tip number 15, check on
your competitors regularly. This is a really obvious tip, maybe a really obvious tip, but a really helpful one. For example, each
time I feel a little bit stuck in my social
media communication, each time I feel like,
Instagram is changing. I'm feeling that the old
things are not working. I'm always checking
on my competitors and I'm seeing
what they're doing and I'm trying to analyze their content
in terms of topics, hooks, posting times, the
duration of their content, and so and so on. So make sure you follow your favorite creators
and that you follow the industry leading
creators in your niche and that you actively analyze
what they're doing and you try to implement the similar strategies in your
communication. So it doesn't mean you
should necessarily copy what they're doing, but you can include some of
the things they're using in your communication strategy as well and see if that works. Tip number 16, use a follow
for more call to action, especially on your
mini series or even in your standalone reels. For example, I recently made a reel that was
quite successful. Where I kind of showed
the rough behind the scenes reality of
a travel sketcher. So people are very used to my perfect polished images where I'm sketching
in beautiful places, and it all seems like, you know, a nice like a dream, like, basically, like
a really nice thing. But it's not always the reality. Sometimes I just sketch in my hotel room at the
middle of the night or I'm sketching on a bus
sitting on the ground because there were no more
sitting places in the bus, and I ended up,
you know, sitting on the floor and
sketching there. And if before, I was a little bit more ashamed
of showing these things. And it was not like
Instagrammable. Nowadays, this is exactly
what people want to see. People want to see what exactly happens in your
life and business. And I actually used a caption on that reel
saying, I'm this and that. I'm astasia. I'm a
traveling artist. I teach others to start to capture their travel
adventures from scratch, even they're complete beginners. And if you want to follow my travel adventures
in South America, make sure to follow me for more. You know, it doesn't have to
be salesy or super pushy, like, follow me, follow me. You can just naturally
invite people for following you without necessarily
being too pushy. So give them a piece of
content that may inspire them and give them this little
call to action at the end. And actually, got a
lot of follows from that real because first of all, it got a lot of engagement. I got a lot of views. And because of the call
to action at the end, I got new subscribers
that follow me. So on the side note, by the way, Reels are the best instruments, again, to go outside of
your existing followers. So Instagram will show your reels to your existing
followers, of course, but it will also show it
to the audience outside of your existing reach
if it will see that your followers are reacting
positively onto your reel. So a reel is an instrument
that allows you to go beyond your existing follower base and to get some followers
from the outside. And this is why the
call to action, follow me for more is so
important because you would say, Oh, these people
already follow me. Why I would remind
them to follow me. This is why because
Instagram reels, their purpose is to go beyond your existing followers and
to bring more followers. This is why when you give people a clear call
to action, follow me. If your real goes well,
they will follow you. Tip number 17, create
content that is sharable. As I said in the
beginning of this class, shares are one of the most
important metrics in 2025. And if your content is sharable and if people
are actively sharing it, you have great possibilities
of going viral or obtaining really
good metrics and views. What I mean by sharable? It means that your
piece of content is so interesting, inspiring,
valuable, funny, or something else that people want to share it with their friends
or with someone. So they send it to other people to say,
Oh, look what I found. I found this creator
who is really funny, or I found this creator who
shares these valuable tips, or I found this creator who reveals the new Instagram strategy or something like this. So think about why would people want to share your content and try
to predict that. Try to create content that is valuable for others to share. You can also invite people
to share it to others. For example, as I gave
you the tip number 16, make a call to action at
the end of the video. Your call to action
can also share this video with someone
that might find it useful. This can be one more idea
for a call to action. Tip number 18, be consistent, really simple but
really effective, especially with videos. As I said, previously, four times a week is
an ideal schedule, but even three or even
two times a week is fine. Just try to stick with
a certain schedule. Um it's most important to be
consistent with reels and carousels if you are a baby account under
1,000 followers. Stories are not
that important at that stage because
you don't have a huge audience to show them to. So I would say in the
beginning stages, focus on reels and carousels
to grow your following. And then once you reached a
certain audience, let's say, 1,000 followers or more, then you can start to share
your stories more actively. Tip number 19, experiment
with posting times. This is why it's so important
to look at your metrics, check your analytics
and see when your audience is most engaged
and also try to experiment. For example, what I
usually do is I like to have a list of the
times where I post, let's say, today I tried
to post at 10:00 P.M. This is how it went. Next time I tried to post at 7:00 P.M. I see how it goes. Next time
I try to post at 6:00 A.M. I see how it goes.
