I was super excited to take this class and to learn how to more strategically engage my current and potential followers on Instagram! I don’t have so much of an issue with actual content. Rather, my specific goal for this class is to learn how to use hashtagging, tagging, and captions in a more strategic manner. I am also really interested in the various apps that Sophia recommended. I had no idea there were so many great ones out there!

My goals after taking this class:

• Increase my followers by 50 within the next three months (from 351 to 400)
• Strategically post once per week where I target a specific brand/company that I'd like to work with.
• Follow more companies/brands/people related to my categories (listed below), and:
• Be more interactive with those accounts. Comment and like.
• Incorporate more of the popular hashtags that Iconosquare recommeds into the captions of my posts.
• Post more at Iconosquare's recommended optimal day(s) and time(s).

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PART 1

The top five markets or categories that I want to tap into are:

1. Design
2. Illustration
3. Lettering
4. Etsy
5. Weddings/Events

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PART 2

I do all of my editing in Photoshop before I post to Instagram. I draw my sketch, scan it using an app called ScannerPro, and then edit/tweak with Photoshop (I usually have to do quite a bit of editing and touching up). So I apologize for not being able to share anything in this part of the assignment.

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PART 3

When I started my #100DayProject on Instagram I always tagged the project author (@elleluna) and company (@greatdiscontent) in all of my posts. After Sophie’s advice, I think this may have been a little overkill and redundant (and probably annoying for them). In the future I will only tag people or companies when I think it’s relevant. I’m curious to experiment with tagging a company in a post. I’ve never done that before, and I’m intrigued to see what kind of response (if any) I get.

Going through my feed, I think this image would have been a great opportunity for me to have tagged Starbucks:

I found Iconosphere to be incredibly insightful! I noticed that there is a section where it references the top tags used on Instagram: 

It might be a good idea for me to try incorporating one of those hashtags into my upcoming posts and see what kind of a difference it might make. I also found out the most optimal time for me to post is on a Wednesday at 10am Pacific Time.

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PART 4

I've "liked"! I've "commented"! Here’s a screen grab of my grid as of 12/08/15:

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If anyone reading this has any advice/comments/tips, I'm all ears! This is such fascinating stuff, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the class. THANK YOU!