2020 Instagram Masterclass: The ROAD TO 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS

Celebrate completing module one by earning your first trophy, then learn to populate and optimize your Instagram account for marketing to customers in module two.

Choose a simple, easily recognizable Instagram handle and keep your name short. Explore edit profile options and variations—punctuation, niche, location, or domain—to improve memorability and discoverability.

Select a square, high‑quality display picture that is easily recognizable and brand‑representative on Instagram. Use a logo or face, meet the 110×110 minimum (ideally 500×500), and note Instagram's circle crop.

Explore how to design a standout Instagram profile picture by ensuring a clear, centered headshot that fits the circular crop and remains recognizable across the profile and comments.

Optimize your Instagram bio to entice followers by outlining value, using emojis judiciously, and including a strong call to action.

Learn to craft effective CTAs that prompt immediate actions from your Instagram audience, such as following, liking, visiting your website, or signing up.

Advance to module 3 with an optimized Instagram profile and the knowledge from module 2, and learn when to post what content to share to boost reach.

Develop a consistent content marketing plan for Instagram by defining your theme, voice, and angle, being human, and using behind the scenes and user-generated content to grow your audience.

Experiment with posting frequency from one to two times per week to three times per day, and target peak times like 5–6 p.m. and 2 a.m. to maximize engagement.

Explore instagram insights in a business account to analyze audience location and age 25–34. Identify posting times, like 3–6 p.m. on Wednesday, using content and audience tabs to boost reach.

Post different media to Instagram by selecting photos or carousels, editing the image, adding captions, hashtags, and tags, and including location and alt text for accessibility and SEO.

Learn how to use hashtags for exposure on Instagram, tag content correctly, build social proof with likes and comments, and boost reach through calls to action, cross-promotion, and engagement groups.

Learn how hashtags drive discovery on Instagram by mixing high and low volume tags, using niche hashtags, and leveraging top and recent feeds, including location tags to boost engagement.

Identify your target audience and build a precise avatar with age, gender, location, and interests to tailor Instagram content, while analyzing competitors and followers for aligned content.

Discover how to boost your Instagram reach with a strategic hashtag workflow: build a large, diverse list of hashtags and rotate 20–30 per post to engage your target audience.

Identify and verify your target audience by examining followers of a leading photography account. Explore similar profiles and test portrait photography hashtags to reach fellow photographers.

Earn your third trophy as you enter module 4, a content master ready to post on Instagram to boost reach.

Explore long term and short term growth methods to optimize your Instagram account, using sprint tactics like liking, commenting, following, and hashtags for immediate results, and offsite strategies for growth.

Explore long-term offsite growth methods to promote your Instagram beyond the platform, leveraging your website and blog, guest posts, YouTube, and other social channels to funnel audiences and grow reach.

Discover how to find effective hashtags using Instagram search suggestions and the focal mark app, including category and location filters, generating and shuffling tailored photography hashtags for posts.

Promote your Instagram account by engaging genuinely with other users through likes, comments, and follows, using hashtags to discover accounts and attract new followers.

Demonstrate live promotion by liking, commenting, engaging, and following for a coffee niche, showing how three minutes a day drives authentic growth and results.

Explain a basic marketing funnel used to grow an Instagram account, moving from awareness to interest, to the decision and finally action, culminating in followers through engagement and profile visits.

Run split testing to compare two engagement strategies—hashtags versus location tags—by liking, commenting, and following for 30 minutes daily and measuring follower returns to maximize results.

Leverage your Instagram following to gain more followers through contests and referral tagging, using unique hashtags and timely winner announcements to create a snowball effect.

Learn three core marketing mindsets that prioritize value, avoid hard selling, and use email plus lead magnets to convert followers with seven touches into lifetime customers.

The master funnel upgrade adds two call to actions after a follower, guiding them to your website and into an email subscriber list you own for repeat selling.

Use a lead magnet to entice followers to click the link in your Instagram bio, then guide them through a simple funnel from visit to email signup to future purchases.

Celebrate mastering marketing fundamentals, learn how funnels work to boost growth, and apply tools to grow your instagram account, with a bonus trick in the next module.

Discover instant social proof for a new Instagram account by using a like for like system to exchange real likes, build initial engagement, and accelerate early posts.

Enter module seven and master Instagram stories to maximize growth and reach, and explore tools, tips, and hacks for what stories are and how they work.

Explore how Instagram stories work, from 24-hour posts and live saves to swiping, linking via swipe up, and engaging through polls and messages.

Create your first Instagram story using camera features, boomerang, music, text, brushes, and stickers, manage privacy, save to archive, and review posts on your profile.

Maximize Instagram story reach by uploading high-quality photos from your camera roll, adding location tags, hashtags, polls, questions, mentions, and stickers, and saving as highlights.

Craft a compelling Instagram story as part of the road to one million followers, emphasizing clear messaging and audience engagement.

Collect your trophy and welcome module 8 by embracing Instagram stories as a powerful engagement tool, then use Instagram ads to grow your account and drive sales.

Define a clear goal for your Instagram ads—followers, leads, or sales—and then prepare content, set a budget, and define your demographic and avatar to maximize impact on Instagram and Facebook.

Create a traffic campaign in the Facebook ads manager for Instagram, target Cape Town with coffee interests, run a buy one get one free ad, and optimize for link clicks.