And it's not always guaranteed that a specific time will always give you
the best results. But it can give you some useful information
for the future. Also, what can help
you to find out the best posting times is to go and analyze who
your audience is. For example, if the majority of your audience is in the US, of course, you
don't want to post in the middle of the
night in the US. But sometimes other
things happen. If you are in the same
country as you're following, it may be easier for you. But for example, I'm
currently in South America. I'm now in Costa Rica. But let's say, the majority
of my audience is in Europe. I need to adjust my
posting schedule to European time and not
my local time. You see? You need to adjust
things slightly depending on where you are
and where your audience is. And finally, tip number 20, engage with other
accounts in your niche. Same as getting repost or
shoutouts from other accounts. Also, just engage
with them genuinely. If you like some
accounts, write to them, reach out to them, comment
on their posts, follow them. Interact with them and
if they might do the same for you and it's always not only a good
sign for Instagram, but also really nice way for
creating connections with some industry professionals
in your niche and just a really nice way of maintaining human connections
on this platform. I hope you enjoyed these
tips and I will see you in the next lesson where I will give you
the last five tips.
8. Tips to Grow Your Account in 2025 Part 3: Welcome back. So let me give you the five final tips
on how to grow your Instagram profile
organically in 2025. Number 21, share social proof. This is going to be relevant
for those of you who want to promote your
products or services. So if you have any kind
of reviews or people sharing opinion on your products
or on working with you, if you have testimonials, make sure to share them
periodically in your stories, but also in your carusels
or even in your reals. So people really want to see that other people
are enjoying your services, and this will make them buy from you or hire
you more easily. So remember about this
if you want to use Instagram as a platform for promotion of your
products or services. Number 22, create a recognizable branding
for your profile. This brings us to
the beginning of the Tip list where we spoke about the profile picture.
This is where it starts. But also, generally think
about the colors you're using throughout your whole profile. So think about the
main colors you're using as a color palette
inside of your grid, think about the color of the
text you're using and so on. Make sure your brand is recognizable in it and make
sure you're using consent, again, consistent fonts and consistent colors throughout
your whole communication. And it's better if
you have a website. It's better if the colors from your website match the colors from your Instagram
profile. Tip number 23. You user name should be simple
to spell and to remember. Avoid very lengthy user names, very hard to pronounce
with lots of dots or other slashes or something
hard to spell or to pronounce. Make sure it's clear
to understand. If it's better if it's
your real name or your nickname or a name that represents really
well what you do. And again, that it's not too long or that
you don't have any, if you don't have a lot
of specific characters, so it should be easy to
spell and to remember. Number 24, use hooks. We already spoke about it, and if you forgot
about what hooks are, you can go to one of
the previous lessons where we speak about
the content structure. So a hook is a visual catch that you can use in the beginning
of your video to grasp people's attention in
the first 3 seconds. So these are essential for
the success of your videos. Make sure to use them.
