Get More Instagram Followers With These 9 Tips:
Get more Instagram followers with these 9 tips. Instagram has become a cornerstone of many brands’ social presence, driving profitable traffic to landing pages, growing conversions, and building an engaged audience.
If your Instagram presence isn’t as strong as you’re hoping, it may be time to learn how to sharpen your strategies for gaining real, organic Instagram followers. The larger your audience grows, the more opportunities you have to engage with users and create unique experiences for them.
9 Ways to Increase Your Instagram Followers
1. Optimize Your Instagram Account
Before you set out on how to gain followers on Instagram, one of the most important steps is to have your account fully optimized. Think of your brand’s Instagram bio as the “homepage” of your account.
How will people know the account belongs to your brand without a bio, image captions, a proper username, or a profile image? It may seem obvious, but on Instagram your bio and image help form the foundations of your brand identity. The link in your bio is your one opportunity to drive Instagram traffic to your website, so optimizing your account is essential.
If you’re unsure where to link, try marketing or product pages related to specific keywords, hashtags, or campaigns on your Instagram account. Linking to your homepage is fine — but why not give users a cohesive experience when moving from your bio to your website? This has led to the popularity of IG link landing pages that host relevant links to the several most recent pieces of content mentioned in a brand’s feed, and “link in bio” posts that help direct viewers to those links.
Additionally, keep your username as search-friendly as possible, which usually means sticking close to your actual brand name. If your business name is longer, shorten it to something your audience would recognize. Don’t add numbers or special characters to your username, and if possible, keep it consistent with other social media handles you already have.
2. Keep a Consistent Content Calendar
The worst thing you can do when trying to gain Instagram followers is to post content at random, irregular times. If you’re lucky enough to get users to follow you initially, you don’t want to make them forget they followed you.
To combat this, keep to a regular posting schedule. Brands generally shouldn’t post more than a few times a day to avoid spamming, but whatever your cadence, keep it consistent. Approximately 200 million Instagram users log on daily, so if you want to cast your net even wider, try publishing a few times throughout the day.
In fact, our own research on the best times to post on Instagram identifies the best posting times for multiple industries, or you can follow our survey of the best times across all subject areas below:
Sticking to a schedule will help you build a consistent experience for your followers and keep them informed about your brand. But if you’re wondering how you’ll remember to publish at these various times of day, we’ve got you covered with Sprout’s scheduling and optimal times features — read on for more details.
3. Schedule Your Instagram Posts in Advance
Although the Instagram algorithm has changed to show users more content they like, posting at the right time can still give your posts more visibility by increasing the overall engagement they receive.
Your brand can do a lot to boost visibility, and now at Sprout Social, scheduling Instagram content is one of them. With our latest tools, we can help your brand plan content through an easy process.
If you plan your content in advance, your entire team will see campaigns and plans more effectively. Creating content in advance is always smart, and with our Instagram scheduling tools, you can reach your audience while maintaining a consistent flow of content.
You can also use Sprout’s patented ViralPost feature and let us do the work for you. ViralPost analyzes your own account’s engagement history and determines the optimal time for you to algorithmically post content.Refine your Instagram content plan with Sprout Social
In addition to planning the full picture of your Instagram content calendar, Sprout offers even more features to refine your brand’s feed.
Share IG-approved visuals with your team using our Asset Library, or try our grid preview feature to make sure every aspect of your presence matches your brand style.
4. Get partners and brand advocates to post your content
When learning how to get more followers on Instagram, it’s important to know the value of your audience. The larger your follower count grows (organically), the more interested buyers and customers you will have.
The best way to get customers to follow you is to get in front of them and be present. It’s essential to be present on your own Instagram as well as others. Try sponsoring user-generated content to get your brand into customers’ feeds. You can also host Instagram contests to get your brand in front of a wider audience. These types of campaigns create social proof by showing that your fans are invested enough to repost your content or create their own UGC.
Another way is to get your brand in front of a much larger audience. Try working with larger Instagram accounts in your industry, such as notable influencers in your space, and share your content with their audience.
Just make sure you’re providing something of value. The last thing you want to do is come across as too salesy. Find marketing collaborations and co-marketing plans with other businesses to win over your Instagram audience.
5. Showcase your Instagram everywhere
How will people find your account if you’re not promoting your Instagram? Make sure your Instagram account is listed on your website and other social networks.
