The year is 2019 and Instagram influencing is a lucrative business. Influencers with upwards of 100k followers can make $1k a post, while accounts nearing a million can rake in $10k per post or video. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, how many likes does that equal?
People love double tapping pet photos on their timeline. If you already have thousands of photos of your cute pet clogging up your phone memory and are wondering how exactly you can get your pet to break the internet – or at least crack a timeline – we are here to help!
You’ll Need a Catchy Handle
To get started, think puns and alliterations – something simple but memorable. Keep the spelling easy and make it easily searchable. Be careful with the dashes and underscores, you’ll want to be able to quickly direct people to your pet’s IG page when they stop you on the street and ask if they can pet them. @dailydougie, @tunameltsmyheart, and @thekardoggians are all good examples.
Up Your Content Game
The two successful components to any influencer account are beautiful photos and clever copy. We get it, your dog is cute. Like really cute. But there are a lot of cute dogs out there. In order to get them to stand out, you’ll need great pictures and even better captions. We all knew that high-quality images are important, but we now know the new IG algorithm favors it. A beautiful Instagram page has a theme, no two photos are alike, and the variety of content keeps people interested. Don’t just post pictures from your couch – head to the park, make a dog-friendly brunch res or bring Fido on your next hiking trip. A balance of photos and videos is important, and stories will keep followers engaged daily.
Create a Brand
Pick a persona and stick with it. Is he a guy’s guy with a soft side for snuggles? Is she a drunk college girl constantly trying to get her shit together? A hipster with an affinity for pretentious coffee shops? You know your pup better than anyone so pick what persona fits and run with it. Focus on what’s unique about your pet because this is how you will differentiate your pet from the rest of the pet-fluencer world.
Drive Traffic
Great, so now we need to build that following. After you’ve finished inviting your mom, 34 of your closet friends, six coworkers, two old high school teachers, your personal trainer AND your bodega guy, you’ll need to figure out how to get those numbers up organically. Start by following other pet accounts – they’ll follow you back and fill your feed with inspiration for your own account. Reply to your comments, reply to your DMs and comment on similar account’s pictures to help your account be seen. Be strategic with your posting times; according to studies, 5-6PM is the best time to post on Instagram.
Don’t be afraid to go a little crazy with the #hashtags while you are trying to build a following. Hashtags are essential for driving traffic to your page, but please don’t copy and paste the same ones over and over again or you’ll look like a bot. Adding in another user’s handle or tagging a location also helps to get engagement up.
Follow Trends
Stay up to date with what the kids are doing. No, we’re not telling you to feed your dog Tide Pods, but if there is a viral video meme or challenge circling the internet, lean into it! Follow pop culture trends and use whatever is going on in the media as the foundation for your content. Take notes from previous posts that have gotten the most positive feedback and mimic that moving forward.
Consistency is Key
Keep up with those posts if you want to make it. There is no faster way to sabotage your engagement than posting five pictures in a single weekend and then nothing for two months. Establish a regular posting schedule with new content to keep your followers engaged (take a hint from the Kardashians and bank photos for future use). Accounts building their following will need to post more often than established pages, as frequent posts allow more people to see them. If needed, you can even plan your posts ahead of time. There are a handful of free tools to get you started, like Later. Posting stories regularly will allow your followers to stay up to date with your account. Sharing daily feeding time or regular trips to Starbucks helps fans become invested and gives them something to look forward to.
Have Fun With It
While this should go without saying, don’t forget to make sure your pet is having fun! If your pooch wont sit still while you try to balance your Ray Bans on their snout, even after four hours of coaching and extreme treat bribery, maybe show business just isn’t for them. We all have our strengths, and if your pup would rather chase squirrels than pose for photos, then so be it.
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