If you want to build awareness on the internet for your brand, Instagram is the social media platform you would definitely want to be on. With over a billion active users, the site has the potential to give your profile the maximum reach and engagement desired on any online platform.
Instagram’s algorithm enhances your visibility based on several parameters, like post engagement, frequency of posting, follower count, and user-follower relationships. This places a direct correlation between your account and the number of followers your profile has. In fact, at first glance, it almost looks like the greater number of followers you have, the better are your chances at scoring high on Instagram’s algorithm. This makes acquiring followers one of the primary micro-goals for most business and personal accounts.
However, it is not enough to gain a follower count. The key to cracking the success path on Instagram is to gather an active follower base. A mere increase in numbers does not help increase post engagement, and that brings your overall engagement rate down. The best way to benefit from a large number of followers is to ensure that your followers are active with your profile. That said, if you have an interactive follower base, growing your audience is definitely an impactful way of gaining popularity on Instagram.
So how do you go about increasing your audience?
Although there are no definitive guides that suit all types of accounts, certain aspects of your Instagram marketing strategy can be enhanced to attract more followers regardless of what kind of profile you have on the platform. The key here is to research, plan and focus on micro-goals. What practices you choose to follow will ultimately depend on:
- How much time are you willing to invest in building your Instagram reach?
- How determined are you to succeed in building an Instagram presence?
- What budget can you allocate to your Instagram marketing?
- What tools do you have at your disposal to make your Instagram marketing easier?
- Are you willing to collaborate with a team, or do you want to build your account up on your own?
Here are 8 proven methods of growing your Instagram follower count
- Buy the right kind of followers and in the right amounts
As mentioned, purchasing followers tend only to increase your count. It does not usually add any audience engagement. Hence, use this method only to set your account into motion. It is very hard to find the first few hundred followers, and buying a few may make real Instagrammers curious about your profile. They are likely to start following you just to check out why you have so many followers on your account. You must be extremely careful when you make such a purchase, as several buyers complain of follower-count dropping down as soon as the guarantee period for the purchase is over. Moreover, Instagram has a strict policy against fake activities. Buy followers from authentic sites to avoid being provided with suspicious-looking followers. Also, should you wish to buy in bulk, buy a package that makes a graded delivery to avoid having an unexplainable jump in your numbers.
- Optimize your profile
Choose a profile photo that can be identified with your brand. If you have accounts on multiple social sites, keeping the same profile image on all might be a great idea. This will act as an automatic pull for your active followers on other platforms to find and follow you on Instagram too.
Pay special attention to your Bio. You have 150 characters to tell your audience what your brand can do for them and why they should follow your account. Make this a to-the-point but SEO-optimized description that:
- Reflects your brand’s unique style and signature;
- Includes a call-to-action;
- A workable link that lands your visitors onto a page that can give them a glimpse of your services or let them know more about you. This does not always have to be your official website. It can be a link to your shoppable catalog, a blog post, a survey, or any other site that aims to retain your visitor’s interest and convert them into your followers (and ideally clients).
Use your username to build a brand-specific hashtag that can be included in your bio as well as on your posts. This will help the interested audience find you using the search bar of Instagram. If your content can connect with your audience, they will likely also begin following your account.
Of course, it goes without saying that you must keep your account public. A private account is not discoverable and is not likely to find too many followers unless you send out invitations yourself. A business account by default is open to all. So, check your settings if you are using a personal account, and set your visibility to “public”.
- Collaborate with Influencers
Influencers are to social media what brand ambassadors are to traditional marketing. However, there is a twist. Unlike brand ambassadors who speak for the brand, influencers speak as independent reviewers and collaborators. They attract audiences based on honest, authentic, and trustworthy content creation. Most influencers require creative freedom to create content for your brand or services. Every influencer, depending on their experience, expertise, and reach, has their own price. When you collaborate with influencers, your content becomes visible to their followers and niche audience. It is easy to have members of this audience become followers of your account, especially if your influencer campaigns for it as a call to action. Depending on your budget and frequency of using influencer marketing, consider using sponsored posts, giveaways, and guest sessions besides tutorials as part of your content creation plans. Team up with a range of collaborators, go live and create co-hosted sessions. Remember to uphold authentic content and value influencer inputs to make or break your brand image.
- Organize contests with call-to-actions
Whether you choose to do it in collaboration with allied businesses and influencers, or you prefer to run your contests on your own, think creative and out of the box. Contests and giveaways attract a lot of post-interaction due to the prizes involved. As long as you are genuine and honor the prize winners with timely and authentic rewards, the type of content and competitions you can host on Instagram are endless. Consider making following your account a requirement for entering your contest. If your rewards are attractive enough, you will see your profile grow followers by leaps and bounds.
