How to start an Instagram from scratch: a step-by-step guide for beginners
Learn how to start an Instagram from scratch in seven steps, from niche to bio, understand the algorithm and follow a 7-day plan to publish your first posts.
What will we see in this post
To start an Instagram from scratch, you need to follow seven steps: define your profile’s niche, choose a username that is easy to remember, create a professional account, write a bio that explains what you do, use a clear profile photo, publish your first posts and organize your highlights. None of these steps requires an investment, since both Instagram and the professional account are free.
If you are planning to sell an online course, an ebook or a mentorship program, Instagram can be the showcase for your knowledge. Meta’s social network is one of the most used in the world and offers features that help you build authority, such as Reels, Stories and carousels, plus performance data to help you understand your audience.
In this Instagram for beginners guide, you will see how to set up a professional Instagram step by step, how the algorithm works, what to post in your first weeks, how often to post and which mistakes to avoid. Ready to get started?
Step by step: how to start a professional Instagram from scratch
Starting a professional Instagram from scratch involves seven decisions, and the order matters: defining your niche before your username and bio saves you from rework and identity changes once the profile already has followers.
These are the seven steps to start an Instagram:
- Define your profile’s niche.
- Choose a username that is easy to remember.
- Create a professional Instagram account.
- Write a bio that explains what you do.
- Use a clear profile photo.
- Publish your first posts.
- Organize your highlights.
Each step takes little time, and you can complete all of them in one day. Below, you will see how to do each one.
1. Define your profile’s niche
Your profile’s niche is the main topic you will cover on Instagram and the audience you want to help with it. Defining your niche before posting helps the algorithm understand who to show your content to and helps the right people quickly recognize the value of your profile.
If you are a nutritionist, for example, you can create content about healthy eating, meal planning or sports nutrition. You don’t need to pick an extremely specific niche at first, but having a clear direction keeps your profile from becoming a mix of unrelated topics.
A simple exercise to find your niche is to complete the sentence: “I help 2. Choose a username that is easy to remember
Your Instagram username is the @ that identifies your profile and forms its address (instagram.com/yourname). It can have up to 30 characters and only accepts letters, numbers, periods and underscores, so choose something easy to type, remember and share. Avoid combinations with lots of numbers, periods or characters that make your profile hard to identify. If you want to build a personal brand, using your own name or a close variation is usually the best choice. It is also worth checking whether the same name is available on other social networks, such as TikTok and YouTube, to keep a similar identity everywhere. Don’t confuse the @ with the Name field, the bold text that appears below your profile photo. Instagram search also takes the Name into account, so it is a good idea to combine your name with your profile’s topic, such as “Ana Lima | Sports nutrition”. This field can only be changed twice every 14 days, so think it through before saving. To create a professional Instagram account, download the app (Android or iOS), sign up with your email or phone number and, once the account is ready, go to the ☰ menu > Settings and activity > Account type and tools > Switch to professional account. The switch is free, takes a few minutes and can be undone at any time. Menu names may vary slightly depending on the app version. A professional account unlocks features that a personal account doesn’t have: Even with few followers, tracking this data from your very first post helps you understand what works. The Creator account is the best fit for people starting an Instagram around their personal brand, such as experts, teachers and digital creators. The Business account makes more sense for brands, stores and companies that sell physical products or services under a company name. The table sums up the differences: If you are going to sell courses, ebooks or mentorships using your own knowledge as your edge, the Creator account is usually the best choice. And don’t worry about getting it right the first time: you can switch your professional account type later, as your business evolves. Your Instagram bio is the text of up to 150 characters that appears below your Name and profile photo. Even though it is short, it needs to show in a few seconds who you are, who your content is for and what the next step is for anyone who lands on your profile. To write your Instagram bio, answer three questions: See the difference between two bios: Less strategic bio: “Passionate about marketing 💛 Mom, wife and entrepreneur.” More strategic bio: “I teach bakery owners to price their desserts without fear of losing customers. 