April 2024

(Bill here: Teresa wrote up for an event the Instagram tips for writers and authors. She offered it to members of a writers’ organization, and the response was so positive we decided to post it so anyone can learn our way to do it. We hope you find it useful.)

I’m self-taught on Instagram but here’s what I’ve learned.

Your account name needs to be your author name. If someone’s using your name, add author or writer, before or after. Don’t use something cute or a book title. You are a business. Make it easy for people to find you. You should use the same name for ALL your social media. Thus, we use Peschel Press for everything.
It’s easy to find us on Instagram and everywhere else.

Post regularly. Once a day, twice a week, or once a week but not less than that. People forget who you are and stop following you. If you use brand colors, use them in your posts.

Make your posts in advance. I use Canva and make a bunch at a time. There’s nothing spontaneous about our Instagram account. We do Instagram on our desktops, using Meta to schedule them. I don’t use a smartphone. Be aware that the desktop Instagram is crippled compared to the smartphone version.

Use your posts to showcase what you do or what you’re about. Give people a reason to follow you. In our case, it’s books (ours and book-love for other writers), author quotes, our events, our adventures, holidays, and added kitty and gardening pix. We advertise our books but only one book per week. That’s all. People hate “buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my book!” so don’t do that. I also don’t repost other people’s memes.

Our Posting Schedule

Our Instagram schedule is:

Sunday: our book advert and an adventure.
Monday through Friday: daily author quote.
Saturday: Book love for someone else.

I add in kitty, gardening, and holiday pix, upcoming events, podcasts and interviews (when we’ve got one) and anything else.

If we’re short of time or I don’t have something, I don’t worry about running an extra post.

We also make four regular posts timed to the day of the month. These are repeated every month. The 10th: Newsletter advert. The 20th: Mid-Atlantic Book festivals. The 30th: Mid-Atlantic Bookshops. End of the month: a list of next month’s events.

If you do events, you need three kinds of posts: one at the end of the month listing next month’s events with dates and locations. One post dedicated to each upcoming event, posted a few days before the event to advertise your presence. Post more often if you like but once is critical. An after-event post if you were able to take some pix, especially if you can showcase other artists or writers who were also there. Help your fans find you at public events!

Why Let People Know Where You’ll Appear?

For God’s sake, do not skip posting about upcoming events! Even if you don’t post very much on any other subject, make sure people know where you will be.

The other reason you must post about events is more venues are examining how you handle publicity when they select applicants. If a book festival has limited slots, why should they choose the applicant who won’t advertise them over the person who does? Your inability or refusal to advertise your events might harm you.

Use Your #Hashtags

Hashtag! Good hashtags are critical. Instagram is very searchable and hashtags help people find you. You’ve got 30 hashtag slots. Try to use most of them. Always include your name (#peschelpress), the name of the event, or details about what you’re posting about or doing. For example, for our author quotes, I use the author’s name, name plus quote, name plus quotes, writer quotes, author quotes, and so on. “#quote” and “#quotes” are different! Kitty pix get “#Luluthecat”, “#tortoiseshellcat”, “#tortoiseshellsofinstagram”, and so forth. Generic hashtags disappear into the great tsunami of Instagram. More specific hashtags don’t have as much of a reach but they’ve also got less competition.

If you follow us on Instagram (look for peschel_press and thank you!), look at my hashtags and you’ll see what I mean. Then look at other people’s posts for comparison and good ideas. Make a file listing all your typical hashtags so you can cut and paste. Keep an eye on your spelling; #quuote and #quote are not the same hashtag.

I’m not sure how to “tag” but I do use mentions. This is the @ symbol with someone’s Insta-handle. When I post an after-event report or an adventure or book-love, I always add the pertinent mentions so that venue or author knows I posted about them. As with #, you get thirty slots for @.

Instagram won’t post more than 30 hashtags, 30 mentions, and a grand total of 2,200 characters. I use [CONTROL] F to keep track of #s and @s. If I think I might run over 2,200 characters total, I write my post in Word, count the characters, and then cut and paste to Instagram. Don’t expect Instagram to tell you you’ve run over their limits. You find out when your carefully crafted comment plus hashtags and mentions doesn’t appear.

If you forgot to write a caption, hashtag, or mention, you can do it after the post has appeared by commenting. Write what you have to say (keep it short!), hashtag, press enter, and voila, your post has the hashtags you forgot to post or IG refused because you had too many characters.

Doubling Your Footprint

Because we use Meta, Facebook’s inhouse program that combines Instagram and Facebook, we’re able to make our Instagram posts do double-duty by also appearing on Facebook. The audiences are different. We use an after-market plug-in to make our Instagram posts appear on the right side of our websites. If someone only sees our website, they still see our Instagram posts.

Put your Instagram handle and links (along with Facebook and the rest of it) at the top of your website so people can find you. Similarly, make sure all your social media accounts are listed on your swag, bookmarks, business cards, and whatever else you hand out.

If someone goes to the trouble of commenting or asking a question, respond! It’s not hard to respond to a legitimate comment. A [heart] is quick and easy. That says you saw that person and acknowledged they exist. If someone asks a question, answer it! If someone harasses you, block them. Similarly, if someone direct messages you, respond as appropriate. Don’t ignore them, particularly if it’s someone you know. What you just said was “I don’t care about you.” That may not be the message you mean but that’s the message you send.

Stay Out of Jail

Instagram Jail is real. If you follow too many people at once, you’ll be cut off for a day or two. Too many likes, hearts, comments in too short a period of time, or comments Instagram doesn’t like and you’re in jail. They claim they’re trying to keep out trolls and spammers. It passes.

I’ve been in jail a few times. Based on my limited experience, most prolific commenters and engaged users do. Jail doesn’t last long; a few hours (you may not notice) to a few days which you will notice.

Jail varies; sometimes you can’t post, comment, or [heart] but you can still scroll. Other times, if Instagram deems your offense more serious, you can’t scroll at all. You see nothing.

Your only recourse is to wait it out. Interestingly, despite spending 36 hours in jail, my regularly scheduled posts still appeared. Other people didn’t know I was in jail.

You can’t follow more than 7,500 people. If you do, that’s another jailing offense and you must purge your follows to below 7,500 before you’re allowed posting privileges again. If you must purge how many people you follow, you have to do it one account at a time. Start with accounts that haven’t posted in a year. There is no easy way to purge.

You are allowed unlimited followers so don’t worry if those numbers stack up. Don’t buy followers. I don’t recommend follow trains either, as many of the people who do them aren’t interested in you. They’re only interested in high numbers. Good posts and good hashtags will get you followers who want to know what you do. Expect it to take a very long time to break 1,000 followers unless you suddenly become famous.

Follow us on Instagram and see how we do it!