6 Ways to Get New Instagram Followers in 2026
Are you trying to gain new followers in 2026? We understand. Given much greater competition than ever before, gaining new instagram followers on your account can be challenging if you don’t know where to start.
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Are you trying to gain new followers in 2026? We understand. Given much greater competition than ever before, gaining new followers on your account can be challenging if you don’t know where to start. Should you create videos every day? Should you engage as much as possible with other users’ content? Should you use more or fewer hashtags? Where do you even start?! First, take a breath. Everything will be fine because we’re here for you. Second, keep reading because we’re bringing you various ways to gain new followers on Instagram in 2026.
Instagram Reels
The biggest way to grow on Instagram currently is to incorporate Instagram Reels into your strategy. Why? Because Instagram has stated that it is no longer a photo-sharing app and you need to incorporate videos into your content, otherwise you’ll fall behind.
Similar to TikTok, Instagram has a Reels channel where you can browse Reels from all types of Instagram users. It’s one of the best ways to discover new people and reach people you would have never reached before.

How can you go viral on Reels?
Use trending and viral sounds. Sounds that are currently trending on Instagram will have the greatest impact for your content! When browsing Reels, click on the music icon in the bottom left corner. There you’ll see how often the track has been used in videos, and you can save it for later. Viral and trending tracks will ensure greater engagement because Instagram pushes these videos similar to TikTok!
Add captions! Just like in Instagram Stories, add captions to Reels so that people who like to watch videos on social networks with sound muted or are hearing impaired can still understand what’s happening in the published video.
Use hashtags and specific keywords that describe the video! When creating any content on Instagram, using very relevant and specific hashtags will increase interest in your content among more and more people. Similarly, Instagram now scans posts by keywords, so optimizing captions with specific keywords will help your post get indexed and pushed to the right people who will see your content.
Optimize Your Account
If you want to learn all the details about optimizing your account, we’ve created an entire blog where we break down how to do it. However, account optimization is key when it comes to gaining new Instagram followers in 2026!
Recently Instagram released a new update where English-speaking users in 6 countries can now search on Instagram using keywords. That’s why it’s incredibly important that you optimize your captions and Instagram bio!
Hashtags, hashtags, hashtags.
Just like using specific keywords and optimizing your bio and captions is incredibly important, it’s essential to make sure you’re using the most relevant hashtags for indexing your posts.
Hashtags are still one of the most powerful tools on Instagram and should always be used. The more hashtags you use, the more people you’ll reach – but through meaningful, curated hashtags. How can you find them?
Start a free seven-day trial of Flick and we’ll help you find the best hashtags for your account – and we’ll even offer you suggested hashtags that will work with your account once you start saving and creating hashtags into Collections.
Cross-promotion and collaboration with others
Speaking of collaborating with others, really use Instagram’s Collab tool and cross-promote your Instagram! One of the newest features Instagram has released is the Collab tool, where you (or another user!) can create a joint post that, after approval, will be shared on BOTH Instagram accounts. Thanks to this feature, your content will appear to both your followers and the followers of the person you collaborated with.
Win-win for everyone.
Post consistently
While this may seem obvious, people definitely don’t use it often enough. When it comes to growing your account, consistent posting is key. When you post on a schedule, people will start seeing your content more and more, engage with it, and from there you can grow quite a bit thanks to this consistency.
Make sure you’re posting quality content (don’t just post any rubbish just to post it!), and you’ll see your followers grow massively!
Run a giveaway
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to gain new followers, running giveaways on Instagram is one of the best ways to do it.
When creating a giveaway, don’t forget to provide very specific instructions and rules that you set out to ensure people will follow you to participate. That will be the best way to increase your followers!
Another great thing you can do is collaborate with another Instagram user on your giveaway.



Michal Záruba je specialista na digitální marketing a konzultant v oblasti sociálních médií a SEO. Více než 8 let pomáhá značkám růst online prostřednictvím strategického obsahu, optimalizace pro vyhledávače a efektivní komunikace na platformách jako LinkedIn, Instagram a YouTube.
Na svém blogu sdílí praktické tipy o tom, jak propojit SEO, sociální sítě a brand building do jedné funkční strategie. Zaměřuje se na to, jak firmy mohou využít moderní nástroje a algoritmy k tomu, aby jejich značka nezískala jen dosah, ale i důvěru.
Když zrovna netvoří obsah, přednáší o digitálním marketingu, školí týmy a sleduje nové trendy v AI a vyhledávání.