How to start an Instagram blog

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a blogger, YouTuber or social media influencer? Well, microblogging on Instagram is a great place to find out if you want to dig deeper into how to start a blog or if you want to grow a business online.

Let’s dive in, my friend!

How to start an Instagram blog

When you get really excited about an idea it can be really easy to jump in without thinking too much about it.

But before you go and jump onto Instagram, I want you to ask yourself a few questions and get really clear about a few things. These are going to help you figure out you and give you a solid foundation.

Why?

Why do you want to start a blog?

Is it to teach something to a community? Is it because you have an experience you want to share? Maybe you want to talk to you 10 years ago.

What is the one thing that drives this idea, the thing that will keep you going when you’re tired? Or when life hands you crap?

That’s your why. It’s your reason to keep going no matter what.

Write this down and keep it in a place you can always reference when you need a reminder of why you do what you do.

Who is this for?

You might have answered this question when you discovered your why.

When you start a blog or a YouTube channel or an Instagram account with the goal of sharing a story or a lesson (and maybe monetizing in the future!) you need to narrow your focus. You need to figure out who you want to speak to.

Because trying to speak to everyone is a one-way ticket to average-ville.

I’ve got a free resource that will help you do this, also called “niching down” in the blogging world, in just an hour. And since blogging on Instagram just means that you are posting your blog posts as captions, it’s a perfect way to get you heading in the right direction.

Want it? Fill out the form below to get it right in your inbox.

Where are you going to store your content?

For a blogger, content is stored on a website they own. When you start out on Instagram, a platform that is owned by Facebook, you need to figure out a place to safely store your captions. In the case Instagram removes any on your content from the platform, you want it safely stored in another location.

This doesn’t often happen but since you are relying on the platform to store your content, it’s always good to have a backup.

There are a million different place you can choose from but some of my faves are:

• Trello (My #1 choice)
• Wunderlist
• Google Drive
• Notes app on iPhone

Set your Insta-Boundaries

One of the struggles of Instagram is figuring out how much of your life you actually want to share. It can be really easy to feel like you need to share every little aspect of your life.

You absolutely do not.

In fact, you can determine how much or how little you share. There isn’t some kind of Instagram workbook floating around that tells you that you have to share about your kid’s soccer game or that you finally finished potty training.

The easiest way to figure out your boundaries is to create a list with two columns. In the first column write all of the things you are comfortable talking about online or with strangers. In the second column, write all of the things that are off-limits for you. This could be your kids, family, health, or anything that you don’t feel comfortable sharing.

Remember, you are writing the rules here.

Brainstorm

Now, the fun part starts!

I bet when you got this idea you had a ton of ideas swirling around in your head, well, it’s time to start getting them all into one place.

I like to do this on a piece of paper first then move it into Trello or Wunderlist so I always have access to it.

But also because if I leave it on paper it will disappear until I find it again in 3 months.

Make a content plan

Making a content plan can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like it to be.

Nevertheless, having a plan for what content (images, captions, etc.) you’re going to post and when is the best way to commit to being a content creator for the long term.

You can even use a service like Planoly to plan, write and build your content plan. This is my favorite to plan my Instagram feed because it lets me drag and drop images, plan ahead and get super ahead on my planning.

A total win in my book.

Set-up your Instagram Profile

Now it’s time to set up your Instagram account.

To do this you can either visit instagram.com or download the app on your phone. I recommend using the app because Instagram is a mobile-first application and you don’t get the full features on the desktop website.

Follow the prompts to get your business account created then add your profile picture, create a bio and start posting!

How to start and Instagram Blog: Tips for Success

Commit to at least 3 months

If you are just getting your feet wet in the content creation pool, I challenge you to commit to 3 months of consistent content creation.

During this time you’ll get a feel for what you actually want to post and share about as well as get an idea of how much time, energy, such it takes to do it.

After 3 months, you’ll be in a great place to decide whether you want to dig deeper into more content creation like blogging or Youtube. Or you’ll find out that you don’t want to do it.

Either way, you figure out what you want to be doing.

Track analytics from the beginning

The reason you want to setup a business account is so that you have full access to the analytics features. This data will inform you of what is working on your account.

For example, maybe photos of you are working better than anything else. So, you can do more of that.

Or maybe captions about a certain topic or written in a particular style seem to be working better.

The point of analytics is to use the data available at your fingertips to make informed content decisions.

Consistency is key

People online expect consistency from their favorite creators and when you post regularly you stay in their circle of awareness.

Now, being consistent doesn’t mean you have to post every single day. It could be that you post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Or you post in the feed on Monday and Thursday and then hang out on IG stories Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

And if the idea of committing that much to days of the week makes you feel stuck in a tiny box, it could also just mean that you are really intentional about posting on a regular basis.

Make it work for your life.

Be active on the platform, engage in the community

You can’t expect for people to find you just because you are posting, in fact, you have to go find them. Using a combo of hashtags and locations in the search bar you can find people to engage with.

What do I mean by engage?

Go make friends, find people that your content is for. Be genuine.

Next Steps

So, you’ve learned how to start an Instagram blog. Did you find that you are loving the process of creating content and want to find out if you can go full time doing this? It’s time to diversify, my friend. The reality of Instagram is that you’ll never fully own the process or platform.

So, finding a place where you own all of the content and what it looks like is crucial.

My first recommendation would be to start an email list using MailerLite or ConvertKit.

Then I would diversify where you store your content by expanding to either a self-hosted blog or YouTube channel.

Content is the name of the game these days and your Instagram account is the perfect starting place to an ever-expanding online business world.