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When it comes to my favourite social media platform, I have to say that currently I am in love with Instagram. In recent years this is a platform that has really took off, for both business and pleasure reasons. Instagram provides a visual, online diary of photographs and images that can be used to both promote a business and blog, or purely for personal reasons of sharing family photographs. From a business point of view, Instagram has become another source of promotion that can now be handled by companies like Vibbi, helping you to build up your profile and following, helping with correct hashtags and increasing your views. For personal accounts, Instagram has become another way of sharing proud moments, first teeth, first smile, wedding days, birthdays and all those other memories. Clearly Instagram is big business.

I was quite late to the Instagram party, having a bit of an aversion to smart phones, which I seem to break on a fairly regular basis. However, since joining I have become pretty addicted to the format and now post daily. My current following is just over 1100, which is growing on a regular basis and now has lots of interaction. I find that my most popular posts are those related to fashion – specifically the #WIWT #OOTD posts, where I share outfits, shopping and charity and vintage fashion finds.

I have recently seen a good increase in both the amount of likes and interaction on my instagram feed. This is partly due to looking at when it is best to post – for me this is early morning or evening, and also looking carefully at the hashtags I use. I have researched hashtags relating to fashion, and specifically charity shop fashion and vintage fashion, and have noticed likes by like minded people and similar accounts. I still post photographs of a personal nature – for me, I like instagram to be as much about my life as it is about my blog, but ultimately, it is the fashion that seems to appeal to my followers.

Another find I do is tag in stores and independent fashion companies who’s clothes I am wearing, whether or not these are for review purposes or just from my own wardrobe. It has been nice when items have been ‘regrammed’ by companies like Lavitta, Oasis and Scarlett and Jo, and also draws people to take a closer look on the blog, which can only be a good thing in terms of growing a blog audience.

What are your thoughts on Instagram?