Becoming a blogger or influencer seems like the ideal job for a lot of people. You travel, try amazing food, visit unique places and you get to share all your experiences with your community and friends- it certainly sounded like the best job for us! We are the type of people that love sharing our experiences and help others achieve theirs, but before we could start helping people (other than our friends and family) we had to learn how to gain a presence, so here is our experience so you can learn how to grow your blog and Instagram too!
Before starting we must say that there is no silver bullet or a single-straight path towards growing. Everyone has their own journey and it depends on what you want to accomplish, your community, and your interests. This took us a while to understand but once we did things changed so fast!
Think about it
A beauty blogger will promote different things and target a different audience than a travel couple who tries to live as sustainable as possible. We don’t use nor do we buy beauty products on a regular basis, so why would a makeup company trust us to promote their product if our audience knows that is not who we are. It wouldn’t feel genuine and they wouldn’t buy it. That is why you need to stay “in brand” and always have your audience in mind when thinking about how to grow your blog and Instagram.
You also have to keep in mind the algorithms, SEO, and keywords. These elements will help you reach your target audience and help people that might be interested in what you write discover you. Be consistent on your topic, posting times, and brand. An active blog and Instagram get more love not only from the audience but also from the platforms that show your content.
Now that we got this part out of the way…
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How did we start?
We started our Instagram to show our friends and family our travels and food, mostly because we live abroad and it was a way to keep them involved in our lives. With time people started to ask us about travel and cooking tips so we thought “why don’t we make guides and recipes so we can share them easily?” and that is how our blog started!
We like living as sustainable as possible, so this was also a way to teach others about this lifestyle in a way that is achievable. Living sustainably might seem hard or confusing to someone who has never actively tried it, so with our guides, we showed people how to incorporate it into their lives and travels.
Over the last years, we have visited some of the most amazing places on the planet and we have learned so much about other cultures. It seemed like the sky was the limit and the world was waiting for us until COVID-19 changed everything. Borders were closed, flights were canceled and travel plans postponed. The new restrictions and changes affected us, our plans, and long term goals, just like it did to all the other travel bloggers and influences. However, this didn’t mean we were done and our dreams of growing to help more people were over, just like all these influences, we also had to find a way to flourish and grow in order to continue doing what we love!
How to grow your blog and Instagram from home
The best way to grow your brand is by adapting to the current situation so your audience can feel connected and your content is relevant. At the same time, your strategies must adjust to these changes or adaptations so your content is consistent and in brand. For example, you can have live chats, Q&A, videos, or even start a podcast. We realized our audience wanted to feel more connected to us as people, so we started showing more of our faces and personality in our stories rather than just sharing pretty landscapes. It was a success and a way to start lovely conversations and meet people. Bringing our audience into our home made us more relatable and allowed us to widen the type of content we create since we couldn’t share new travel photos and guides for the time being.
The best way to make sure you are creating content your audience can relate to is by being passionate. This passion combined with your skills will translate into your work and people will notice it and appreciate it because they can tell the effort and love you are putting into it. In order to know what passions drive you, think back to your childhood or your high school years. What were the things you loved doing in your free time, your extracurriculars, or even your electives? Those will give you a very clear idea of what you like so you can base your blog and Instagram on that.
Once we started creating content we were passionate about, people started noticing and our Instagram saw a huge increase! This motivated us so much and our creative freedom seemed to increase too. By doing things we like and showing them in a more us way (not so instagramy or perfect), we were able to connect more with our audience and grow!
Make it personal
Now we share more “at home projects”-DIYs, recipes, and couple’s advice while still incorporating our sustainable lifestyle and our love for the planet. Of course, we still share travel guides and itineraries but now they prioritize outdoor trips, hikes, and more in-depth descriptions about the places we visit and its culture. We pick one country and explore it as much as we can by car, bus or train. In a way, it’s the most sustainable travel advice we have ever given and it was all thanks to the pandemic.
We also got some inspiration from Ashley Renne, a green living influencer-creator-traveler who dives deep into the culture through her blog Travel Lushes. She also found new opportunities during these times and grew her blog and Instagram despite the restrictions. This made us realize the importance of staying true to our values, create solutions, and come up with new ideas that were on-trend but still related to our original topic- sustainable travel. You can read more about her and her path to find more inspiration on how to grow your blog and Instagram.
Our final tip is to be organized and separate work time from home life. Now that you spend more time at home it might be hard to do this, so you can use our planner or read more on how to be productive when you work or study from home. Every day is different and having routines will help you achieve your goals to grow your blog and Instagram.
To summarize
- Keep in mind the algorithms, SEO, and keywords. These elements will help you reach your target audience and help people that might be interested in what you write discover you.
- If you want to grow your blog and Instagram the most important thing is to adapt to the current situation so your audience can feel connected and your content is relevant.
- Your strategies must adjust to these changes or adaptations so your content is consistent and in brand.
- The best way to make sure you are creating content your audience can relate to is by being passionate.
- Stay true to yourself and what you like. Creating content that is on-trend but still relevant to your topic is what your audience is looking for. At the end of the day, they chose you for what you help them with and your content should always be aimed at them.
Thank you for taking some time of your day to read our blog, we truly appreciate it. We hope this guide on how to grow your blog and Instagram helps you and you see a significant change! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Instagram for more ideas and tips.
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