Anyone who is anyone is using Instagram. It’s vital to have a social media presence if you want to be successful.
People turn to social media to learn about a business, but also to stay connected with them. Instagram has become one of the top business platforms, thanks to their multiple options and business-friendly design.
While Facebook is still the largest social platform out there, it’s not necessarily the top choice for a business. On Instagram, businesses have the opportunity to experience a high number of conversions, engage with their audience, and continue to grow their following as well.
But in order to find all of that success and reap the benefits, you’ve got to figure out the ways to really hone in on growth and build up your following. If you want to enhance your following on Instagram, you’ve come to the right place.
Don’t skip the steps and hard work. Use organic growth to gain the backing of the algorithm and naturally grow your brand along the way. The end result will be increased followers and hopefully increased revenues as well.
Table of Contents:
10 Tips to Increase Your Instagram Following
There are sources out there where you can purchase likes and followers. While those can certainly be useful resources at certain times, they are not likely to be your go-to resource.
Check out these top 10 tips to help increase your Instagram following.
1. Start with Optimization
Everything starts with getting your account set up right. You can’t very well grow an account if it isn’t set up to handle it. Setting up your account to be geared towards business and growth is called optimization. It’s not just fancy profile pictures or creating a bio. Those are certainly important, but there is more.
Here are some helpful hints.
- Make sure you have a business account profile. If you don’t, you can change this in your settings.
- Beef up that bio with simple messaging, a tagline, branding hashtags, and a website link.
- Choose a high-quality profile picture that accurately represents you or your brand in some way.
- Every business bio should have a link. Make sure it’s a great link that is going to point people where they really should go.
These are the things that people will see first when they look you up. The profile picture, your bio, and your link are the header of the page when they click on you. They can also see how many posts and followers you have, which might just make an impact on someone researching you a little bit.
In terms of the bio link, going to your homepage is always a good idea. Some people also integrate a link tree that allow them to connect to multiple links. Remember that IG doesn’t allow you to put links in a post, so this is where you will be directing people.
2. Consistent Posting Strategies
It can be detrimental to your brand if you aren’t posting regularly. You don’t necessarily have to post at the same time on the same days every single time. However, you do want to make sure you are posting a static number of times every week and not skipping posts for days or weeks at a time.
When someone looks at your page, if they see you haven’t posted anything in 5 weeks, they likely are going to turn the other way. Not only does posting regularly make you more visible and place you in people’s feeds, but it makes people far more interested in you.
No one chooses to follow a page that is never active. They follow pages that are consistently sharing useful or engaging posts that interest them.
Some companies choose to follow a consistent schedule, such as posting on specific days. This is a great way to make sure you don’t forget to post. You can use scheduling tools to plan out posts ahead of time and ensure you have stuff going out.
Here’s the thing. You need to find a happy medium. You want to avoid posting more than 2-3 times a day, except in unique circumstances. You also want to make sure you post several days a week.
3. Post at Optimal Times
There is plenty of research out there that says you should be posting at this time and on these days. Traffic to certain industries falls into specific timeframes. But many of us don’t consider that when we post. All too often, we post when we think of something and hope it doesn’t get missed.
If you plan out your posts to be scheduled at optimal times, those posts will likely get far more visibility and interaction. This relates back to tip #2 in that you need consistent posting strategies. But you also need to know when is a good time to post.
Lucky for you, Instagram provides a lot of analytical information to business profiles. You can use this data to determine when people are most active on your page specifically. This might help shape your posting times.
In addition, if you use any type of scheduler tool, they often have options where you can set “optimal times” for posting. Most of the top names for scheduler tools have these options. And if you can’t just select optimal time, you can see the data in that platform that shares with you times that appear to be the best based on your history.
Posting at random is fine, but posting at optimal times is best.
4. Influencers, Advocates, and Affiliate Partnerships
Building up your following will take time and focus. You learn the tips and tricks and those numbers rise over time for the most part. But you can give your numbers a little bit of a push by working with other well-known people.
Partner up with IG users that have high numbers of followers and will share your content. User-generated content is king these days.
It shows realistic portrayals of what other people think about your brand. It’s really cool on IG too, because people can tag you, but you also have the ability to share their content so it’s a win-win for both sides.
Find people you can partner up with and go from there. Look for influencers that meet your target audience or advocates that might be willing to post in exchange for product or pay. These are great ways to help share more about you and gain followers from an external source.
That person or account is going to vouch for you and the people that follow them are going to be curious. At the same time, your collaboration will provide them more exposure too. You may not be able to start with the top influencers that have 10 million followers, but you can certainly find some great advocates that will make a difference in growing your followers.
5. Stop the Fakes!
One thing that a lot of business accounts have to worry about is fake followers. These are the followers that are spam accounts or perhaps not even real accounts. This is one of the faults of purchasing likes and followers. A lot of people do this, but those accounts are not real followers.
Yes, you get the numbers added to your following list. But are those fake followers really adding value to your following base? We can see this both ways, but you really need to be aware of how it could hurt you. The truth is while they boost your follower numbers, they really don’t provide any other benefit.
Here’s where the downsides lie.
