4 Tips on How to Get Followers on Instagram

4 tips on how to get followers on Instagram

How to get followers on Instagram – tips on how to get followers on Instagram. How to get followers on Instagram? Instagram has crossed the magical milestone of 1 billion monthly active users. The number of users is constantly growing and space for each of them on this platform is shrinking. How to achieve greater visibility of your Instagram profile and gain new followers faster without paid advertising? Welcome to Instagram SEO! Instagram is essentially a search engine for photos and videos, which, like internet search engines, has an algorithm. Getting your posts to appear to a wider audience is no longer as simple as it used to be. (Tip: Read how the Instagram algorithm works). Just as websites are optimized for search engines to appear at the highest position in SERPs, an Instagram profile can also be optimized to be more discoverable by other users. Will Instagram become a giant similar to Google, for example? Perhaps now is the right time to ask yourself this question. Gaining followers the organic way is hard work and it won’t be completely free. It will likely cost you more effort than running paid advertising. And if not effort, then at least time. However, remember that organic followers (those you gain without paid support – we’ll call them that for the purposes of this article) tend to be much more active and loyal. Before you scroll down to the Instagram SEO practices that will help you increase the visibility of your Instagram profile and gain new organic followers faster, it’s good to know the answers to the following questions.

1. For what purpose do I want to gain new followers?

There can be countless reasons, such as:

• I am an e-shop and I want to communicate products through Instagram.
• I am a blogger and I want to have more paid collaborations.
• I am an influencer and I want to have greater influence.
• I bet my friend that I would have 500 followers before he does.

2. Which followers might find my profile interesting?

Do you know what target audience you want to reach with your Instagram account? It doesn’t matter whether you run a business or personal account. Everyone has and should know their target audience.

3. For what reasons might these people start following you?

What (ideally something unique) do you offer them? Why should they follow you specifically? I’m adding a few examples again.

I want to:

• inform potential customers that a new collection has arrived in my e-shop,
• give tips on the best cafes in Prague,
• inspire others with my fitness routine and motivate other individuals to start working on themselves.

4. What benefit will you provide that only you and no one else can offer?

What is your competitive advantage? What makes your profile different from hundreds of thousands of others?

Your name (Instagram name) can be compared to the title of the highest level (H1). Yes, your (Instagram) name and username are not the same, although they serve a similar function when searching on Instagram. If someone were looking for me by my blog name or my full name, my profile would come up. If we return to the original example, that is, we search for the phrase social media on Instagram, then you can see in the photo below what other profiles would come up for you (notice the dark blue underline). These profiles have the mentioned field in their name, or rather the mentioned keyword social media. Moreover, in case your name or your company name is entered by a user into Google, a link to your Instagram profile may also appear among the search results. It is precisely your Instagram name that is reflected in the search results. Think about what names / phrases / fields people might search for your profile under on Instagram. Think of Instagram as another possible search engine. Use dividing characters and include more keywords in your name. Instagram @username (username) is like your domain. Your Instagram username is your username on Instagram, which appears after the @ symbol. Your username serves as your most important keyword by which you want people to search for you primarily. It is essentially your domain. Think about good discoverability of your profile and tailor your Instagram @username accordingly. Avoid excessive generalization. For example, companies should maintain their brand names because they are highly likely to be searched for this way by users on Instagram.

Good content is essential And especially on Instagram. A shared photo is the first (and often the last) thing users’ eyes will land on. The photo must captivate enough for users to read its caption and subsequently visit your profile. Your profile must be equally engaging so that users decide to follow you. From your feed, it should be clear what kind of content people can expect from you. These could be recipe tips, tourist destinations, clothing stores… That’s up to you. Content (photo) always comes first. Think “globally”. You’ll gain followers if you impress with your feed. Be recognizable. It’s ideal to use the same preset or filter on all photos. Share regularly. But there’s no need to overdo it – better to share less frequently and with quality. Share consistently. You shouldn’t deviate too much from your theme. Your followers expect a certain type of content from you. And if you’ve been sharing motorcycles so far and suddenly your profile is full of puppies, they’d probably be surprised.

Don’t underestimate Instagram “Insights” Instagram doesn’t provide extensive post or profile analytics, but for our purposes, they’re completely sufficient. Analytical data (in Instagram you’ll find it under the name Insights) you’ll only get if you have your profile in business profile mode. You can find your profile insights on Instagram according to the instructions in the photo. Each individual Instagram post then offers its own insights, where you’ll get data related to that post (for example, what reach it had, how many people visited your profile through it, how many people subsequently clicked to your website, etc.). The work of a social media specialist is quite analytical. (I’ve also written about this on my blog in the article What Does a Social Media Manager’s Job Entail). You need to constantly evaluate what type of content your followers reacted to best and which is most interesting to them. Monitor which shared posts had the largest reach and impressions (reached the most people), or which had the most interactions, and think about what they have in common. Get to know your followers (demographic insights) and serve them content at the time when they’re most online.