And this is number 25. Sorry. So 25 is try going live. This is relevant for accounts, I would say that are
more established. If you don't have any
existing followers, it doesn't make really
big sense of going live. But once you have some
audience, going live, making live sessions is a really nice way
to show who you are and engage with
your audience and being seen by your
existing audience. So lives are not that
important for growth. But are mostly important for
retainment of your clients, of your followers and from creating a deeper
connection with them. This le also happens
because once you go live, your contacts your followers are getting notified about it, so they can go and
click on the button to watch your live. And in their stories, you will appear as
a first person. So once you're live,
when you're live, you are the first
person they will see in the row of the stories. So that's why you will have this extra attention
on your profile, and it's a very nice opportunity for people only to see you, but also to
potentially remember. Oh, I followed this creator. Maybe I should check on
her more frequently. And if they will go
and watch your live, probably Instagram
algorithm will push your content to them
more frequently because it's really nice
indicator that people so interested in you that they're going and
watching your lives, it means that
Instagram will show your content to them
more frequently. I hope you enjoyed these tips, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
9. How to Reanimate a "Dead" Account Part 1: On to this lesson where
we will speak about how to re animate a
dead Instagram account. If you haven't been actively
using your account for weeks or even months
or who knows years, here are some simple
tips to re engage your audience and boost
visibility again. First of all, check the
status of your account. If you created your
account long time ago, you may want to check again if your account is
public or private, if it's a personal account or a business account so
that you don't start to post on your account without making sure
that first of all, your posts are visible to everyone and that
everyone can follow you. So make sure you double
check this once again. One thing I want to
mention that, um, small accounts have big chances to grow on Instagram nowadays. So Instagram is prioritizing small accounts most of the time, especially new
accounts, but also old accounts if they
are not damaged. What I mean by being damaged? If you use to use
any kind of, like, fake follower growing
apps in the past, or if you use any kind of
these services in the past, if you were banned by Instagram
in the past, by band, I don't mean for example, you get a temporary ban if you like so much or if
you comment so much, you can get banned temporarily. But I mean, if you
violated any kind of rules, something like this, then this information is
unfortunately stored on Instagram and these
accounts may be flagged. It may be more hard for
these accounts to grow. That's why you know
you have these issues, if you know you used fake followers or you've
been flagged in the past, it may be better for you
to start new account if you don't have
a huge following. In other cases, you can still re engage your
existing account, and again, this is the step
number one of doing so. Checking the status
of your account. Um, action number two. This is the first
action you can take to really start to get
things rolling for you. If you were inactive for a
long amount of time, um, your first if you start to post the same
exact things as before, you may have a hard time re
engaging with your audience. That's why it's effective
to post something unusual in the beginning to get this kind of shock effect. So for example, if you used to post a certain type of
content in the past, try something completely new, completely different
in the beginning to again get this shock effect. Action number three,
create a piece of content where you share
your personal story. As you already know, your personal story,
personal connection, behind the scenes are really important right now on social media and on
Instagram in particular. That's why to kind of establish this connection with your audience
since the beginning, I recommend you making
this introduction post or even better introduction
real where you talk about yourself with your face or
even with a voiceover or even with just a text overlay. But it's really nice to create this introduction post
when you want to re engage with your
existing audience and kind of remind them about who you are and even give them more details
about who you are. Action number four,
update your bio. Oftentimes when your
profile is left for weeks or months untouched, it's quite easy to notice that
some information may be a little bit outdated
or the description is no longer corresponding
to who you are right now. Maybe your profile
picture is old. Make sure all of
this is up to date. By the way, action number five is change your profile image. Even if your old image
was fine, I think, again, this shock effect, this something new effect can also work with your picture. Change your bio, change
your profile image, and post new unusual content that you never posted before. Action Number six. So this is a guideline
for the future. Make sure you respect Instagram guidelines
and you read them, so you don't want to
get flagged or banned. So make sure you know what
you may be restricted for, avoid excessive
liking of others. All of these trends of follow for follow or the
follow follow thing. These things don't work for a lot of time they stopped working a long time ago already. So don't use these tactics, don't use these things. I would suggest you not reaching out to other people in the DMs, just begging them