🍰 Download my free guide at the link below.” The second version works better because it answers all three questions: it presents a clear offer, identifies the audience and points to the next step. And yes, emojis are welcome in your bio, as long as they make it easier to read. For more examples, see our article on what to add to your Instagram bio. Instagram lets you add up to 5 links to your profile, under Edit profile > Links. Use the first link for your main goal, such as a landing page with a free resource or the sales page for your digital product. That way, your profile stops being just an introduction and starts generating leads for your business. Your Instagram profile photo appears as a small circle in the feed, in Stories and in comments, so it needs to be recognizable even at a small size. It is one of the first things people notice when they find your account. If you work with a personal brand, choose a sharp, well-lit photo with your face centered. You don’t need a professional photo shoot: a good phone photo, framed from the chest up against a simple background, works well. For business profiles, the logo is usually the most appropriate choice. Avoid dark, heavily cropped or cluttered images, and use the same photo on your other social networks to make you easier to recognize. It is also part of your profile’s visual identity, which you can organize with a brand style guide. The first posts of anyone starting an Instagram should introduce who you are and show, right away, the kind of help your profile offers. You don’t need professional equipment, a perfect visual identity or dozens of ready-made posts to get started. A good launch sequence has three posts: After publishing, pin these posts to the top of your profile (Instagram lets you pin up to 3). That way, anyone who visits your profile quickly understands what it is about. Over time, you will discover which formats you prefer to create and which topics spark the most interest. Instagram highlights are collections of Stories that stay pinned to your profile, right below your bio, after Stories expire in 24 hours. They work like a menu of your work for people who have just discovered your profile. You can start with highlights such as About me, Tips, FAQ and Testimonials, if you already have real reviews to share. Custom covers help keep a consistent visual identity, but the most important thing is that each highlight has a clear purpose. The basic Instagram terms for beginners are the names of the content formats, app areas and metrics that appear in the professional dashboard. Knowing this vocabulary makes it easier to follow tutorials, read your profile’s data and plan your content. These are the main terms for anyone starting an Instagram: With these terms in mind, it is easier to understand how Instagram decides who sees each post, which is the topic of the next section. The Instagram algorithm is the set of systems that decides which content appears for each person in Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore. According to Instagram itself, there is no single algorithm: each area of the app uses different signals to rank what each user sees. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has pointed to watch time, likes per reach and sends per reach (when someone shares your content via DM) as some of the most important signals. For anyone starting an Instagram, this translates into three things to focus on: Hashtags have lost weight in this process. Instagram started limiting posts to 5 hashtags and recommends a few specific hashtags instead of long generic lists. Keywords in your caption, Name field and bio help more with search. To see how all these signals add up, read our guide to Instagram engagement. The best content for anyone starting an Instagram is educational: posts that teach something useful about your niche build authority and give people reasons to save, share and follow your profile. There is no single formula, so test topics and formats and watch how your audience responds. If you still don’t know what to post, try these ideas: Each Instagram format plays a different role in your strategy: The secret is to combine the formats that make sense for your content and your routine. To keep your profile visually organized, also see how to organize your Instagram feed, keeping in mind that the profile grid now displays posts in a vertical format. The ideal posting frequency for anyone starting an Instagram is the one you can keep up for months, not for a week. Consistency matters more than volume: posting three times a week for a year teaches you more than posting every day for a month and then disappearing. Adam Mosseri has recommended posting about two feed posts per week and two Stories per day as a sustainable routine. A realistic starting point for beginners is 2 to 4 feed posts per week, mixing Reels and carousels, plus Stories on most days. Timing also affects the initial reach of each post. To choose yours, check out the best time to post on Instagram and then adjust based on your audience’s insights. A 7-day plan to start an Instagram turns the step-by-step guide into short daily tasks. The goal is to finish your first week with a complete profile and your first posts live: In week two, repeat the formats that got the best response and keep writing down the content ideas that come up in conversations with your audience. There is no minimum number of followers to start making money on Instagram by selling your own products. What matters is the relationship between the audience that follows your profile, the content you create and the product or service you want to offer. Picture two profiles: one with 10,000 followers interested in a variety of topics and another with 500 people who follow professional baking content. If the goal is to sell a course on pricing desserts, the second profile may have more conversion potential, even with a smaller audience. Followers are not the same as customers. Instagram’s own monetization features, such as subscriptions and gifts, have eligibility requirements set by the platform, which you can check in our guide on how to make money on Instagram. Selling digital products, such as ebooks, courses and mentorships, can start with a small community, as long as it trusts you. If you don’t have a product yet, you can start as an affiliate and promote other creators’ products. See how to sell digital products online. The tools that help the most when you are starting an Instagram are free or have entry-level plans: Canva, to create designs; Edits, to edit videos; Meta Business Suite, to plan posts; and Instagram’s own professional dashboard, to track results. You don’t need to invest in expensive equipment or hire a team to get started. Here is what each one is for: These tools save time and organize your production, but the quality of your