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A Guide to Creating a Successful Fan Account on Instagram

Ready to start your own fan account on Instagram? Here is a short, 8-step guide that will help you manage your account properly, and make it grow quickly.

By Anna CheneyPublished 5 years ago 8 min read
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Instagram is one of the largest social media platforms today, with an active user base of approximately 800 million. Fanpages comprise a large portion of those users. As a person who has owned multiple fan accounts on Instagram before, I have been through the process of creating a new account and making it grow over and over and over. Every step of setting up a new fan account is imprinted in my head at this point, so why not put that knowledge to good use and help you ease into the online fandom community?

Guide to Creating a Successful Fan Account on Instagram:

Step 1

Make sure you know what/who your fan account is going to be about, and what kind of content you want to post on there. If you plan on using a filter in your posts or following a certain theme, I would gather at least a few photos, videos, edits, etc. that you want to post and figure out what filter/theme you are going to use before you make your account.

Now, evidently, the first thing you want to do is download Instagram from the App Store, Play Store, or wherever you go to download applications.

It brings you to a sign-in/sign-up page as soon as you open the app. If you are creating a brand new account, you will want to click "Sign Up."

Choose what you would prefer to sign up with (Facebook, phone number, or email). I would suggest signing up with your phone number and email address, just for extra security. Better safe than sorry.

Click "Sign Up With Phone or Email" and answer every question.

Step 2

Once you arrive to your homepage, go to your profile and fill out the information fields. Make the text in the "Name" column a reference to what your fan account is about.

In your biography, try to be as clear as you can be on what/who you are supporting. You do not have to design a neat-looking biography immediately; write something that relates to your fandom for the time being. You can always change it later.

You can skip this part if you want, but I want to make a suggestion based on my personal preference: I would switch the fan account to a business profile. I have done this with most of my fan accounts because I like keeping track of my follower activity. If you want to keep an eye on your account statistics, then I would highly recommend switching to a business profile.

Next, you will want to set a profile picture. I would suggest making the picture related to your fandom in some way so that other fan accounts can discover you easily.

Step 3

After setting up your profile picture, you should be ready to make your first post on the fan account. When it comes to my very first post, I like to add a friendly introduction and briefly explain the purpose of my page.

Now, before you post it, skip two spaces down from your typed caption. There you will write hashtags. Using hashtags is extremely important if you want other fan accounts to discover you. All hashtags should be related to your fandom. For example, if I were starting an American Horror Story fan account, I would write hashtags that relate to the show, i.e. "#AmericanHorrorStory #AHS #AmericanHorrorStoryFX #AHSFX" and so on.

When I finish writing hashtags, what I usually do is select all of the hashtags I wrote, copy them, and then delete them out of my caption. After you upload your first post, you can paste the hashtags you had copied into the "Comments" section. I find this much easier than keeping the hashtags in my captions because it looks more organized and not as crowded. If you would rather keep them in your caption, however, that is completely fine.

Step 4

Congratulations! You have made your first post.

Now, here is where things get a little trickier...

You are going to reach out to fellow fan accounts and follow them. What I do is click on one of the hashtags I put in my post––I'll use the American Horror Story example again, and click on #AHSFX. Whichever hashtag you clicked on should lead you to a place to browse all posts with that same tag.

You are automatically brought to the "Top" section. Click on the "Recent" section. The posts you see now are the most recent posts with that tag; you are only going to focus on these right now. Click on one of the posts. If it was posted by a fellow fan account, then you will want to like the post so they will see your interaction in their notifications, and maybe be prompted to follow you.

In my experience with owning a fan account, when I liked a recent post under a certain hashtag, whoever's post I liked would usually follow me. If another fan account does that to you, follow them back. If it is a personal, non-fandom account, do not follow them back. Try to only focus on following other members of your fandom right now.

Continue going through the recent posts and liking anything that relates to your fandom. Again, comment as you go along if you can. Other fan accounts will see your comment, which will increase your chances of getting discovered.

[NOTE: Do not be one of those fan accounts who comments "follow for follow" or "like for like" on other peoples' posts. Self-promotions are very irritating, and doing them will give you a reputation of being desperate for followers/likes. You do not want that, I promise you.]

Step 5

Once you have liked a handful of posts, I would click the heart symbol at the bottom menu and refresh in the "You" tab. Remember: If any fellow fan accounts start following you, follow back. Do not follow back if it is a personal account. Also, if a fan account likes your post without following you, like one of their posts in return if you have not already.

If you have any new activity from another fan account, stay in the "You" tab. If not, go back to the hashtag page and then the "Recents" tab again.

If you are the former, click on their profile, follow them, and then stay on their account. Click the "Following" tab on their profile and scroll through the list of accounts they follow.

What you want to understand here is that the bigger a fan account is, the less likely they are to follow back. So, if you come across a fan account and see how small the ratio of people they follow is to the people who follow them, do not follow them first. But if they follow you first, then definitely follow them back.

[NOTE: The most followers I have ever had on an Instagram fan account was over eight-thousand and, as terrible as this may sound, I rarely followed smaller accounts back. I would follow if I liked the content they were posting, but other than that, hardly ever.]

Continue scrolling through their "Following" list and clicking on profiles. If you stumble upon fan accounts that have a smaller following and seem to follow most people back, follow them first.

When you finish going through the list, click on a random fan account from there and delve into their followings as well. I suggest proceeding with this pattern for a little while (be sure to check your notifications frequently).

Step 6

I have a rule in which I only follow 50 people maximum on my first day, just so I do not go overboard with who I follow. You will want to pay attention to the pages you are currently following, and reassure them that they are a fan account.

If you hit the fifty mark, I would recommend waiting to follow anyone else until the next day.

If you want to, you can browse through the recent posts under your fandom's hashtags again and leave more likes and comments.

Step 7

Before you exit Instagram for the day, I would highly recommend making a second post. Talking from experience, I know some people are hesitant to follow back when you only have one post because they think you have given up already.

Repeat Steps 3 and 4.

Step 8

After you have uploaded your second post, check the "You" tab one more time, and then close out of the app if you wish.

You have completed your first day of owning an Instagram fan account!

Things to Remember:

  • Do not forget to post! Try to post consistently at least once a day (I would suggest more).
  • Only post content that is related to your fandom. Posting anything unrelated is the best way to lose followers.
  • Be an active follower; like and comment on the posts in your feed. Do not be a ghost follower!
  • Do not self-promote. You are better than that.
  • Check statistics regularly if you switched to a business profile (profile visits, reaches, impressions, etc.).
  • USE HASHTAGS IN EVERY POST!

I hope this "instruction manual" comes in handy as your fan account grows. I know it can be intimidating at first, but once you get the basics over-with, you will be just fine. It is not as scary as you may think.

Good luck!

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About the Creator

Anna Cheney

Putting my thoughts & feelings into words.

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