Alt texts (image optimization) now also on Instagram. If you have at least some experience in SEO, you’ve certainly encountered the term alt text. A search engine (or rather a bot) cannot “scan” images, but it reads alt attributes. You need to enter a keyword in the image name and alt tag so the bot can find the relevant image for that keyword. Alt texts, in addition to their SEO function, also serve an informational function. If you have a weak internet connection and images cannot load, alt texts will be displayed. In addition to the mentioned functions, they also serve for the visually impaired. Special readers read to them not only the article itself but also what is shown in the photos. Alt text should now interest all social media specialists or those who want to excel on social media. On Instagram and Facebook, you can now add alt text to photos. According to the official announcement, it serves specifically for the visually impaired. Personally, however, I believe (and this information is confirmed by many foreign sources) that it serves other important functions as well. Alt text helps Instagram’s algorithm understand what’s in the photo. Instagram uses technology to recognize what’s in your photograph. Your post will be displayed to more users who have shown interest in this type of content because of it. (This is also why photos relevant to you are recommended to you, even if they don’t have hashtags in the caption.) With alt text, your post can be even stronger and easier for Instagram’s algorithm to “decode”. This means your post will organically reach a larger number of people. Alt text will also allow your photo to be displayed on Google. Just as a bot scans alt texts in images on websites, it can scan alt texts in Instagram posts. So if someone searches on Google for “blueberry cheesecake recipe” and you have it in the alt text of an Instagram post, they could find your Instagram post in Google Images. How do you fill in alt texts on Instagram? If you’re sharing a brand new photo, you’ll fill it in the so-called advanced settings (displayed in the area where you add location, tags, and other photo attributes) – see photo on the right. For an older post, just “edit” it – see photo on the left. Thanks to alt texts, people with visual impairment can learn what is shown in the photos through a special reader. Instagram’s algorithm more easily recognizes what’s in your photograph and recommends it to relevant users. Your Instagram photos containing alt texts will also be found on Google.

Two’s better than one Find a partner who focuses on a similar “niche” as you. For companies, it’s basically influencer marketing (a partnership between a brand and an influencer who share a common niche). For individuals, I think of “joint partnerships” or maybe friendship?  Online creators are not afraid to reference other people’s work and support each other mutually. They go together to take photos, reference their blogs, create videos. Connect with those who focus on the same or similar market niche.

Don’t sit in the corner like a shy girl, they won’t find you there If you only share photos and wait for followers to find you themselves, it won’t work. Instagram is a social network, not a gallery of beautiful photos, which requires not only responding to comments under your photos and replying to messages. The ideal way to make your Instagram profile known is to actively “like” and comment on other profiles. Compliment the girl on her nice figure, a beautifully photographed dessert or a photo at the Eiffel Tower. Thank them for a travel tip, don’t be afraid to follow someone, react to other people’s stories. Always respond to comments and direct messages (of course, the non-annoying or non-spamming ones). Like and comment on other people’s posts. Don’t spare compliments. Don’t be afraid to follow someone.

Sharing is caring. Did you like someone’s article? Are you inspired by someone’s Instagram profile? Share and link to other people’s work and profiles – especially in your Instagram Stories. A new feature allows you to repost other people’s stories if someone tags you in them. So there’s a high probability that the person you tag in it will share it to their Instastory. Your profile can then be discovered by someone new. You can of course link to other people’s work and profiles in the description of your posts or in articles on your website. Use this opportunity! Don’t be afraid to stroke someone’s ego! Link to other accounts in Instastories, in posts on social media or on your website. Don’t forget to tag that person.

Hashtag is the king Here we go with hashtags again – a buzzword that half the people can’t stand. Unfortunately, they are precisely important for gaining new organic followers. You can think of them as keywords that are mainly used in the SEO field. People can search on Instagram based on a hashtag. Instagram also tracks what hashtags you use with your posts. Photos are then displayed to people who follow and use similar ones. You can also think of hashtags as filtering helpers that organize all shared content on Instagram into thematically relevant units. Hashtags are of different types and serve different purposes: Industry Tags – the broadest hashtags that will put your photo in the appropriate category by which users can discover photos or profiles (#Restaurant, #Blogger, #Digitalmarketing, #SEOagency). Niche Tags – these hashtags will put your photo into a narrower selection. People searching under these hashtags usually already know what they want to find (#fitnessblogger #brownie #italianfood #travelinspiration). Branded Tags – branded hashtags serve to identify your company, person or your products on Instagram. These can be your company name, your blog name, campaign name, etc. At eVisions we use for example the following: #Copypes (an important member of our team who participates in all copy training), #SEObakers (we don’t just bake in online marketing, but also in the kitchen), #klucizeVisions (so the ladies can filter what beautiful and clever guys we have in the team). Community Tags – thanks to them you become part of a narrower community of people. Community profiles usually share the best photos on their account (#travelawesome #dnescestujem #bloggersre). Location Tags – think globally, act locally! Don’t forget to add location hashtags for the post (#praguerestaurant #liberec #vyhlidkamaj). Event Tags – are you organizing an event? A conference, party, workshop, festival? Create a special tag for it under which people can share posts and at the same time find others. If you are a participant in a given event, you have a chance that your photo will attract new followers (#mktfest #KVIFF #Socialrestart). Don’t forget to evaluate again. In the insights of a specific Instagram post, you’ll find out how many people saw the photo precisely because of the hashtags. Hashtags are key to gaining organic followers. Hashtags are not evil, thanks to them social networks are “organized”. Combine different types of hashtags for optimal results. Analyze which hashtags reached the most people.

Not a single field wasted! Don’t forget to fill in all the fields you can before sharing a photo. In particular: location, tags (tag profiles of people, places, businesses, communities, etc. – they can share photos), captions, hashtags. Always fill in the location of the photo. People often search for posts at specific locations to inspire themselves for creating photos. Tag other profiles in your photos (of course, the relevant ones!). That is, profiles of places, events, communities, etc.

When the devil can’t, Instagram will If you have a website, don’t forget to add your Instagram profile to your pages and encourage people to follow you. Tell people what you want them to do! When writing an article, take advantage of the ability to embed an Instagram post. This will increase the chances that readers will click through to your profile. If they like it, you’ve won. Of course, don’t forget about multichannel. Link to your profile in your email marketing and on your profiles on other social networks. Don’t neglect offline channels either (especially if you have a physical store, conduct training, give presentations, etc.) Link to your Instagram profile on other social networks and on your website. Use multichannel.