content and your understanding of your audience still matter most. For more options, see our list of digital marketing tools and our selection of social media tools. It is not worth buying followers or likes, especially when you are starting an Instagram. It inflates the numbers on your profile, but it doesn’t bring people interested in your content and it distorts the metrics you would use to make decisions. Bought followers are usually fake, inactive or uninterested in your niche. Since they don’t interact, your engagement rate drops, and the algorithm starts to read your content as uninteresting. In addition, Instagram’s Terms of Use prohibit artificially collecting likes, followers or views, which can lead to restrictions on your account. If you want to sell courses or digital products, the problem is even bigger: thousands of followers who aren’t interested in what you offer don’t generate sales. An organic audience takes longer to build, but it is the one that buys. The most common mistakes when starting an Instagram are posting without a defined niche, leaving your bio without a call to action and giving up before having enough data to evaluate your strategy. Knowing these pitfalls helps you save time in your first months. These are the main mistakes to avoid: Avoiding these mistakes doesn’t mean following a rigid strategy. What matters is to watch how your audience behaves, learn from the results and make adjustments along the way. To track results when you are starting an Instagram, focus on interest metrics, not just your follower count. The insights in your professional dashboard show this data by post and by period. These are the metrics that say the most about a new profile: Compare your numbers month by month and repeat what worked. Starting an Instagram from scratch may seem complicated, but you don’t need to solve everything at once. With your niche defined, a professional account set up and a clear bio, your profile is ready for its first posts. After that, what matters most is staying consistent, tracking your results and learning from experience. Bought followers and high numbers don’t replace a real audience: if you want to turn your knowledge into a business, building trust with the right people is worth much more. And if you are already thinking about turning your content into an online course, ebook or mentorship, <strong>Hotmart</strong> can help you take that next step. With the platform’s tools, you create, host and sell your digital products and connect your Instagram profile to new business opportunities. See also how to sell on Instagram. Your Instagram doesn’t need to start out perfect. It just needs to start with purpose. No. Having an Instagram profile isn't required to sell online courses, but the platform helps you spread your knowledge, build authority and attract potential students. You can also use other channels, such as YouTube, a blog, email marketing and ads. If you sell courses under your own personal brand, the Creator account is usually the best option. The Business account is a better fit for commercial brands and companies that sell physical products. Both offer professional tools, and you can switch later. Yes, you can. With 1,000 engaged followers, you can already sell digital products, services or mentorships and promote products as an affiliate. What determines the result is your audience's interest in what you offer, not the number itself. There is no guarantee of going viral, but some factors increase your chances: Reels that grab attention in the first few seconds, topics your audience wants to send to other people and consistent posting. Trial reels help you validate ideas with people who don't follow your profile yet. There is no fixed timeline. Results depend on your niche, the quality of your content, how often you post and how your audience behaves. In general, it is worth evaluating your strategy after two to three months of consistent posting, comparing your insights month by month. Not necessarily. You can build a relevant profile with carousels, tutorials, voice-over videos and other formats without showing your face. On the other hand, showing up helps create closeness with your audience, especially if you work with a personal brand. The most important thing is to choose a format you can keep up.3. Create a professional Instagram account
Creator or Business: which professional account should you choose?
Creator
Business
Who it’s for
Experts, teachers, influencers and digital product creators who use their personal brand
Brands, stores, local businesses and companies that sell products or services
Key features
Tools for brand partnerships and creator monetization features, when available
Sales features, such as a product catalog and Instagram Shop, when eligible
Professional dashboard, contact buttons and ads
Yes
Yes
Can you switch later?
Yes, at any time
Yes, at any time
Best for selling digital products?
✅ Yes, in most cases
When there is a commercial brand behind the business
4. Write a bio that explains what you do
5. Use a clear profile photo
6. Publish your first posts
7. Organize your highlights
Instagram for beginners: terms you need to know
How does the Instagram algorithm work for beginners?
What should you post when you are starting an Instagram?
How often should you post when you are starting an Instagram?
7-day plan to start an Instagram
How many followers do you need to start making money?
Which tools help when you are starting an Instagram?
Is it worth buying followers or likes?
What are the most common mistakes when starting an Instagram?
How do you track results when you are starting an Instagram?
Ready to start your Instagram?
Frequently asked questions about how to start an Instagram
Do I need Instagram to sell online courses?
Which account type is best for selling online courses, Creator or Business?
Can you make money on Instagram with 1,000 followers?
How do you go viral on Instagram from scratch?
How long does it take to see results on Instagram?
Do I need to show my face on Instagram to succeed?
