When Instagram was first launched in 2010, it was that “fun” social media app where everyone uploaded their photos and videos. At that time, Facebook and Twitter were still all the rage. But Instagram quickly rose as a competitor and is now one of the most steadily-growing social media apps.
Instagram has changed a lot over the decade since it was first launched. It owes its growing user base to a significant number of changes- From Stories feature to the most recent, Reels, the day isn’t far when Instagram could emerge as the most used social media platform across the globe. At present, Instagram is a place for people to show their pictures and videos to their families and a hub for social marketers.
It is quite safe to say their strategies are all incomplete without having an Instagram marketing strategy. With newer changes on this app, there emerged a lot of content creators and influencers too. But, just as everything else, it is not easy to get known on Instagram as a content creator or an influencer. Firstly, there are thousands of other people in your niche, and of course, there’s going to be someone better than you. That means that you have to be unique with your content to make a name of your own.
Secondly, you can’t call yourself an influencer or creator unless you have a substantial follower count. That is what we are going to focus on in this article. We will tell you some of the tips up our sleeve that you can implement to boost the number of your Instagram followers.
How can you get more followers on Instagram quickly?
Optimize your Instagram profile and account, in general:
The first step you must consider before thinking about gaining followers is optimizing your account. That is a step that you cannot ignore. Your account introduces your brand, so you need to ensure that it creates a great impression on people who see it. Now, the primary things that you must take care of are your profile picture, your bio, and your username. As we have said earlier, your profile is your brand’s identity.
Thus, it would be best to have a profile picture that conveys what your brand is about. For example, you could have your brand’s logo in the display picture or something that sets your brand apart from all others.
Secondly, an ideal bio should tell people more about your brand and what you specialize in. You also need to have your brand’s website link on your bio, as this will help drive traffic to your site. Next, your profile should have a username easily recognizable and one that people can easily remember. It would be best if your username is the same on all your social media accounts.
Maintain a posting calendar:
After optimizing your profile, you have to focus on the feed and the content you post because that will drive traffic to your account. The worst thing you could do while trying to grow your follower count is posting irregularly. Even if you have started to get followers, posting at random, haphazard times only makes them lose interest. That is why you should have a calendar for posting.
Following this schedule will help you be regular and consistent. You could try to publish content at least a few times every day. That way, you will be consistent and avoid spam as caused by too many posts a day.
Decide and ready your content in advance:
You may have heard many people complaining about the Instagram algorithm, but you need to know that the algorithm is your friend and not the foe. You can use the Instagram algorithm to your advantage by posting quality content a few times a day.
The algorithm shows people posts that they like, so you must post at the right times in a day. Scheduling your posts in advance and keeping them ready is one of the best ways to increase your brand’s engagement and reach.
Try advertising:
When you are working to gain more followers on your Instagram account, you must know how much your audience is worth. It would be best always to strive to gain followers organically to help you get the engagement and reach. If you have already gained a few thousand followers, you could try two things. Firstly, you could try investing in advertising, that is, sponsored posts on your brand or its products.
Secondly, you can gain followers by actually being in front of them. To elucidate what we mean, you must connect with your followers and others in your niche and share their content. This method of cross-promoting would help you gain more followers along the way.
Please do not buy or entertain fake followers:
Though it might be tempting to buy a few thousand followers for your Instagram account, you should know that there’s a huge difference between legitimate and fake followers. The disadvantages of buying followers certainly outweigh the satisfaction of seeing a huge follower count.
Fake followers are nothing but deceitful to your real followers, and they also lower the credibility of your account. That is because they don’t engage with the content you post thus, contributing nothing due to the reach of your account. Lastly, Instagram has very tight policies about fake accounts and bots. It is most likely that they will already be cleaned up ruing the hard work you did to build to your account.
Hype up your Instagram profile:
Now that your profile is spick and span after optimizing and organizing it, how do you think people will find you? Well, the most straightforward answer is you have to do it! Unless you promote your channel and do it right, you will become stagnant in your follower count.
Thus, what you must do is promote your Instagram account everywhere, that is, on your other social media accounts (it would be better if they are more or less established ). You must also put up your Instagram handle on your website.
Post the content your audience wants:
Even though this point may seem pretty self-explanatory and easy, we assure you it’s not. That is because figuring out what your audience wants is no easy feat. Firstly, you must navigate through other accounts in your niche and find out which content attracts people. Of course, it won’t do if you copy ideas, but there’s no binding to your inspirations.
You can alter the smallest detail, and that would make your content unique from everyone else’s. So, it would be best if you kept an eye on newer trends popping up every day; you must keep figuring out ways to make your content unique.
Interact with people:
Tips really can’t get more straightforward than this. If you want people to notice your account and like your content, you must put yourself out in the open. According to reports and indexes, around 68% of people engage more with images, 50% with video content, and 30% with posts having texts.
What we are implying is, to amplify your chances of getting noticed and increasing your reach, you must not only have a good image post but also pair it with a fun and interesting caption. It’s a good thing we are talking about Instagram here because it is honestly the best place to combine your image posts with fun captions. Besides that, you must also remember to respond to comments and interact with your audience so that they connect with you.
Use clever hashtags:
Another tried and tested way to gain more followers is through hashtags. If you have been on Instagram long enough, you will know that people can now follow hashtags too. Hashtags can thus directly aid in increasing your reach and help more people discover your account.
It would be best to keep in mind to use hashtags that resonate with your post and the overall theme of your content. You could try out with the established hashtags at the beginning and then move on to creating your brand’s hashtag. However, we must warn you that you shouldn’t try to put in such popular hashtags but aren’t relevant to your posts.
Your followers must be happy:
Though this is the last point, it is the most important of all. You have to ensure that your audience (followers) are happy with your posts. If you find that your followers are not happy, it is probably because of the quality of the content. In that case, you must hold an interactive session with them, either through a small Q&A session on your Stories or by utilizing the Live feature. Effective communication is extremely important when you are trying to gain followers on Instagram.
Conclusion
It would be proper to conclude by saying that though there are faster ways of gaining more followers, such as buying them, they don’t pay off in the long run. Legitimate followers gained organically would help you become successful in the Instagram world. We hope that all the tips listed above would help you get followers properly and quickly.