One of the best ways to get discovered is by creating visibility and awareness. If you really want to gain more Instagram followers, let people know where they can find you. You can add social media buttons to your website and blog to help promote social sharing across all your networks and also show people where to find you on Instagram.
Another great idea is cross-promotion across your social media accounts. The Museum of Modern Art regularly spreads awareness of its Instagram through Twitter. You can easily leverage your other social networks to redirect users to your Instagram.
Make sure, however, that you’re not just asking for follows. Instead, you should try to promote unique content on your Instagram so users have a reason to follow you there. Fortunately, with Instagram adding lots of new content and video features such as Stories, IGTV, and Reels, you have a great opportunity to build a following through creative content.
6. Post what your followers want
While easier said than done, it’s smart to figure out what content your followers want to see. On Instagram, you’ll quickly discover that some content performs better than others. That’s why testing is so important.
Whether it’s filters, captions, content types, or posting times, the smallest details can make a difference. Keep your ear to the ground with new Instagram trends to make sure you’re posting popular content.
To take your analysis a step further, your brand should invest in Instagram analytics tools. This will make it easier to track, benchmark, and analyze Instagram content across accounts.
Try out different filters, captions, and more, and put your content strategy to the test to find out what works best with your audience. If you’re not sure where to start, try analyzing your competitors.
You shouldn’t directly copy your competitors, but it’s smart to take notes on what they do or post content that drives engagement. A little competitive research can go a long way. Using our Instagram competitors overview, you can find out what works for other brands in your industry.
7. Start a conversation
One of the best ways to make users aware of your Instagram is through conversation. According to the Sprout Social Index 2020, consumers want to engage with visual content such as photos (68%) and video (50%), followed by 30% who want to engage with text-based posts. Instagram fits this audience profile perfectly, as it combines engaging visuals with captions that can be equally compelling once you refine your Instagram copywriting skills.
People continue to use social media as their go-to reference point for brands, whether it’s casual inquiries and off-the-cuff chat, serious customer service questions, or praise for their favorite brands and products. And for your business, you need to be supportive and communicative on Instagram.
Try to respond to as many questions or comments as possible, as it could make the difference between gaining a new customer, a new follower, or improving your relationship with your audience. Our Index research also showed that 89% of consumers will buy from a brand after following them on social media, so it’s important to earn the attention and loyalty needed to turn a profile visitor into a follower.
8. Find hashtags that convert
One of the most proven ways to gain followers on Instagram is through hashtags. Hashtags have served as a fundamental discovery tool for years, allowing us to expand our social reach. As a marketer, you want to build your community by gaining followers, and hashtags provide exactly that.
For starters, find hashtags that aren’t too crowded. Social Media Examiner illustrates this theory by explaining how the hashtag #love has more than 184 million photos attached to it. Trying to make your Instagram content stand out in a sea of millions of images and videos is no easy feat.
You need to find hashtags that people in your target audience are more likely to check. If a relevant connection is made, those users are likely to follow your account. Unique branded hashtags are one way to group posts around content that is highly relevant to your brand and campaigns.
For example, M&Ms does a great job of targeting hashtags around events they participate in. By using hashtags like #mmspotlight, the brand targets its audience more precisely where the spotlight concert event is taking place, creating awareness.
Understanding how your hashtags perform on Instagram is just as important as using them. And with Sprout Social’s hashtag analytics tools, you have direct access to hashtag performance and usage data to find out what works best.
Don’t go blindly into the world of hashtags — know what you’re tagging so you can build your following.
9. Delight your Instagram followers
Last but not least, when you delight your Instagram fans, you’ll see the benefits in audience growth. We’ve given you plenty of tips for brainstorming and planning content, so you can put them into practice in a way that feels authentic to your brand voice.
For many accounts, this means sprinkling in posts that are genuinely designed to bring a smile to followers’ faces and build customer relationships. Remember to provide your followers with content as if they were friends in your personal life: this can include posting memes, inspirational content, or simply resharing interesting photos or artwork (all properly credited, of course) that can give your followers a little mental pick-me-up during the day.
You can also find Instagram growth tools here >>
Michal Záruba is a digital marketing specialist and a consultant in social media and SEO. For more than 8 years, Michal has been helping brands grow online through strategic content, search engine optimisation and effective communication on platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
On the blog, Michal shares practical tips on how to combine SEO, social media and brand building into one working strategy, focusing on how companies can use modern tools and algorithms so that their brand gains not only reach but also trust.
Alongside creating content, Michal lectures on digital marketing, trains teams and follows new trends in AI and search.