In the beginning I managed a dropshipping Instagram account, but I always thought it was pretty hard. Until now. Learn with me on how to set up your dropshipping Instagram account correctly, and then let's grow it together from scratch!
You have so many options to grow your dropshipping Instagram account! Think about using hashtags, doing giveaways, engaging with people inside your niche, and using shoutouts on other pages. Just stay consistent with posting on your Instagram account, and don't give up!
Let's begin with the basics, how do you create an Instagram account?
Creating your dropshipping Instagram account
First off, I want to make it clear that even though there are certain ways that you can get more followers to your dropshipping Instagram account, it will still take time.
This isn't an overnight process.
It could become boring after some time, but just know that if you stick to it and don't give up that someday you will make it!
My first tip has to do with what I said above.
You need to be consistent. Once you start posting, keep posting!
Don't skip days because you don't feel like it or you think something like, "I will never make it."
You need to push through this.
So now that I know you won't give up easily, we can begin!
To start off, you need to create an Instagram account (if you haven't already created one).
Then, after you've created it, you can immediately make it a business account, but a lot of people have mixed feelings about doing this.
Should you switch to an Instagram business account or not?
Some say it will drop your engagement dramatically; some totally disagree with that, and others say it's well worth it for the data you will get.
I suggest you keep it with a personal account and do some research yourself to see if it's worth it to switch.
Keep in mind that if you want to advertise on Instagram (boosting your posts or via Facebook Ads), then you do need a business account.
If you want to research a bit more about switching to a business account or not, I suggest reading this Instagram experiment and this forum post about switching!
Tip: Did you know that you can list products directly on Instagram by connecting your account to your ecommerce platform like Shopify? It's called Instagram Shops, and you can learn more about it here!
Make your dropshipping Instagram account look great
Now that you have your dropshipping Instagram account set up, it's time to make it look great!
First off, you need to have a profile picture!
I suggest you use the logo of your
This is a great way to build a brand. People will recognize your logo from Instagram and the other way around.
Then it's time to make the rest of your profile look awesome.
I suggest you watch the first minutes of the video below to give you an idea of how to do that!
Just be careful if you decide to watch more of his videos. Remember that these kinds of "gurus" only want your money (selling courses).
I did add this video from him because it has some good tips on how to structure your dropshipping Instagram account profile!
Also, look at how other businesses and Instagram influencers make their profiles.
You might get some great ideas for your own account after that!
To end this topic, I suggest reading this article here. It will give you even more great tips on how to set up the profile of your
Plus, you should check out these 12 Linkpop examples here if you want to create an amazing link to place in your bio.
The beginning of your dropshipping Instagram account
Now that you have your dropshipping Instagram account set up correctly, it's time to start thinking about how your Instagram feed is going to look.
This is definitely a thing you need to think about before you create your Instagram account.
If you think about this early on then you will know exactly what your plan is going to be.
Or at least you know how many times you're going to start posting!
This will make everything so much easier.
How many times should you post on your dropshipping Instagram account?
I suggest you post at least once a day, but I think the best is posting between 2-3 times per day.
So with the lesson learned above, you will post this amount every single day!
If you choose to post two posts a day, keep doing this or maybe even more sometimes, but do not change your consistency by posting less.
This way you will build that habit of pushing through and not giving up!
The reason you post frequently is to give people a reason to follow you.
If they see that you upload like once a week or once every few weeks, they could be like, "Why would I follow that page?"
They will not see any benefits from following you.
But if you post two times a day with really great content around the niche of your store, people will think something like, "They post a lot of nice content. I want to follow them."
Also, some say the way the Instagram algorithm works is that it might not put every picture of every page that that person follows on their feed.
You could minimize this risk by posting more than one time a day, then you will have a pretty good chance of showing up at least one time at your follower's Instagram feed!
The Instagram algorithm tries to predict what photos and videos are the most important to you, and uses three main factors to determine this: interest, timeliness, and relationship.
Later
If you want to learn more about the Instagram algorithm, I suggest reading this article by Later.
How many posts should be product promotions or advertisements?
I suggest that around 80% of your posts are normal posts.
These are posts that don't sell any products and are not company-related.
So this means that roughly one out of every five posts could be a product promotion or advertisement post.
These numbers are different for everyone and every niche, so you have to try and see what works best for you!
My tips regarding product promotion posts:
- Let them blend in your product feed. More on that below, but what I mean is, for example, don't make every normal post about nature with a yellow background and then have a white background for your product post. Make them part of your Instagram feed!
- Make them shoppable! I suggest reading this article here to learn more about how to do that.
- You could make the product pictures yourself! This way, you have total control over how you want your product promotion posts to look like.
Making sure every post falls within your brand image
To explain this really simply, you need to make sure that every post fits together with the rest of your posts.
Your goal with your Instagram feed is to make it "a whole". Make every post, even your promotional posts, part of the same "feel".
Finally, to build a consistent visual brand, keep your images similar-looking in terms of color and composition.
Blogging Wizard
Definitely have a look at the site I linked to above. They have a great paragraph about building a clear visual brand on Instagram.
