27 Feb Tips to Help Grow an Insta-Pet Following

Everyone loves the occasional pet pictures that pop up as you scroll through your Facebook Feed. But some people choose to turn those perfectly poised pics into a career. Enter: the Insta-Pet!

Since the dawn of Grump Cat, we’ve seen an insurgence of pet profiles online jumping up to internet stardom. Cute animals pictures will forever be a wholesome oasis in the sea of the ever-darkening internet. If you think you have what it take- a cute pet, a great camera, and seemingly endless free time- then this guide is for you!

Use the Platform to Your Advantage

Instagram is a great tool for connecting with people, so using it as a full-time outreach tool is a BREEZE. Take advantage of the power of the #hashtags. While flooding your pictures with buzzwords may seem overboard, it’s a great way to get your pet featured on as many screens as possible. It’s not a bad strategy when you’re starting out, but try testing out some in various combinations to see which ones are really boosting your exposure.

Pro-tip: Tag your pictures outside of dog-related hashtags as well. #cute!

You can also use the platform to reach out to other pet-friendly accounts for joint posts and shout-outs. For example, Top Dog will repost your pictures from our Barkery that you submit to us! Some of the pictures we are sent get posted to our social media accounts for our followers to enjoy. We get to please our followers, and you get seen by a new audience!

You may also be able to arrange play-dates with other Insta-Pets to create some adorable content for both accounts. The accounts can tag each other in posts, exposing the other to an entirely new audience. Think about it: you can watch cute puppies play AND increase your social following!

Post Consistently

This is possibly one of the most important tips you can utilize when working towards Insta-stardom. People are flooded with an incredible amount of pictures, posts, comments, articles, blah, blah, blah, all throughout their day. They go from political satire to puppy videos and back in an instant. If you want to stay relevant to your audience, you have to be in front of them on a regular basis.

Don’t overthink it though- if you try and push yourself for a post-a-day or more schedule, you could burn out on the project altogether. A good solution for the consistency dilemma would be to stock up on pictures and be ahead on your preset posting schedule. Want to post a picture a day in February? Try getting at least 2 weeks worth of pictures taken in January so they’re ready to go out worry free. Then you can worry about the next 2 weeks worth of content in the meantime! Set your self up for success.

Remember Who the Star Is

There’s a reason you think your pet is cute enough to be a star- capitalize on it! Do they have a quirky ability or distinct physical feature? Don’t overlook that when you’re trying to stand out among a crowd. Those little distinctions can lead to different creative ideas that differentiate your pet from the others.

Keep in mind as well that your pet’s level of comfortability should come first when embarking on this journey. They are the ones who will be directed, moved, dressed, and ordered around while you run their social media. It can be a fun and rewarding process if you and your pet work together well and are able to reciprocate focused attention on one another.

Happy Posting!

Tag or send us cute pet pics from your TOP DOG Barkery visits for a chance to be featured on our social media pages! We have a loving community of pet enthusiasts behind us who would love to see more handsome pets in their feed. Contact us here or find us on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

Excerpted from: https://www.rover.com/blog/make-dog-insta-famous-use-platform-good-dogs/