Instagram Strategy: How to Grow a Loyal Following With Instagram

Is your business on Instagram?

Want to develop an engaged following?

To discover how to create an Instagram strategy for your business, I interview Nathan Chan.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Nathan Chan, the publisher of Foundr magazine, a digital publication designed to help entrepreneurs succeed. He's also host of the Foundr podcast. Nathan is also crushing it on Instagram with nearly 400,000 followers.

Nathan will explore how he built a massive following on Instagram.

You'll discover techniques you can employ right now for your Instagram strategy.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Instagram Strategy
Why Nathan started Foundr

Nathan launched Foundr on March 5, 2013, because he wanted to become an entrepreneur and didn't know where to start. He realized there weren't any magazines targeting aspiring or novice entrepreneurs, only magazines aimed at established businesses.

Foundr is a monthly publication, available on iOS and Android mobile devices. Download the app and explore the interactive magazine, which is subscription-based. Once you get inside, Nathan says, it's like a flipbook, where you click and explore.

Nathan explains why Foundr differs from a traditional print magazine.

Because some people prefer to read and others like to listen, Nathan added a Foundr podcast to the mix after he left his day job. He wanted to share several amazing interviews he'd recorded on Skype. For example, the issue with Tony Robbins on the cover includes a feature article with exclusive material, as well as the audio interview embedded inside the magazine.

Listen to the show to hear how long it took Nathan to leave his job and what he was doing when he started Foundr.

Foundr and Instagram

Foundr has been on Instagram since November 2014, and has more than 400,000 followers.

A year and a half ago, Nathan tried Instagram and was having no success. He shares how a reader from Melbourne who had an entrepreneur page on Instagram with 20,000 followers contacted him. The reader thought if he posted Foundr's Richard Branson cover, he would get Foundr more readers.

Nathan shares why the tactic didn't work and what he learned he should have done instead.

Last November, Nathan revisited Instagram. He'd already got about 500 followers organically, since Foundr had 20 or 30 images posted. When Nathan did a couple of posts on the Foundr Instagram page, he saw their magazine sales spike on Google Analytics.

By this time, the guy from Melbourne was up to 80,000 followers, so Nathan reconnected with him and they started battle-testing different combinations on Instagram to see what would get more followers, encourage people to click on his bio and build his email list. Foundr's email list has since grown considerably, due to traffic from Instagram. Last November, it was around 2,000. Now it's just about to hit 100,000.

Nathan explains how to use lead magnets on Instagram to get people on your email newsletter list.

Listen to the show to discover why Nathan gave Instagram another try.

Nathan's Instagram strategy

Nathan says his strategy is to create viral-type content that resonates with Foundr's target audience and provide it on a consistent basis. The goal of the Instagram account is to build community, raise awareness of the brand and build the email newsletter database.

To get more email subscribers, Foundr currently links to an ebook as a lead magnet in the bio. The link pushes people to a landing page where they can get the "How to Get Your First 10,