The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Instagram for Bloggers

This simple guide to Instagram is all you need to get your account setup and ready for the world. I’m covering all things Instagram including:

• Some stats about the platform
• All about the algorithm
• How to get your account completely setup

A Little Bit About Instagram

Instagram is deceiving. On the surface, it can feel like a platform for photo sharing or vanity.

But when you dig a little deeper into it you discover that Instagram is not only built to facilitate connection, it’s for storytelling and finding common ground.

And these qualities can be a powerful business and money-making tools for you.

But one thing that Instagram isn’t? It isn’t built to serve businesses first. It’s for regular people. Because without them, we wouldn’t be able to use the platform to grow our businesses.

So, when you approach Instagram with the everyday user, your avatar, in mind, you start to get the right idea about how the platform can serve you.

You in? Before we hop into the whole set-up process for Instagram, let’s take a look at a few statistics.

Because data is your friend! Here’s what you need to know (Stats from Hootsuite’s article “37 Instagram Stats That Matter to Marketers in 2020”):

1 billion people across the globe use Instagram every single day, but only 110 million of these are American users.

Though Americans do make up the highest number of users in any country, there are 890 million other people on the platform.

You have the potential to reach a billion people just by using Instagram. If you think about it, that means that 1 in every 8 people or so that you meet on the planet can be found on IG.

That’s pretty cool.

Instagram users will spend an average of 28 minutes on Instagram every day in 2020.

That means there are folks spending only a few minutes on the platform and some spending literal hours. That’s an incredible amount of potential air time for you.

Ya know what this also means? You don’t want to send people off of Instagram in an effort to get traffic to your blog. Capture them on Instagram.

“62% of people say they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories”

If this isn’t a case for Instagram stories, I don’t know what is. If I had to guess, at some point you’ll want to be able to sell your product/service/course using social media. Knowing that many people become interested after watching an Instagram story means that there is opportunity for you to makes sales using the platform.

About 75% of business owners will use Instagram to market their business in 2020.

That’s a hefty number IMO. So, “Oh, crap” posting isn’t going to cut it. You need to be strategic. And you can totally do this yourself, you just need to be willing to learn to do it.

What Instagram Can Do For You

Before we set up your Instagram account, I want you to know what is possible with it because when we know what’s possible, we think bigger. Cool? With Instagram you can:

• Build a community
• Generate Leads
• Sell your products and services
• Create brand loyalty
• Grow your email list
• Educate and Inspire your audience

The Algorithm

You’ve probably heard a lot about the Instagram Algorithm. Some good things, some bad.

Here’s what you need to know about it:

The Misconceptions about the Instagram Algorithm

There a lot of naysayers and haters in the online business community when it comes to the Instagram algorithm. They say things like:

• “IG doesn’t work for me. The algorithm doesn’t show my followers my content.”
• “Instagram hates me.”
• “Instagram is only for people that want to be influencers, it doesn’t work for regular, small bloggers like me.”
• “Instagram is full of vanity and selfies. I KNOW my ideal avatar doesn’t do this, so they aren’t on here.”
• “It takes too much time. And I just can’t figure out how it can benefit my blog.”

This one is my favorite: “Instagram is limiting the content you see from me. Please like or comment on this post if you want to keep seeing my content.”

via GIPHY

Have you heard one of these before? Maybe you said it yourself?

That’s totally cool. Ready to be empowered by the truth?

The Truth about the Instagram Algorithm

Instagram is a Facebook product, so the algorithms run similarly.

At one point in Instagram’s history, the feed was chronological. So, Instagram was a numbers game. So, to be successful on the platform you had to post several times a day. More posts=More chances for someone to scroll past you in their feed and engage with your content.

Those days are long gone. But you’ll still find bloggers and influencers from that era struggling to use social media because they didn’t make a change in their content strategy.

Some didn’t make it through it.

Some are still whining that Instagram is actively working against them and use mildly sleazy strategies to stay in your timeline.

Instagram, much like Facebook, now functions on a quality over quantity model.

Instagram prioritizes content in the timeline based on what the user engages with. So, the new goal is to get your audience to interact with you. Likes are fine. But a comment or a DM? That’s gold.

Because you get to control the conversation. Pretty cool, huh?

How to Set Up Your Blog Instagram Account

1. Create your account

Start by creating your account. You’ll need to enter an email address, your name, a username, and a password for your account.

Your username can either be your blog name or your own name. This is a personal choice, though I tend to recommend using your own name so you have room to grow, change and adjust your business down the line.

But, again, do you, boo.

And if you haven’t done so already, download the Instagram app onto your phone. It’s a mobile first platform and you can’t post or create IG stories from desktop.

2. Now that you’re logged into your account, it’s time to change your account from a personal one to a business account. To do this, first, you’ll need to click on the three lines in the top right corner of your screen. Do this on your phone.
3. Once you click on the little hamburger icon in the corner, settings and info panel will pop in from the right of the screen.
4. Next, you’ll touch “Account”
5. Now, click “Switch the Business Account” to convert your account from a personal account.

Fill in your Profile

Once you’ve converted your account, go back to your profile and click, “Edit Profile”

Start by changing your profile picture.

Use a picture of you. Something relatively close up so that people know what you look like. You don’t need to hide behind your blog logo!

Your Name

You’ll notice that I have “Social Media Marketing” in my name field. I’m using this section as a search field for my account. You can choose to leave your name in this field if you’d like. Just play around with this.

Fill in your Bio

Fill this in with a little bit about your business and who you serve. Add in a call-to-action at the end if you want.

Add a link

This could be just a link to your website. Or you could create an Instagram specific landing page to update as you’d like. My personal favorite? A link to one of your

You’re good to go!