Let’s talk about Instagram niches. You may have heard that you should have one in order to successfully grow your Instagram account. What is a niche? It’s simply the topic your content focuses on. On Instagram there are travel niches, book niches, style niches, cooking niches, and more. Having a niche is an excellent way to make your message clear to your followers and connect with similar accounts which you can potentially collaborate with. But what if you’d like your Instagram page to be about more than just one thing? Below I’ll be dissecting how to use an Instagram niche to your advantage regardless of what topic(s) your content covers!
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Instagram Niches: How to Use Them to Your Advantage
First things first, let’s discuss how having a niche on Instagram plays a significant role in the success and growth of your account.
1. Choosing one topic as the focus of your content allows your audience and potential followers to connect with you based on a similar interest or passion. You know that feeling when you meet someone who LOVES the same thing you do? By choosing one thing you love and celebrating it on your Instagram page, your audience will get that feeling every time you post. Futhermore, potential followers shouldn’t have to scroll very far through your account to get an idea of whether they relate to you or not. The quicker you can convey what your page is all about, the easier it is to connect with your target audience.
2. Having an Instagram niche is an effective way to increase your engagement and “beat the algorithm” so to speak. I highly recommend reading my How to Increase Your Instagram Engagement blog post for a better understanding on how this works. If your Instagram account covers a range of topics (e.g. books, travel, and beauty) it’s going to be a lot more difficult to attract potential followers who are each equally interested in books, travel, and beauty vs. potential followers who are just interested in one of these topics. Let’s say some people follow you mainly because they love your posts about books, some people follow you mainly because they love your posts about travel, and some people follow you mainly because they love your posts about beauty.
Every time you post on Instagram, the algorithm initially shows the post to a fraction of your audience. As users, we have no control over which fraction the algorithm chooses. Let’s say you create a post about books, but that day, the algorithm shows it a fraction of your audience who prefers your posts about beauty. In turn, this fraction of your audience is unlikely to engage with this post because they aren’t interested in books. Then, because your post wasn’t engaged with, the algorithm will show it to even less people.
As you can see, focusing on one topic is a great strategy for increased engagement because it ensures that the majority of who Instagram initially shows your posts to will be very interested and engage with your posts (which signals Instagram to show it to even more people).
But what about those popular bloggers who post about everything?
But what about popular Instagram accounts with a ton of followers, excellent engagement, and post about everything from travel to beauty to home decor? There’s a few things to consider in these cases.
#1: It’s likely these accounts began building their audience many years ago when the algorithm wasn’t what it is today.
#2: Growth strategies on Instagram were tremendously different at that time.
#3: The app was not as saturated.
Some of these accounts have been around for 10+ years. With all of the changes that have occurred on Instagram since then, your growth journey is going to be a lot different than someone who started growing their audience years ago. And that’s okay!
*Regardless of when an Instagram account was created, it requires incredible hard work, talent, and creativity put into building a following. However, if you are just starting your Instagram account today, it’s helpful to learn about growth strategies that are consistent with Instagram’s current updates.
How can I post about a variety of different topics and successfully grow my following?
If you’re someone who wants to grow your Instagram account and post about a variety of topics, it is possible! This is where using an Instagram niche to your advantage comes in. The way I recommend accomplishing this is by initially starting out with a niche prior to expanding. As noted above, having a content focus is very helpful when it comes to growing your account and increasing engagement.
As your account begins to grow [get my free Guide to Instagram Growth here!], it’s important to establish a meaningful relationship with your followers. Remember, by having an Instagram niche, the foundation of your relationship is based upon a similar interest or passion! The more authentic and close-knit your relationship is with your followers, the more genuine interest they will have in you, your ideas, and the inspiration you can provide them. This will come into play as you begin introducing new topics.
If you’re going to use this strategy to expand your content topics, I recommend the following:
- Choose an initial niche that encompasses the sentiment of the topics you plan to introduce.
- Expand slowly. Introduce one new topic at a time and continue to post about the topic of your chosen niche.
- As you begin slowly expanding your content topics, it is possible that the posts focusing on your new topics initially won’t perform as well as your niche-specific posts. That’s okay!
One of the most important things to learn as a content creator is that it is statistically impossible for every single one of your posts to perform the same. Between the subjective nature of creative work and the intricacies of Instagram, it is completely normal and expected for post performance to vary.
If it is in your heart to share a variety of content with your audience, you have to listen! Don’t allow your creativity to be stifled by Instagram “rules.” Learn about the algorithm, learn how engagement works, then navigate Instagram in a way that feels most authentic to you ❤️
If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comment section below!
