5 Tips to Building Your Bookstagram

I love and adore instagram, particularly Bookstagram. If there is one social media platform I feel particularly strong in, that would be Instagram. So I thought I might as well write a blog post about it. Here are my tips for building a Bookstagram account.

1. Post regularly.

This is the most standard advice, but it is true. There’s a saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” If you don’t post for several days then you are definitely out of sight. Don’t get me wrong I know life happens, but it is good to attempt to keep to a consistent schedule of at least once per day.

One way I have cut down on life getting in the way is through taking my photos in batches. I typically will take 7-10 photos over a weekend to last me until the next week. That’s the most I tend to plan. I wish I was better at getting my descriptions and tags done ahead of time, but no one’s perfect.

2. Encourage engagement

Ok, this might be multiple pieces of advice in one. When I say engagement, I mean going beyond the "like" to getting a comment and a follow. There are so many ways to encourage more engagement on your posts and feed, but I’ll focus on a few of the ones that I utilize on my own posts.

TAGS! - I love doing tags. Well I don’t like writing them out and wish there was an easier way, but it’s fun to answer the questions. Then tag more people and see their answers. A few people have DM’ed me before tagging me in a post and I just have to say, don’t worry about that. Personally if I don’t like a tag or I’ve already done the tag I just wont do it. I never get mad at a person for tagging me. If you need someone to tag you to get you going, just let me know. Often in my posts I ask people to let me know if they don’t like to be tagged or if they want to be tagged. The only thing people have said is that they want to be tagged so far.

QOTD or Question of the Day - Asking people to answer a question of the day gives people a prompt their comments. It’s something to comment besides the standard ‘love this photo,’ which may be true, but writing that 50 times gets boring. These questions are fun to answer. I love going through my feed to find photos with interesting QOTD’s and answering them. I’ve noticed my photos with QOTD in the description tend to get more comments.

Hashtags - The right hashtag makes all the difference. Try to find a variety or hashtags that match the photo that are popular enough. I try to do a mix of popular tags and not too popular tags. Be careful that the tag is not too generic, #books is a good example. That # is now on the list that will get a person shadowbanned (when only your followers can see your uploads). A rumor I have heard is that the new algorithm doesn’t like it when a person uses the same hashtag for every single post so try to mix it up every once in a while.

3. Be Active

Yes, post at least one photo a day but don’t just close your app after that. You need to go through your feed. Like some photos. Answer other people's QOTD. Like a person's color scheme? Then tell them. If you want to be a part of the community then you need to be a part of the community. The Instagram algorithm also likes when a person is more active, just don’t go overboard. If you like more than 200 photos in an hour then you will suffer some consequences. But if you are taking the time to comment on other peoples photos, then I doubt you are actually going to hit that limit.

4. Put Yourself Out There

One thing that I am trying to get better about it tossing my hat into the ring when it comes to rep searches. So many people look through the rep search hashtags that it can actually be pretty beneficial even if you don’t get chosen to rep. And if you are chosen then it’s like the cherry on top. Just make sure you have the time and energy to be an effective rep.

Another fun thing to join in is giveaways. Sometimes its as simple as commenting on a post while tagging some friends and other times it’s as interactive as taking photos based around certain prompts. Either way it’s a fun way to interact and be a part of the community. Plus there the added bonus of occasional free stuff. Who doesn’t love free stuff?

Jump into any "follow train" or "shoutout for shoutout" session you can find, or make your own. They are great ways to meet new people with amazing feeds that you would probably not have found any other way.

5. Make Friends

This one should obvious, but I am going to say it anyway. The majority of people who join Bookstagram do so to share their love of books and find people to talk to that actually understand. If you aren’t actually into books, it’ll show pretty quickly and you are going to burn out. I have meet so many wonderful people through Bookstagram and I cannot overstate how fun it has been to interact with bookworms from all over the world on a daily basis.

Find a book club to join. Start conversations with other people. I randomly sent a pun to someone I barely knew on Bookstagram and it morphed into my weekly series of puns called #Sundaypunday . Now I consider @Elliebeth_bennett to be one of the best friends I made on the platform. Every week I look forward to seeing what she posts. It’s always good for a laugh.

Those are all of my tips. Let me know if this is something you liked or if you have any further questions. I’d be more than happy to make more posts like this in the future.

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