How To Interact With Your Followers
At the end of the day, your followers are the end all be all of your account. Without followers, you would essentially be talking to yourself and what fun is that? Therefore, it is extremely important to keep your followers interested and better yet, involved. There are many different ways to successfully interact with your followers but here are some of my favorite ways...
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Polls: One of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to interact with your followers is by creating polls on your Instagram stories to essentially ask your followers what they prefer. And by “what they prefer” I mean, burgers or hot dogs, chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream, burritos or tacos, fruits or vegetables and the list goes on. When I create my polls, I place the poll over a picture that includes the foods that I am asking about. For example, a poll asking followers to vote between cookies and cake, will feature either both a cookie and a cake in one image, just an image of a cookie or just an image of a cake, all depending on what I have pictures accessible of at the given moment. Not only does this allow me to interact with my followers, but it allows me to see their specific food preferences which ultimately guides me towards what content to feature on my account in the future!
hot dogs and cheeseburgers from an at home barbecue in Scarsdale, New York
Brackets: Think the NCAA March Madness bracket, but for food. And yes, to answer your question, these brackets are THAT fun. While brackets are definitely more challenging and time consuming to create than polls, it is well worth it when you finally create the perfect bracket and basically get to play a game with your followers that lasts for a of couple days. Creating brackets is a great way to be creative and excite both yourself and your followers. When creating my brackets, I begin by picking a category. This category can be as simple as chips, ice cream flavors or fast food restaurants and it can be as unique as condiments, thanksgiving entrees or pasta shapes. Next, I strategically fill my brackets with different food items based on the category. I say strategically because you want your bracket to remain tricky and interesting the entire way through, meaning you never want the match-ups to be too easy where it’s not exciting for your participants. Finally, I insert the categories and food items into a bracket template, post it on my Instagram story and follow up with more Instagram stories including pictures of the foods that are “feuding” in the bracket as well as a poll so my followers can vote on which they like better. Each round lasts one day and then I gather the results and start the next round, where I update the bracket, post the updated bracket on my Instagram story, and post new pictures and polls depending on which foods are “feuding” next. When the bracket is complete, I announce the winner and wait a few days before introducing the next one in order to keep my followers on their toes. If you can’t already tell, this is my favorite interactive activity that I do on my account!
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round one of pasta dishes bracket
This or that: This or that is a game that I like to play in which, similar to my polls, I ask my followers to pick one food over the other but this time I post two separate contrasting pictures on my Instagram feed. For instance, I will post a picture of a pepperoni pizza in a slide with a picture of a plain pizza and I will write in the caption “This or That?” My followers will then utilize the comments section of the post to write which one they prefer. This is not only fun for my followers but for me as well as I am able to see what my followers will pick in some very close match-ups.
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