for following you. This is not a really good This is not going
to make you a favor, and this is going
to just basically, um you know, this is not going to
bring you more followers. So the best thing to get more followers is to attract them by
creating great content. Action number seven, study your competitors and make
a list of hot topics. You already know from
the first lesson that studying your
competitors is important, but push this even further. Make a list of topics
that they're using, make a list of hooks
that they're using, and incorporate these things mindfully in your
own communication, in your own strategy and see
what works and what doesn't. Again, trial and error is also a valuable method
on social media. Action Number eight, create
new content in unusual forms. It's especially relevant if
you've been doing only posts, for example. So try reels. Try carousels. If you've been doing only reels, try
carousels, again. You can also do posts
from time to time. But again, I would say it's
more important to direct your efforts towards carousels and reels rather than to pose. Action number nine, post one
or two carousels per week. Again, in addition
to your reels, make sure to create some carousels and
incorporate videos in your carousels and make sure your carousels tell a story or have a certain story telling. Remember, I was telling
you about the series. So imagine your carousels
like a mini series, like a mini serials of
tips or a mini story of your day and make sure that each next slide is attached
and kind of relates to the previous one so that
it's not just a bunch of random images or random videos, but a logical suit. And finally, tip number ten, collaborate with other creators. This is also a very nice
strategy for re engaging, I would say, revitalizing
your existing account. I already gave you this tip for the organic Instagram
growth in 2025, but it's also really helpful for re boosting engagement and interest in your existing maybe inactive or abandoned profile. I really hope you will try these tips on your own profiles. Also, these may be valuable, even if your profile is active if you've
been using it actively, but not seeing a lot of growth. You can also try
these strategies and see if that works for you. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you
in the next one.
10. How to Reanimate a "Dead" Account Part 2: Come back. Let's continue on the actions that we started to speak about in
the previous lesson. Action number 11, take 30
minutes a day to interact with the people that follow you or with your favorite creators. Again, engagement on
social media is really, really important
now more than ever. So again, the 30 minutes
will be ideal time frame, but if you have 5
minutes, 10 minutes, it's still good to use them to interact with
people that follow you, especially after you post. So the most important time
frame is right after posting, so this is the time you want
to spend these extra five, ten, 15 minutes on Instagram, commenting on the accounts
of your favorite creators or on other people you follow. And this will just
boost the engagement on your account and hopefully will help your
new piece of content, your new reel, for
example, to go better. Action number 12, analyze your previous content and
repurpose what worked the best. Exact same thing we
already told about today, but you can also use
this tip to again, kind of wake up a little bit your sleeping account
if this is the case, and using the content
that went really well or viral in the past, hope if that happened to you, maybe a really good strategy for kind of waking up your
account a little bit. Action number 13, reply
to old unreplied DMs. If this is the case, if just one day you stopped
checking your account, maybe you have some unreplied
DMs, unreplied comments, make sure you reply to them
because that person will be notified about your reply and maybe we engage with you again, and this is just
a nice way again for getting into the habit of checking and replying
to comments and DMs. Action number 14, publish consistently for
at least 30 days. Again, social media growth
is all about consistency and especially if you're trying to bring to life your
sleeping account, it's really important that
you not only, you know, try to make new content
and then drop it again, but that you adapt a certain consistency
and a certain pace. It may be, again, ideally
four times per week, but even two times per week, but consistently is way
better than posting consistently for three weeks and then disappearing
for one month. So keep in mind,
consistency is key. Action number 15,
create regular stories. Again, as I mentioned,
stories are more relevant for people who already
have a certain following. So I would suggest
in the beginning focusing on reels and carousels and then gradually
introducing stories. Or if you really
enjoy doing stories, and if this is something
that you would do, even if no one is watching them, then go ahead and make stories. But if it kind of requires
an extra effort from you, I would leave it until later. But generally, once you get into the habit of posting regularly and once you
start to grow a little bit, think about incorporating
regular stories in your day. By regular stories, I
mean daily stories. So usually stories is
something you do on a daily basis because they
disappear after 24 hours. Action number 16,
use the question box in the stories to understand
what your followers want. This is a really great tip, and it works together with the previous one
about the stories. So the question box is a special feature
that you can put in your stories and ask people
