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 surpassed the magic threshold of 1 billion monthly active users. The number of users is constantly growing while the space available for each of them on this platform is shrinking. How can you achieve greater visibility for 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 that, just like internet search engines, has its own algorithm. Getting your posts to appear to a wider audience has long since stopped being as simple as it once was.

(Tip: Read about how the Instagram algorithm works). Just as websites are optimized for search engines to appear as high as possible in the SERP, your Instagram profile can also be optimized to be more easily discoverable by other users. Will Instagram become a giant similar to Google? Perhaps now is the right time to ask that question. Growing followers organically is hard work and it won’t be entirely free. It will likely take more effort than running a paid ad. And if not effort, then at least time. Remember, however, that organic followers (those you gain without paid support – we’ll call them that for the purposes of this article) tend to be far 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 worth knowing the answers to the following questions.

1. What is my purpose for gaining new followers?

There can be countless reasons, for example:

• I run an online store and want to promote my products through Instagram.
• I’m a blogger and want to have more paid collaborations.
• I’m an influencer and want to have a greater impact.
• I made a bet with a friend that I’d have 500 followers before they do.

2. What type of followers might find my profile interesting?

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

3. What reasons might these people have to start following you?

What (ideally unique) value do you offer them? Why should they give their follow to you specifically? Here are a few more examples.

I want to:

• inform potential customers that a new collection has arrived in the online store,
• share tips on the best cafés in Prague,
• inspire others with my fitness routine and motivate them to start working on themselves.

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

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

Your name (Instagram name) can be compared to a top-level heading (H1). Yes, your (Instagram) name and username are not the same thing, even though they serve a similar function when searching on Instagram. If someone were looking for me by the name of my blog or my full name, my profile would appear in the results. Returning to the original example of searching for the phrase social media on Instagram, you can see in the photo below what other profiles would appear (notice the dark blue underlining). These profiles have the mentioned field, or rather the keyword social media, in their name. Moreover, if a user types your name or your company into Google, a link to your Instagram profile may also appear among the search results.

Your Instagram name is what appears in search results. Think about what names / phrases / fields people might use to search for your profile on Instagram. Think of Instagram as another possible search engine. Use separator characters and include multiple keywords in your name. Instagram @username (username) is like your domain. Your Instagram username is the username that appears after the @ sign. Your username serves as your most important keyword, by which you want people to primarily find you. It is essentially your domain. Think about good searchability of your profile and adjust your Instagram @username accordingly. Avoid over-generalization. For example, companies should keep their brand names, as users will most likely search for them by those names on Instagram.

Without good content, it won’t work — and on Instagram especially. The shared photo is the first (and often the last) thing users lay eyes on. The photo must be engaging enough for them to read its caption and then visit your profile. Your profile must be equally captivating so that users decide to follow you. From your feed, it should be clear what kind of content people can expect from you. It 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 capture attention with your feed. Be recognizable. Ideally, use the same preset or filter on all your photos. Post regularly. There’s no need to overdo it — less frequent but high-quality posts are better. Share consistently. You shouldn’t stray too far from your topic. Your followers expect a certain type of content from you. And if you’ve been sharing motorcycles up until now and suddenly your profile is full of puppies, they’d probably be surprised.

Don’t underestimate “insights” — Instagram may not provide extensive analytics of posts or profiles, but for our purposes, they are perfectly sufficient. Analytical data (found on Instagram under the name “insights”) is only available if you have your profile set to business profile mode.

You can find your profile insights on Instagram by following the instructions in the photo. Each individual Instagram post also offers its own insights, where you can get data related to that specific post (e.g., what reach it had, how many people visited your profile through it, how many people then clicked through to your website, etc.). The work of a social media specialist is quite analytical. (I also wrote about this on my blog in the article What Does the Work of a Social Media Manager Involve.) It is necessary to constantly evaluate what type of content your followers responded to best and which is most interesting to them. Monitor which shared posts had the greatest reach and impressions (reached the most people), and 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 are most online.

