Instagram for Streamers: How to Grow Your Instagram The Right Way

If you’re an avid reader of our blog, you would already know how important it is for streamers to build an audience. Long story short, a bigger audience means more opportunities to monetize your stream because audience = money. 

In building your stream’s audience, it’s important for you to be on multiple social networking platforms because: 

1. Staying on one platform gives you limited access to potential viewers since you’re competing with a lot of other streamers. Hence, being on multiple platforms gives you a higher chance of being discovered by potential viewers. 
2. Being seen multiple times across different platforms can trigger a potential viewer’s curiosity to visit your page and watch your stream. Ultimately, this is a number game because you’ll rarely capture a viewer by showing yourself once. 
3. Having a big audience on multiple platforms would increase your value to brands who want to partner with you. 

One of the best social media sites to be in is Instagram because the majority of their 1 Billion active users are aged 13 to 33 – the ideal age bracket for stream viewers. This means that you’ll have better chances of being shown to potential viewers. 

If you’re serious about growing your streaming audience, here are 7 tips on how to grow your Instagram the right way. 

1. Optimize your profile

The first thing you’ll need to do if you want to gain more followers on Instagram is to optimize your profile, so people would know who you are and what you do. 

Here are the things you need to have on your Instagram profile: 

• Your username and display name should be aligned with your stream’s name, so people can find you easily. 
• Add the keywords on your bio, and display your name. Make sure to have the words: stream and the game you’re streaming. This makes it easier for search engines to find you. For example: GGWP | League of Legends Streamer
• Put your stream’s link as well as other profiles on your bio, so people can find you easily. 
• Display your rank to build credibility. Then indicate which server/s you play in, so people can play with you too. 
• Have a brief description of what your streams are. For example: I stream my grind from Bronze to Challenger as support. This would make people more interested in your stream. 

2. Post quality content

The number one rule for content creation and posting on any social media channel is to have good content. This means having interesting, entertaining, or educational content for your target audience. 

Some content you can post across all your social media platforms are: 

• Game highlights from your latest stream.
• Best plays of your career. 
• Funny comments/voiceovers you have on streams. 
• Unconventional builds/line-ups you tried. 
• Fun facts about the game. 

Bottom line: Post content that you too would want to see on your feed. If it’s not interesting for you, then don’t expect other people to find it interesting as well. 

3. Have IG-exclusive content

Aside from cross-posted content, you need to have IG-exclusive content if you want to grow your IG following. This means having bits of content that are not present elsewhere. The scarcity of this content would encourage viewers to follow and engage you on the platform. 

For instance, if you post your full stream highlights on Facebook, put all your lowlights with commentary exclusively on Instagram. Perhaps you can even create IGTV videos of your unstreamed content, paired with some bloopers. 

4. Utilize the right hashtags

Hashtags are important so the AI would know what kind of content you’re posting. This would help it show your content to people who are interested in the games you’re streaming. 

By showing your content to people who are interested in the game you’re streaming, the AI is making sure you’re getting a quality audience and views on your content. 

Ultimately, this would help grow your stream, because the people who see your content are already interested in what you’re streaming. 

When using hashtags, make sure you use branded, generic, and niche hashtags. 

Branded hashtags: Hashtags that contain your name and your stream’s name. Having one branded hashtag makes it easier to archive all your content and for people to find them. 

Generic hashtags: Those with high usage volumes like the title of the game, communities, or characters. This categorizes you together with other similar kinds of content like #streaming #videogames #valorant #PUBG, etc. Using these is essential because you’re appearing on a lot of people’s feeds. Just make sure to use relevant hashtags. 

Niche hashtags: Those which are specific like #lolfailmoments #valorantviperplays #pubgheadshots. It’s important to have niche hashtags because it allows you to reach a more specific audience – which means there are fewer competitors in that content space. 

In using hashtags, make sure to have a combination of all 3 kinds of hashtags for the best results. Ideally, you should have 8 to 15 hashtags in a single post – all of which are related to what you’re posting. 

5. Use all the Instagram features

Here’s a little secret: Instagram has its own set of favorite content creators. Yes, not everyone is treated equally by Instagram. Their favorite content creators are being featured more on the discover pages and are recommended more to their users. 

Want to be a part of this elite group? Use all of Instagram’s features regularly. The platform loves those who are proactively using the different features of the app. So the more you use their features – especially the new ones, the more they’ll favor your account. 

So, don’t be shy in experimenting with IG’s features because they’ll reward you for it. 

6. Promote your IG on other platforms

Cross-promoting your Instagram (and other accounts) is one way to drive people to it. Feature it on your stream, mention it on your Twitter and Facebook accounts, have it on your signature card on forums. 

Whatever you need to do, make sure you inform people that you have an IG account they can visit for awesome content. 

7. Send your content to publishers

Getting your content featured on known IG pages that publish content like yours is a big mileage because it gives you free access to their audience which can be yours too. 

Research the top pages on your space and reach out to them. See if there are possible beneficial collaborations between the two of you. 

For starters, check out pages that show highlights and lowlights of different gamers. Send out some of your clips and ask them if they can feature you and your profile and channel. This feature is a gamechanger especially for those who are just starting out. 

Bonus tip: Stay organic. Don’t buy followers.

As tempting as it sounds, never buy fake followers. This is a huge waste of money because: 

1. Instagram is adamant about removing bots and fake followers. In the best-case scenario, you lose all the followers you bought. Worst case? Instagram bans you from their platform. Say goodbye to all your hard work if that happens. 
2. Fake followers don’t become stream viewers. This is because they’re just bots. So even if it looks like you have 10,000 followers, your stream won’t get any additional viewers from this tactic. If you’re willing to invest money, just use the budget to advertise your page and content. 

So our advice to you is to stay focused on growing your Instagram the right way because, in the end, all your hard work is going to pay dividends.