questions, for example. What do you want me to What topics you would like
me to cover on this page, or do you want to know any specific tips about
this and that or so on? So you can basically gather the opinions of people
about your content and what they're waiting
for and this can give you some fresh
ideas about your content. Again, this is relevant. It is only relevant if you already have a
certain following. If you're just a baby account, a brand new account or
account that just gets out of the sleeping mode
and getting active, leave it for later and focus on creating
new content first. Action number 17, use
keywords in your captions. So we already spoke about
using keywords in your bio, but also think about using
keywords in your captions. So very important thing I
will tell you now is that hashtags are not very important. So a lot of people
think they need to research for
the best hashtags. They spend a lot of time
researching the hashtags. They even purchase paid apps or download other like maybe free apps to
understanding best hashtags. But I would say the
most important thing now are not the hash
tags themselves, but the keywords you
include in your captions, for example, make sure
your descriptions of your videos describe really well what the video is
about or who you are. So if you're a watercolor artist or if you're a
travel sketcher or if you are a portrait
artist, landscape artist, make sure to include these keywords in your
video descriptions, maybe not every single video, but from time to time, make sure to include
them so that your wheels reach
the right audience. Action number 18, reply to all new comments and DMs
for the next 30 days. Again, replying to DMs and comments is most
important than ever. So do that for at
least next 30 days to get this habit and
one more bonus tip. Once you post a reel and you see that you're
getting some comments on it, make sure to reply on
the first comments as quickly as possible because
this will boost interaction, and this is a really nice sign for Instagram to keep
pushing your reel. Action number 19, use hat GPT
for coming up with hooks. As I said previously, you need to be mindful about
using Chat GPT for the text, for the captions or just try to avoid this kind of copy
paste style caption. So in your captions, make sure you're personal in that you infuse your personal writing
style inside of them. But HAGPT is really nice
for coming up with ideas, video ideas or hook ideas. Just make sure to give
some context to CHAPT. So don't just say from
the middle of nowhere, give me some hook ideas. So provide HAGPT
some information about your profile,
about your business, about what you are
communicating on, and then ask to come up with ten hooks that you
can use for your wheels. And sometimes CHATPT comes up with really
interesting ideas. You can also give it
some hook examples. For example, you can tell Chad DPT about yourself and say, my competitors in my
niche use these hooks, and then you put the
hooks that you researched from your competitors
research if you've done it. And then this will help
Instagram haTPTry to analyze the hooks
and come up with something relevant for yourself. And finally, action number 20 to wake up your
sleeping account is if your profile was affected in the past and you don't have many followers, consider creating a new one. This was actually
what I started from. I already told you this tip
right in the beginning, but I'm repeating it here again. All of these tips I
just mentioned are only relevant if your account
was not damaged, if your account has
not been flagged or if you were not
actively using any kind of fake followers and
something like this. So if this is your case, I suggest you just starting
a brand new account, and again, don't be discouraged by starting a brand new account. Brand new account actually have really great opportunities of growing on Instagram quickly. So I hope these
tips were useful, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
11. Hook Ideas for Great Reels: Welcome to this
lesson number ten, where we will speak about hooks. So ten hook ideas
for your wheels. As I already said, hooks are super important for the deliverability of your reels and the performance
of your reels. So 70% of the real
performance depends on the and good hook means more
possibilities to go viral. That's why hooks are
really important. And besides the tip
I gave you already in the last lesson to
go and ask CHAT GPT, giving it some information and asking HAGPT what kind
of hooks it can propose you. I also have some hooks to suggest to you.
Hook number one. This is a nice idea
for a suspense. So everything was going
fine until something. So suspense plus
interesting story behind. This is a really, I would say,
nice psychological trick. So you say, everything
was nice until, and then people want
to know, what is this until? So idea number one. Hook number two.
Nobody tells this, but, and then you tell
your honest opinion. This goes into the direction again of sharing your
honest opinions, sharing your behind the scenes, sharing your personal expertise. And again, the phrase that nobody tells this kind of gives you the
exclusivity effect. It means that you're
revealing a piece of information
that is exclusive. It's not available anywhere. And again, you spark the creativity of people
and you make them hooked. So you make them watch
the reel till the end. It's just important
that after this phrase, you really say
something interesting and not something that
people already know. So try to make sure that the body of the reel is
equally good as the hook. So make sure not to disappoint people in the body
of your video. Hook number three.
