Guide: How to Get Followers on Instagram

Guide: How to Get Followers on Instagram

Instagram is tough, but you probably already know that if you’ve gotten into it. Because it doesn’t support sharing, it limits the spread of content between accounts and thus the chances of discovering other interesting or useful accounts to follow. Hashtags, practically the only decent and controllable tool for discovery, are somewhat problematic, especially in our small “Czech” pond. The influence of Facebook in the form of eliminating chronological feeds and limiting reach doesn’t help either.

What should you do on Instagram to gain followers? And what else should you know in this context?

Hashtags, hashtags, and hashtags are the first and most essential thing you need to start with. If you don’t add them to a post immediately upon creation, forget about that post having any chance of being discovered (no, adding them as additional comments later really isn’t enough). A post without the necessary hashtags will only be seen by a fraction of your existing followers, and that won’t bring you new ones.

Hashtags are covered mainly in How to find the right hashtags for your Instagram posts. A complete guide — and note that English hashtags attract many foreign users (as well as Czech users), while Czech hashtags will only attract Czech users, but with weak results. Don’t skip hashtags in Stories either.

Choose the right language for your posts and consider posting in multiple languages. It all depends on whether you really want to stick to Czech and Czech fans, or whether you simply want the largest numbers possible and don’t mind followers from around the world.

Choose your account name, username, and account description (bio) wisely so that people can find you properly. These are the only places where regular text is searched. Instagram does not search post texts or comments for text, only for the presence of hashtags. Discoverability is important.

Tools to support your Instagram can also be found here

Use Stories and use them a lot — don’t be afraid of them at all. How they work is explained in How to use Instagram Stories and don’t be put off by the fact that things disappear from Stories after 24 hours. You can still turn them into permanent posts, but it probably won’t be necessary. What matters is that Instagram itself loves Stories and gives them preferential treatment, so you have a better chance of getting into recommended content. Plus, young users love them.

Connect with other people, accounts, and influencers and help each other out. Through liking, commenting, mentions, and resharing content. You’ll find What is an Instagram Comment Pod (Insta Pod)? How to beat restrictive algorithms? useful here, as well as Is it legal to use Repost? What’s the deal with sharing other people’s photos?

Show yourself. Even better, show your own face. You may be surprised, but a post featuring a face generates tens of percent more engagement. Beyond just your face, this also means showing yourself as a whole.

Make use of content from your customers or users, share their stories and feedback, give them the chance to be seen. Especially those who have Instagram accounts — they’ll reward you with even more visibility.

Dive into live broadcasting. Instagram Live is found as part of Stories and, just as with Stories, Instagram favors live broadcasts. It gives preferential treatment to accounts that use this feature.

Tag accounts and add geolocation (tag locations), because that is the only way you can let a brand, company, or personality know that you have a post related to them. Geolocation doesn’t help that much, but it’s still good to use it. Don’t forget to tag other accounts directly in photos as well as in accompanying texts and comments. Stories also allow tagging, so don’t underestimate this either. However, when tagging accounts, make sure it is not unnecessary or too frequent.

Tools to support your Instagram can also be found here

Use your followers to tag, ask them to tag their friends and attract them to some content. But don’t do it often, and when you do, it has to make sense.

Switch your account to business mode, this will give you access to basic analytical information and you can find out how your posts are performing and what sociodemographics your users have. You will also find out when your followers are online and can try to adjust the days and times when you post. But don’t overdo it, as the algorithmic timeline works quite against that. It may help to read When is the best time to publish posts on social networks (and also blogs and websites)? and How does scheduled publishing of posts on Instagram work. Later, Buffer and the others

Hold contests, give things away, if you are looking for a short-term boost in engagement. As with all contests, however, be aware that this way you won’t gain relevant and quality fans. Here you will find useful reading in What is the contest mafia on Facebook? And what to watch out for when organizing contests?

Comment and like on other people’s posts if it makes sense, if you can add some value or help. It won’t have a dramatic effect, but it is definitely another way to get yourself noticed. Don’t overdo it, because this can also harm you.

Show your Instagram in other media. Share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, VKontakte. Transfer selected photos to a blog. Here, remember that Instagram itself can handle some of the cross-posting (Facebook, Tumblr and VKontakte, for example), and for others it is worth (or necessary) to use something like IFTTT. See here How to get a photo from Instagram to Twitter so it is visible? and similarly you can send posts from Instagram to your blog using a hashtag (e.g. #blog).

Use content that your fans want to see. Content they will also react to. Don’t count too much on commenting, but a large number of likes (hearts) is useful — algorithms love accounts with active posts. You can pay attention to copywriting, but visuals are what matter most. Adapt everything to your target audience — young people love emojis, while older users are less familiar with them.

Pay for post reach if you have enough money and find it acceptable. However, this should be the very last option, which you should only pursue if what you are doing on Instagram is truly a business.

Tools to support your Instagram can also be found here

If you want results right away, you can get Instagram followers right now.