If you want to see some examples of other businesses using Instagram, then I suggest reading this post! They have some awesome examples of great Instagram feeds.
You will surely learn a lot by seeing how other businesses build their Instagram feed to perfection.
I suggest having at least 9 posts on your Instagram account before you start advertising via Instagram. This looks great because you will have the whole screen filled with images! Also, it could come across as not legit if you only have one post.
Bonus tip: You could create a dummy Instagram account and set it to private. Now you can post your new post first on your dummy account and see how it looks! See if the caption is good, if the picture (or video) is looking good, and if it looks good on your feed.
Should you use an Instagram scheduler?
Since around 2018, Instagram allows businesses to schedule their posts.
Before that, people needed to do it by getting push notifications on placing time!
Personally, I really like to schedule social media posts.
This way I save time, for example, if I want to post three times a day at different times, then I don't have to do that manually every single time. It will not only save time, but you will have a much higher chance of staying consistent!
Who knows what could happen on a day. Maybe your internet doesn't work for a full day.
It also comes in really handy when you want to take a day off social media or want to go on a holiday! You could just schedule all your posts for that day or your whole holiday.
I suggest reading this article here. It will give you some advantages and disadvantages of scheduling your Instagram posts!
Below you will find some examples of paid Instagram schedulers. If that's not in your budget yet then don't worry, I've got a free alternative below for you!
- Later
- Tailwind - I use this one for my Pinterest post scheduling. You will get the first month for free if you click on my link! It directs you to their homepage now though, but you can easily find their pricing table.
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
You could also try something like Jarvee if you want a tool that does more than just scheduling. Personally I didn't test this one, and I know not everyone wants to take that path, but I still thought it was worth mentioning!
Last but not least, make sure that the costs of an Instagram scheduler (or any other social media channel) will fit into your budget. Otherwise, just post the posts yourself until your budget is a bit bigger!
Or you can use the new tool from Facebook called the Facebook Creator Studio. With this tool, you can easily schedule your Facebook posts, but you can also use it to schedule your Instagram posts for free:
Plus, you can even schedule your posts on your mobile:
Growing your dropshipping Instagram account
Now that you've set up your dropshipping Instagram account and know how your Instagram feed is going to look like, it's time to start thinking about what strategy (or strategies) you're going to follow to get more followers.
Hashtags are one of the best
While writing this article, the maximum hashtags are still at 30.
Although, like on many things, there is a discussion about what the best ratio is.
Is it 1, 4, 11, or the maximum of 30 hashtags?
I suggest reading the article I linked to above and testing for yourself how many hashtags work best for you and your store.
Furthermore, I've got some great resources for you to learn more about how to use Hashtags to grow your Instagram account!
- Instagram Hashtag Guide by Hootsuite
- New rules for Instagram Hashtags by Later
- The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags in 2024 by Later
Also, I've got some great websites for you where you can get inspiration for new Instagram hashtags:
Of course, while we are talking about hashtags, I cannot forget the hashtags that you can use in your stories!
This is also a great way to get more followers. I suggest reading this article here to get a better understanding of how to use hashtags in your Instagram stories.
Bonus tip: You could also add invisible hashtags to your Instagram stories!
Growing by using shoutouts
This option is great if you have some money to spend and want to speed up your beginning phase.
What you need to do is find similar pages (not direct competitors) to yours and ask them for a shoutout.
The followers that you will get from these shoutouts will have a high interest in your posts because they come from pages with posts that are similar to yours!
If you want to know more about how to get shoutouts, I suggest reading this.
Although that article is talking about trading a shoutout for a shoutout (which is also awesome, if you do it right!), you can still learn some valuable information from that!
Growing by doing a giveaway
This is definitely a great option to grow your following, but it also needs a bit of money to be able to give something away for free.
I suggest reading this great article if you want to learn more about how to use Instagram giveaways.
They give a great example of a giveaway that they held themselves!
Basically, you have a product (preferably your product, but this could also be a product people like inside your niche), then you set an end date of your giveaway and post information in the form of an Instagram post on your feed!
Try adding to do the things they need to do in order to take part in the giveaway something like "Tag one friend".
This way you have a great chance of high engagement because that friend could also tag a friend, and that friend could tag a friend as well, and so on!
Growing by engaging with people inside your niche
Your goal is to engage with people inside your niche, or are in your target audience.
There are, of course, different options to do this.
Option 1. Follow people inside your niche
Think about people who are following a similar page as yours.
Of course, there are multiple options you can do to have the greatest chance of a
You could only follow that person, you could follow + like a picture from them, and you could follow + like + comment on a picture.
You can see the results of an experiment here:
I began by simply following 100 of my competitors’ followers. Later, I followed another 100 but I also took the time to like one of their photos. Finally, I followed
a third group of 100 and liked as well as commented on one photo from eachaccount..
Here were the results:Follow: 14% followback
Shopify with How to build a massive following on Instagram
Follow + Like: 22% followback
Follow + Like + Comment: 34% followback
You can clearly see that doing all three will give you the most chance of a
Of course, this will also take you the most time to do.