I thought it was impossible until I
discovered something. This is perfect for
success stories and transformation stories, especially if of course, you
have something to offer. If your page is just for
your personal use or you're not wanting to promote your
services or your products, maybe this is not
the best hook idea. But if you have
something to promote, this is a really nice idea
of using social proof, success stories, case studies
and things like this. Hook number four. If you're
still doing this, stop now. This is perfect for unveiling
mistakes in your niche. So think about something
that people use a lot. So not something just random, but really analyze your
niche a little bit. So you need to have a little bit of knowledge and research about your niche in order
to come up with a believable hook for this one. But again, it can be really effective for
positioning yourself as an expert in your niche.
Hook number five. If I told you that you can get this benefit without doing this pain point of your clients. This is a way to address your audience's
fears and paints. The way you can do
it, for example, it's actually a really
common marketing strategy. This is what most people use on their sales pages or
in their communication. I'm going to give you a
really simple example. I'm like, really cliche
example, I would say. And if I told you that you can lose weight and get a nice and get into a nice shape benefit
without endless diets. So pain point or
without the need of going to the gym for 3
hours every single day. So, you know, this is
the pain point again. So think about what is
this for your iche? Maybe it is let's say, imagine you could eat
amazing healthy meals every single day benefit without the need of spending hours
a day cooking, pain. So think about these things that are relevant for
your specific niche. Also, if you want,
you can try to use hATPT for your help, give it some ideas and see what kind of ideas
ChaGPT comes up with. And use this as a hook. Again, to show that you understand your audience and address their fears and pains because fears and pains are the most strong emotions that drive people
to buy or to watch. Hook number six, have
you ever noticed that encourage your audience to identify themselves in
a common situation? It's one more way to make
people relate to you, position yourself
as one of them, making the sense of belonging to the same group
of people to the same niche. So recall them about
something that is really typical or something
peculiar about your niche. Have you ever noticed that, for example, have you ever noticed that let me
come up with something? Um, let's say I'm an artist. And have you ever
noticed that when you sit when you just start sketching in the
beginning of the day, you feel stuck and you feel lost in front of
white Sheet of paper. Whatever just came up
with something right now. And then maybe in the caption, you develop this idea and you tell something like,
Yeah, it's really normal. You know, even
experienced artists can get really stuck in front
of white sheet of paper, but here are some tips
that you can follow to overcome this fear and, you know, make this
warm up exercise for getting into
the flow easily, and then you give some tips. Just a quick example. Of course, you can adapt this
to your own niche, but, you know, I invented a quick example for
you. Hook number seven. Three things I wish
I knew before. This is perfect for teaching something with a personal touch. Um, it's more
trending right now, it's more up to date
than just saying, three tips for this or, you know, five methods for that. Now, it's also basically,
it's the same. It's the same three tips, but packaged in two
different words. So three things I
wish I knew before. So it's kind of getting even more intriguing for them
than just three tips. So it kind of gives, again, the it gives them the effect of exclusivity
and something that, oh, she's going to give me
valuable information that can prevent me from making a mistake or
something like this. So use this hook, again, if you want to give some tips and teach something
with a personal touch. It's especially handy if you are selling any kind of e products, e books or courses
or things like this, education or maybe your coaching services
or something like this. Hook number eight. I tried this method for this
amount of time, and here's what happened. This is perfect for case
studies, and again, it shows them with
clear tangible examples of what kind of results you get and what kind
of results they can get. Again, especially helpful if
you have something to offer, if you have a service to offer, if you have a product
to offer that can solve their problems. This is going to
be a demonstration of the fact that
your product works. Hook number nine,
tell me that you are your target audience
without telling me that you are your
target audience. For example, tell me you're an artist without telling
me that you are an artist. This is the trend that was
first launched on Tik Tok. It got a little bit
outdated on TikTok, but it's still fun's fun
trend to try on Instagram. So it's a fun hook for
self identification. Again, this is the way you can create this connection
with your niche and a feel of belonging to
the same to the same niche, for example, a situation I just imagined you can make
a fun video because, again, I'm an artist, so I'm giving you art inspired tips. One of the things I think every single watercolor
artist did is to dip their brush
inside their drink, their tea or their coffee instead of their jar with water. So you can make a video of this of you dipping your brush
in your drink instead of the water that is just
nearby and then put a text overlays telling tell me you're an artist without telling
me you're an artist. I bet I mean, I think at least I
think it's a fun hook in that some artists
can relate to it, and it's just a fun way, again, to interact
with your audience. And finally, hook number ten. I tried this for
this amount of time, and the results were incredible. So similar actually to one
of the previous hooks, but even more inspiring. So also, it's a way to tell people of
overcoming challenges, and again, showing
them social proof, showing them that
your methods work. So I tried this method, so your own method for
this amount of time, and you're giving
them a tangible time frame for this method. And these are the results, and you are giving them the, you know, real life outcomes of what was possible
thanks to your method. Again, especially
useful for coaches, course creators and any kind of educational
services creators. So I hope you
enjoyed this lesson, and I will see you
in the next one.