You can also adopt a follow-for-follow strategy. Keep in mind that these methods tend to increase your count only. The rise in engagement rates, if any, concentrates typically on the contest post. To avoid the numbers from becoming a vanity metric, organize contests periodically so you can push the followers to engage with your content consistently.
- Plan your posting strategy
If you are using a business account, use Instagram analytics to understand the engagement trend on your posts. Check:
- Which post types get you the most engagement?
- When is the best time for you to post?
- What frequency of posting suits your brand best?
- Are your posts (or your hashtags) generating an organic conversion of viewers into followers?
If your account is personal, you may have to figure this out using other tools on the internet (or you can simply convert your account into a business one for free to avail of Instagram analytics).
Once you have the answers to these insights, plan your posts ahead of time and schedule them to stick to a consistent posting strategy.
If you are going Live, use posts, reels, and stories to announce the time and topic in advance. Run a countdown and release teasers of what to expect.
Such techniques will make your existing followers anticipate your posts and engage with them as soon as you put them up. The quicker your posts are in gaining traction, the higher they will be placed on individual home feeds and the search and explore tabs. The more visibility your content gains in this manner, the more your chances increase of gaining new audiences.
- Cross-post
The wider your audience reach is, the more followers you are likely to gain, provided you are putting up quality content with relevant keywords, captions, and hashtags. Instagram lets you simultaneously publish your content on its sister site Facebook if you have your accounts on both platforms connected. You can also manually embed your Instagram content into your posts on other social sites and invite audiences to follow you on Instagram.
Moreover, you can internally cross-post content in different modes: use the Story feature to introduce your new post or video. Use reels to give a short sneak peek into your long-form IGTV videos. Save your live sessions into your extended video library and publish Reels as part of your post grid as well. Such cross-posting will open up your content to maximize audience reach and attract audiences to your account.
- Use advertising
Instagram allows you to tailor advertisements and promotions (of individual posts) with a targeted objective. You can also choose your budget and the period for the advertisement/ promotion to run. The algorithm of the platform works to make your post and profile more accessible to new audiences. As the target audience, your reach, and visibility are extended towards, is determined on the parameters you provide, your advertising reaches Instagram users your account caters to. This new audience is likely to turn into your followers and clients if your content manages to capture their attention. You can create expressive ads with precisely defined end goals. You can even track the performance of your ads and promotions. This enables you to figure out how best to customize your ads in the future if you are targeting an increase in your follower count as a result.
- Be social
No matter what you do, humanizing your profile is the best means of attracting an organic follower base. Instagram is, after all, a social media platform where people seek real-time authentic engagement and connections. So be active on your profile and do not just run it using automated tools. Keep in mind, auto replying, and auto-scheduling are features that are supposed to help you build your Instagram presence. They are not meant to replace you completely. This is why big-budget businesses hire specialists to handle their social media presence exclusively. Whether you delegate an employee to do it for you, or you run your Instagram profile personally, interact with others on the platform. Pay attention, particularly to:
- Participating in community discussions and trending conversations.
- Responding promptly to audience engagement like comments, queries, likes, and direct messages.
- Your language. Be polite and approachable. Keep your language civil even when you are responding to trolls.
- The communication you carry out with collaborators and influencers. Be open-minded, affable, and professional.
- Respond, react and engage with profiles you follow and content that may be relevant to your brand building.
- Your peer and competition. You are a member of a niche business community at the end of the day. Keep your rivalry healthy and support each other as and when needed.
- Social events and matters of social importance. Use the platform to build up Goodwill.
If you take care to keep yourself socially active and engaged, your content is likely to feature more prominently on user feeds. A key parameter that determines your impression and reaches, apart from engagement on your own posts, is your relationship with your followers. When the most intersection is one-sided, you lose out on the chance to increase your visibility among bigger audience pools. Trending posts attract more organic followers than other types of posts. You must work hard to ensure your posts trend as soon as you hit the publish button.
In Conclusion
Following the best practices in growing your Instagram audience is sure to bring you organic and active followers. However, there is no guarantee that your followers will maintain the same level of engagement with your posts hereafter. Remember to keep your content quality up to ensure you do not see a dip in your engagement rates. Experiment with the various types of posts you can use on the platform, and keep your captions and hashtags relevant. Develop a unique voice for yourself that will compel your followers to engage with your content frequently. This will further ensure more visibility and bring your profile the potential to attract yet more followers. Most of all, review your analytics frequently to endure your follower count has not turned inactive. If you find your followers turning into mere numbers, consider removing the inactive followers to boost your engagement metrics. This will ensure your content gains greater visibility on the platform and opens your profile to the possibility of acquiring fresh and active followers.
Bottom line: you must incorporate your plans for growing your follower count into your overall Instagram strategy to see definite results. After all, you want to increase your follower count to build a successful presence. So do not lose track of this larger end goal as you concentrate on building up your follower base!
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