The only downside now is that you need to manually unfollow a lot of people (for example, people who didn't follow you back).
Or you can use a bot for that, but that's all up to you!
If you've posted a few times, you could have a standard set of a few hashtags that you might reuse every time.
The great thing now is to find Instagram pages that are posting posts with the same hashtags that you use.
Then once you find posts that are inside your niche and are using these hashtags (or only inside your niche), you can start engaging with these pictures or videos.
Start commenting on these posts saying stuff about that post or maybe their Instagram feed!
This is a great way to get more exposure because these people use the same hashtags!
Just make sure you put some time
Now you have a good chance that you made someone happy which could result in a follow!
What you also could do every day is to go to the top nine posts of a hashtag that is inside your niche, then place a comment, as I said above, on each of these posts.
This way you will get a lot of exposure as well.
Of course, you could do this to more than one hashtag that is inside your niche every day. It all comes down to how much time you want to put into this or how much time you have!
Option 3. Respond to people commenting on your post
This might not be commenting with new people inside your niche.
These could also be followers that you already have.
You need to make sure that you respond to the comments you get on your post after you've posted it.
Preferably within one hour. This makes your post have a good chance of hitting the explorer page.
Not only that but you will also build a great relationship with your followers! This could result in higher engagement for every post you post!
Growing by using Instagram engagement groups (Instagram PODS)
Of course, just like the automation of following people and liking pictures, there is also a way to get more engagement on your posts.
You need to decide if you want to do this or not! Just like if you want to use a bot or not.
So what is an Instagram pod?
An Instagram pod is a direct message between a group of about 15-20 people who are in a similar industry as your own.
Pods' rules vary, but essentially, whenever a user posts something new, they share that post in the direct message, and everyone in the group is required to like or comment.
This enables the post to rise to the top of the user's followers' feeds. It's mutually beneficial for everyone in the group, since it operates on a like-for-like or comment-for-comment basis.
Hubspot with Everything You Need To Know About Instagram Pods
I definitely recommend reading the article I linked above from
Do you want to know what their goal is with using an Instagram pod?
They want to get on the explorer page. This way, more people will see their content!
To have a great chance of getting there, you need to have popular content. So, what they do is they post a new post, and then they share it with their Instagram pod.
This way it will get a ton of likes and comments really soon after they posted their post. Now Instagram sees that that post is really popular and will hopefully put it on the explorer page now!
Don't grow by buying fake followers
A lot of people out there suggest you buy Instagram followers to make your store not look fake.
They suggest getting around 10.000 followers to look legit.
My suggestion is to do nothing regarding fake followers, fake likes, and so on.
Although buying followers or likes might seem like a quick fix to get more followers which then could lead to being more popular on Instagram, it could definitely haunt you in the long-term. Like how Instagram is fighting back now against fake followers.
If you want to spend money to grow faster, definitely look at the
Instagram account examples
If you're currently thinking that you want to create an Instagram account for your dropshipping store but still want to see some examples before you start creating it, then the next two articles will be perfect for you!
One of them contains Instagram account examples from other dropshipping stores, and the other one includes examples from bigger ecommerce stores.
You can check them out below:
Conclusion
So there you have it, now you know how to grow your dropshipping Instagram account from scratch.
Don't forget to push through the beginning phase, and you will set yourself up for success later on. Don't give up!
Let me know in the comments or by contacting me directly by pressing the "Contact Us" button at the top if something was unclear to you, or if you have any more questions! I'll be happy to help you.
Do you want to learn more? Here are my recommendations!
Are you currently dropshipping? Or do you want to start dropshipping?
Awesome! I’ll link to the articles below that I recommend you read next.
This way you will be fully prepared to take your dropshipping store to the next level in 2024!
I just want to say one thing: my blog doesn’t endorse any paid dropshipping courses. (I hate them, they are the reason I created this blog.)
If you’re interested in learning why I think paid dropshipping courses are a waste of money then you can click here.
Below you will find the articles that I suggest you read next:
- How to Find Instagram Influencers for Dropshipping? (5 Tips)
- Dropshipping Startup Checklist: 10 Things to Do Before Starting
- Influencer Marketing and Your Dropshipping Store in 2024!
- Shopify Dropshipping: A 20-Step Guide to Starting Your Store
Also, if you haven't created a Shopify account yet (to get your dropshipping store online) then you can click here to get a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months (don’t forget to extend it!).
4 Comments
We love your content. Regards from Pissouri Bay Divers from Cyprus!
Great to hear! Thank you!
Great article! But I don’t like the concept dropshipping linked to AliExpress, for me is like a scam. I do dropshipping with BigBuy, they do dropshipping with premium brands and a excellent prices
Hi David! Thank you for your comment 😊
Some people indeed don’t like dropshipping with AliExpress. If you’re looking for more AliExpress alternatives, then I suggest reading my other article here.
I wish you the best with your dropshipping store, and let me know if you ever have any questions!