7 steps to a successful Meme Page on Instagram from scratch
#5 Build on User Genrated Content
Ever wonder why that new Netflix series is being trolled so much all over Instagram in memes? It’s not just by accident because there are no accidents. Meme marketing is game! The majority of the world population is considerably young. In countries like India alone almost 42% of the population is below the age of 35. And these people love to socialize on social media — mainly Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. And what do they do on social media? scroll through hundreds of memes every day and share it with their friends. Memes are so important now that it has become a source to get news and latest happenings all over the world. Memes are no more limited to fun; they have evolved into ways of communicating feelings. What kind of memes you share shapes your image these days. So, memes are game! and brands are using meme power to get in front of their customers. In this article, I guide you through the process of creating a successful Instagram meme page in 7 steps.
1. Find Your Niche:
There are so many meme pages on Instagram that creating a generic meme page and getting large people to follow it is extremely hard now. Gone are the days when you could just start an Instagram page and put random content.
Find a niche topic, let’s say “dogs” or “cats”. Where people will be able to find all the funny content about dogs/cats. This will not only attract all the pet lovers out there but also give them a purpose to follow you and separate you from thousands of other meme pages.
I started my meme page about regional language, a page where one could find all the fun content in my native slang. This helped me cut the clutter of other pages and focus on people who truly love slang. It is a super niche category and it helped me grow fast.
2. Be Relatable:
Once you define your niche, make sure the content is relatable. Make sure you stick to this. Don’t start sharing random content. It will dilute your brand and make people lose interest in you. Your followers followed you in the first place because of your niche and they have every right to expect similar content so don’t disappoint them.
Initially, after putting out a variety of content in the slang language, I figured out the topics that get the most engagement, and then I built content on those topics. But how do you know if the content is relatable to the audience? It is very simple; you get signs. You will see a spike in engagements. The number of shares will be high, and you would get a lot of DMs and reactions to the content. That is the sign that you are on right track. Even with just a few tens of followers, I was getting hundreds of shares. and then the posts started going viral and I was getting hundreds of daily new followers.
Pro tip: Create new hashtags for your niche content. It will help people find out your content under one tag and create your own brand in the long run.
3. Acknowledge Followers
Your audience probably follows hundreds of meme pages and they have this perception that meme pages don’t reply. Break that perception! Talk to people. Reply to their comments and DMs. They will be blown and love you for that. This will give a personality to your page and once people like your personality they will follow your page for you, not your content! Because there are some days when your content is shit. But when you have the goodwill of your followers, it’s all okay I guess…
4. Engage The Followers
Once you start acknowledging followers, they will start interacting with you more often. Build on that. Use stories to ask them interesting questions, do polls, ask their opinions about social issues, do a Q&A. This will make people glued to your page. Whenever they see your page up in the story section they will be interested to go and check it.
After a few weeks of observation, you can find out how much reach your stories get. Keep experimenting to find out what type of stories do best. You can then use the best performing stories to get the highest reach and engagement.
5. Build on User Generated Content:
It is hard to create quality content all by yourself / your team. So how would it feel to have your followers give you content? It is amazing. In return you just give them credit by including in post caption, tagging in photo/video, and mentioning in stories.
When you share content that people have created, they will become your promoters and become loyal fans. This one thing if done right, will give unlimited content for your page.
For my page, I asked people to share their ideas and I was blown by the response. People not only shared funny and quality content that is relatable, but they went out of their way and created tailor-made posts for me. People do love it when they are appreciated.
However, you need to moderate the content they give, make some changes if necessary, and then post. This is important to maintain the quality of content.
6. Maintain Quality
When you follow these steps consistently, it is only a matter of time before you see the page grow. But with a great following comes great responsibility. Do not dilute your page quality by posting below average posts. If you feel that a particular post won’t do good, don’t post it. You can take some breaks, remove the creativity block, and then create content again. Because high-quality content is important.
Having said that, a few exceptions are okay. We are humans and it is hard to work like machines. But the bottom line is always trying to put the best content, don’t just put it for the sake of sticking to your schedule.
Another thing about quality is the followers. Some people are there just to spread hatred and negativity. If you spot them in comments / DMs don’t fight them. Simply block them. This will ensure they are not creating a nuisance.
7. Create Perpetual Growth Cycle
When you are getting high engagements and reach, people who are interested in your niche will eventually reach out to you to do a collaboration / promote their business. You can then monetize by doing collaborations. But make sure the content you put in front of your audience is not boring or forced advertising. This will annoy them and even hurt them. But if you advertise smartly your followers will still appreciate it.
Once you start getting money from collabs, put that money in ads to boost your best performing posts. This will help new people see your content and increase your followers which will in turn bring more reach and hence more collaborations. Use this perpetual growth cycle until you reach your desired number of followers and then keep doing what you do great, entertain people & get paid to do so!
Summary:
Creating a generic meme page and growing it from scratch is a tough job given the high competition. However, you can grow a niche topic meme page in 7 simple steps. They are:
1. Finding your niche
2. Creating relatable content
3. Acknowledge followers
4. Engage the followers
5. Make use of User Generated Content
6. Maintain the quality of content and page
7. Create perpetual growth cycle
These are the steps I followed, and I have been successful in creating a super niche meme page that is not only highly engaging but also gives me a way to earn money(something is better than nothing) by doing what I love.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you want any help you can reach out to me at tejas.adgaonkar@gmail.com.
“Happy Meming”!
Cheers,
Tejas