12. Final Words: Come back. In this lesson, I will make a quick recap of what you've learned
in this class. First of all, how Instagram has drastically changed in 2025. So the old strategies
and tricks don't work anymore or don't work
as well as before anymore. So you need to adapt new
strategies this year. What's in and out in
content creation, the power of authenticity,
storytelling, and branding, how to structure engaging videos and create strong presence, practical 25 plus tips to
grow and revive your account. And finally, let me give you some suggestions
for the next steps. First of all, apply the
strategies you've learned, start small and stay consistent. Test, tweak, and track
what works for you. Build your signature series
and share your unique voice, focus on real
connections and connect and content that feels like you and most
importantly, show up, messy, real, imperfect,
but the way you are and showing up being consistent is just the most
important thing you can do. Final words, to grow your
Instagram organically in 2025. You don't need to
chase trends to grow. You need clarity,
connection, and consistency. Instagram in 2025 is a
playground for genuine creators, and you are ready. So keep creating, keep learning, and don't forget
to enjoy the ride. Again, be yourself. Of course, it's important to be informed
about the changes, the the things that
work that don't work. So I hope today's class really clarified the things
for you and that now Instagram 2025 algorithm
does not sound like does not look
like something confusing, difficult,
and overwhelming. And please start applying
these principles on practice because knowing
the principles is not enough. It's important to take action as quickly as possible
because again, Instagram algorithm tends to change from time to time and sometimes
even quite quickly. That's why it's better to
start as soon as possible because the best moment to start is right now and the
better moment will not start. Start now. Maybe you're
not completely ready, maybe your content is
not completely perfect. But again, it's fine and you will figure
that out on a go. Thanks again for watching
in the next lesson, I will tell you how to
submit your final project, and I will see you there.
13. Class Project: Now that you've
learned what actually works on Instagram in 2025, from understanding
the new algorithm to creating content that actually
connects and converts, it's time to take action. Remember that
growth on Instagram doesn't come with
just doing more. It starts from doing the
right things consistently. That's why I've prepared a simple and practical Instagram growth
checklist to help you to stay focused
and on track with your Instagram content
strategy in 2025. For the class project, download the checklist that I
attach to this class. Printed or edited using your favorite online
editing tool. Then upload it to the
project section of the class alongside with your Instagram handle so that I
can check it out. I'll personally go through your projects and give my
feedback where needed. I cannot wait to
see your progress and support you on
your growth journey. If you like this class,
please leave me a review. It will motivate me to create more classes like
this on Skillshare. Also, if you want to learn more about organic Instagram reels, I highly recommend you
checking out my other class, reel making magic that will reveal you the magic of
creating viral reels. Let 2025 be the year when your content truly
connects and converts. I wish you all the best, and I will see you the next class.
Natura Illustrata, Anastasiia - Watercolor artist