- Building followers should be more about building relationships that last. These paid followers often trickle off over time, and it’s deceitful to the people that really are interested in your IG.
- Those new followers are never going to contribute to your revenue. They certainly won’t be purchasing from you anytime soon.
- Fake followers will add to the following number, but they won’t engage with comments, likes, or sharing. That would be a totally separate purchase!
When you think about these details, imagine what happens when you make a really great post. But not a single one of those 10,000 followers you bought ever like or share the post. You may have got the numbers, but they are falling flat here.
Real people, real followers, and real engagement is so much more effective.
6. Make Your IG Easy to Find
Have you ever gone to a business website and looked for ways to connect with them? A really great website will have all of their social platforms linked for easy access, on top of their contact us and connect with us pages.
Part of gathering more followers on Insta involves making sure people can find you there. Do you run a very successful local restaurant? Your website has the menu, hours, reservations, and more. It should also have your Insta link so people can visit there. If you get lucky, they will tag you in some pictures while they’re there too.
Promote your Instagram, showcase it for the world to see. Take every opportunity that you can to invite people into this world. Here are some ways to make it happen.
- Social media icons on websites
- Instagram feed connections to a website or blog
- Social media invitations on the blog
- Sharing IG on other social media platforms
If you see somewhere that you can invite people to follow you on IG, take advantage of that opportunity. Put it on your advertisements and every place you can possibly display it. Then, find a way to track those clicks if you can.
7. Don’t Be Boring
This seems like an easy one, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds. You might think that your posts and content are pretty amazing, but do your followers agree? Have you figured out who your target audience is? If not, it’s time to do it. If you don’t know your audience, how can you really be effective?
When you do the research, your audience might not be who you thought they were. Then, you have to make a decision. Do you want to adjust your content to meet the audience you were after, or do you want to appeal to the audience you’ve already grown? You might even choose to go with a mix of both. It could be a sign to expand your target audience.
Appealing to your audience requires more than just knowing what your audience likes. Yes, that is absolutely important. However, following Instagram trends and posting content that goes over well are valuable approaches to avoid being popular.
Don’t just copycat people out there that are successful. Find the things that work for your target audience and shape that to be unique to your branding. Don’t forget to use Instagram’s business tools to figure out what is or is not working and who your posts are really connecting with.
8. Interact and Be a Human
At the end of the day, you are a human and so are your followers. They have feedback, questions, encouragement, and maybe even inspiration to share with you. Your audience that interacts are like gold and you should treat them with the utmost respect.
Don’t get us wrong. There will always be trolls that are mean and hurtful. But you can’t let those negative people affect how you interact with everyone else. It’s vital that you have meaningful conversations with your audience and that you don’t just ignore their comments and messages.
If you’re in the process of growing your Instagram, you can probably handle this on your own. Even if you happen to grow to a huge following, you should have some sort of personal interaction with the people engaging on your content.
Take the time to be a real person to them. And if you need help managing comments and messages, just make sure things are handled in a personable manner and that you’re still actively engaging as well. Did you know that a lot of people use social media as the platform to connect with businesses? Don’t let them down.
This lets followers know that you actually care about them. If you’re interacting and engaging, this speaks volumes. It also is a positive indicator to the algorithm.
9. Hashtags Still Matter
While hashtags are not as prominent as they used to be, they are still an important part of Instagram. On an Instagram post, you can place up to 30 hashtags. You can also place these as the first comment instead of the post content if you want to. That’s totally up to you.
Hashtags can turn into conversions, which is why they are so important. But you don’t want to just stuff with hashtags that have no bearing on your content. You also don’t have to use all of your hashtag allowance while you’re posting.
You might need to do a little bit of research to find the hashtags that work best for your niche. Try using some closely-related hashtags and pair them with one or two branding hashtags as well. Choose specific tags that really may tie into your industry.
People looking for solutions often search hashtags to see what they come across. This is where using a relevant tag might just turn into a click that turns into a conversion for you.
10. Make it About Your Followers
This Instagram business is really all about you and the business you are promoting. But you need to take that IG profile and make it about your followers. This will be the tip that really wins you more followers in the long run.
Don’t you love it when you feel important and seen to others? When a business or a page posts something that engages with you or feels like it is speaking directly to you? These are the things that count. If you want followers, you need to inspire them and draw them in.
There is more than one great way to build relationships with your followers and engage with them. For example, sharing user-generated content is always a hit. The user you shared it from will be so excited that they were important enough for you to share. They feel valued by you.
You can also create posts that are funny or ask your audience a question. Then, the audience wants to give you their feedback or laugh alongside you. Inspire them, encourage them, tell them stories, and share real life with them.
Let’s be honest. No followers really want a staunch, straightforward post all the time. They want to see the reality of your business and have the opportunity to interact with you. Raise awareness, support a cause, deliver behind the scenes looks, and keep it real.
That’s what they are after.
Are You Ready to Grow Your Instagram Following?
It’s time to get intentional about building your Instagram following. These tips can help you intentionally move forward and find new or better ways to really appeal to the people of IG. There isn’t necessarily a one size fits all solution, but each of these tips can be adjusted and formed to work for your business and what you have to offer.
Take the time to do it right. Your efforts will pay off.
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