Guide: How to Get Instagram Followers

Guide: How to Get Followers on Instagram

Instagram is difficult, but you probably already know that if you’ve started using it. Since it doesn’t allow 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 discovery tool, are somewhat problematic, especially in our small “Czech” pond. The influence of Facebook in the form of eliminating chronological feed and limiting reach doesn’t help either.

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

Hashtags, hashtags and more hashtags is the first and fundamental thing you must start with. If you don’t add them to your post immediately when creating it, forget about the post having a chance of being discovered (no, really, adding them as later comments won’t work). A post without the necessary hashtags will only be seen by a fraction of your followers and won’t bring you new ones.

Hashtags are covered mainly in How to Find the Necessary Hashtags for Instagram Posts. Complete Guide and note that English hashtags bring a lot of foreigners (and also Czech users), Czech hashtags will only bring Czech users, but it will be weak. Don’t forget hashtags in Stories either.

Choose the right language for your posts and maybe consider posts in multiple languages. However, it will all depend on whether you really want to stick to Czech and Czech fans, or if you just want the biggest numbers and don’t mind fans from all over the world.

Choose your account name, nickname and account description (bio) correctly so people can find you properly. These are the only places where classic text search works. Instagram does not search post texts or comments for text, only for hashtag occurrences. Discoverability is important.

You can also find tools to support your Instagram here

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

Connect with other people, accounts, influencers and help each other. Through likes, comments, mentions, sharing content. Here you will find What is an Instagram Comment Pod (Insta Pod)? How to Beat Limiting Algorithms? and also Is it Legal to Use Repost on Instagram? What About Sharing Other People’s Photos?

Show yourself. Even better show your own face. You might be surprised, but a post with a face generates dozens of percent more engagement. Beyond your face, it also means yourself as a whole.

Use content from your customers or users, showcase their stories, feedback, give them a chance to be seen. Preferably those who have Instagram accounts, they will reward you with additional visibility.

Dive into live broadcasting. Instagram Live can be found as part of Stories and just like with them, Instagram also favors live broadcasting here. It will benefit accounts that use this feature.

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

You can also find tools to support your Instagram here

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

Switch your account to business mode, you’ll get access to basic analytical information and can thus find out how posts are performing and what the sociodemographics of your users are. You’ll also find out when your followers are online and can try to adjust the days and times when you post. Don’t overdo it though, the algorithmic timeline goes quite against it. It can help When is the best time to publish posts on social networks (but also on blogs and websites)? and How does scheduled posting work on Instagram. Later, Buffer and the others

Run contests, give away, if you’re after short-term increase in engagement. But like with all contests, be careful that this way you won’t get relevant and quality fans. Here you’ll find useful What is contest mafia on Facebook? And what to watch out for when running contests?

Comment and like on other people’s posts if it makes sense, if you can add some value, help. It won’t have a dramatic effect, but it’s definitely another way to increase your visibility. Don’t overdo it, because this can hurt you.

Show your Instagram on other media. Share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, VKontakte. Transfer selected photos to your blog. Don’t forget here that Instagram itself can do some of the sharing to other places (Facebook, Tumblr and VKontakte for example), for others it’s worth it (or necessary) to use something like IFTTT. See How to get a photo from Instagram to Twitter so it’s visible? and similarly you can send posts from Instagram to your blog using a hashtag (for example #blog).

Use content that your fans want to see. Content that 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 the visual is what matters. Customize everything to your target audience, for example, young people love emojis, older people don’t understand them.

Pay for post reach if you have enough money and think it’s acceptable. But it’s the very last option you should only go with if what you’re doing on Instagram is really business.

You can also find tools to support your Instagram here