Joy Cho discusses her tricks for Instagram success and bringing happiness to your followers every day.
In 2005, Joy Cho started a design blog called Oh Joy to bring moments of happiness and delight into her readers’ lives. But what began as personal hobby has grown into a design company and lifestyle brand.
Today, the company creates videos about design, food, fashion and style and licensed products that include bedding, gadgets, kitchenware, furniture, baby clothes and accessories for pets. Cho and her team of seven have worked with brands such as Target, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson to release the company’s bright and whimsical collections.
The company’s first Instagram account, Oh Joy, has 386,000 followers, and its second account, @ohjoyco, which was created in 2016 to give the company’s fans updates about its product lines, has more than 50,000 followers.
Cho is also the author of three books, the first dedicated to helping other creators and freelancers get their online businesses off the ground, and her most recent, Oh Joy!: 60 Ways to Create & Give Joy all about helping her followers incorporate a little happiness into their everyday surroundings.
We caught up with Cho to get her insights on how to create a voice that is truly yours.
Related: This Jewelry Maker Who Sells Made-to-Order Pieces Developed Her Brand Through Posting to Instagram
How did you get your start with Instagram?
By the time Instagram had started, I was probably on a year later. I didn’t join right away. I had started a blog in 2005. So by the time Instagram had come along I had already established a presence within the blog world and then Twitter. And then Instagram was the next big thing to come along. So for me it was a companion to the content that I was already creating and the stories that I was telling at that time.
What other platforms do you use and what percentage of the time do you spend on them vs. Instagram?
We use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and our blog. So Instagram by far is our number one social media channel. I think that in terms of general growth, in terms of feedback, in terms of interactivity that’s the one social channel that I’m on multiple times a day for our business.
How much of your time do you devote to it?
Quick spurts of time spread throughout the day. If I want to average it I would say myself personally, probably an hour and change, maybe one to two hours depending on the day. And then for Oh Joy, we have someone who works on our social media. So that’s much more hours of her day. It’s for Oh Joy combined from my team, there’s definitely a good handful of hours per day that’s spent working on it. Whether we’re actively using it or we’re planning for it — a lot of it is planning and prepping for upcoming posts and stories.
Also, making sure that we’re interacting with fans and followers and commenting and responding to questions. That’s the one thing about Instagram — it’s become kind of like everything to everybody. We also get a lot of messages and inquiries about things that we’ve posted or shared especially now with stories too because there’s that interactivity and that back and forth.
How do you promote your account? What’s your number one way to get the word out there and attract new followers?
It’s very grassroots. There’s a few ways that we try to go about it. Part of it is the snowball effect. When you start, it’s the hardest and as you grow it becomes easier. I think it’s something you always have to work to do, even if our following is decent right now, I’m always trying to make sure that we can keep growing because that’s how we can reach more people. So to me, it’s a combination of following other accounts and commenting on their accounts. It’s reminding people about our Instagram through other social platforms who may not be following along. And that also when we do our blog post sometimes, if we’re talking about Instagram we’re always linking back. So it’s a lot of cross promotion.
This was not the case for…