Alt texts (image optimization) — now on Instagram too. If you have at least some experience in the field of SEO, you have certainly come across the term alt text. A search engine (or rather a robot) cannot “crawl” images, but it can read alt attributes. It is necessary to enter a keyword in the image name and alt tag so that the robot can find the relevant image for a given keyword. Alt texts, in addition to their SEO function, also serve an informational function. If you have a weak internet connection and images cannot be loaded, alt texts are displayed instead. In addition to the functions mentioned, they also serve the visually impaired. Special readers read out to them not only the article itself but also what is depicted in the photos. Alt text should now be of interest to all social media specialists or those who want to stand out on social media. On both Instagram and Facebook, it is now possible to add alt text to photos. According to an official statement, it serves the visually impaired.

Personally, however, I believe (and this is confirmed by many foreign sources) that it also serves other important functions. Alt text helps Instagram’s algorithm understand what is in the photo. Instagram uses technology to recognize what is in your photograph. As a result, your post will be shown to more users who have expressed interest in this type of content. (This is also why relevant photos are recommended to you even if they don’t have hashtags in the caption.) With alt text, your post can be even more powerful and easier for Instagram’s algorithm to “decode”. This means your post will reach more people organically. Alt text also allows your photo to appear on Google. Just as a bot crawls alt texts in images on websites, it can also crawl alt texts in Instagram posts. So if someone types “blueberry cheesecake recipe” into Google’s search engine and you have it in the alt text of your Instagram post, your Instagram post may appear in Google Images. How do you fill in alt texts on Instagram? If you are sharing a brand new photo, you fill it in 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, simply edit it – see photo on the left. Thanks to alt texts, people with visual impairments can find out what is depicted in the photos using a special reader. Instagram’s algorithm can more easily recognize what is in your photo and recommend it to relevant users. Your Instagram photos containing alt texts will also be findable on Google.

Two heads are better than one Find a partner who focuses on a similar niche to yours. For businesses, this is essentially influencer marketing (a combination of a brand and an influencer who share a common niche).

For individuals, I think of “combined partnerships” or perhaps friendships? Online creators are not afraid to reference each other’s work and support one another. They go out together to take photos, link to each other’s blogs, and create videos. Connect with those who focus on the same or similar market niche.

Don’t hide in the corner, or no one will find you. If you simply share photos and wait for followers to find you on their own, it won’t work. Instagram is a social network, not a gallery of pretty photos, which means not only responding to comments under your photos and replying to messages.

The ideal way to get your Instagram profile noticed is to actively like and comment on other people’s profiles. Compliment that girl on her great figure, a beautifully photographed dessert, or a photo at the Eiffel Tower. Thank someone for a travel tip, don’t be afraid to follow someone, react to other people’s stories. Always respond to comments and direct messages (obviously, not the harassing or spammy ones). Like and comment on other people’s posts. Don’t hold back on compliments. Don’t be afraid to follow someone.

Sharing is caring. Did you enjoy someone’s article? Does someone’s Instagram profile inspire you? Share and link to other people’s content and profiles – especially in your Instagram Stories. A new feature allows you to repost other people’s stories if they tag you in them. There is therefore a high probability that the person you tag in it will reshare it to their Instastory. Your profile can then be discovered by someone new. You can of course also link to other people’s content and profiles in post captions or in articles on your website. Make use of this option! Don’t be afraid to flatter someone’s ego! Link to other accounts in Instastories, in social media posts, or on your website. Don’t forget to tag the person.

Hashtag is the king There go those hashtags again – a buzzword that half of people can’t stand. Unfortunately, they are precisely what matters for gaining new organic followers. They can be compared to keywords, which are mainly used in the field of SEO. People can search on Instagram based on hashtags. At the same time, Instagram monitors which hashtags you use in your posts and then shows photos 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 groups. Hashtags come in different types and serve different purposes: Industry Tags – the broadest hashtags that place your photo into the appropriate category, through which users can discover photos or profiles (#Restaurant, #Blogger, #Digitalmarketing, #SEOagentura). Niche Tags – these hashtags place 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.

They can be the name of your company, your blog, campaign, etc. At eVisions, for example, we use the following: #Copypes (an important member of our team who participates in all copy training sessions), #SEObakers (we don’t just bake in online marketing, but also in the kitchen), #klucizeVisions (so that the ladies can filter out what handsome and talented guys we have on the team). Community Tags – thanks to them, you become part of a closer community of people. Community profiles then usually reshare the best photos on their account (#travelawesome #dnescestujem #bloggersre). Location Tags – think globally, act locally! Don’t forget to add hashtags for the location of the given 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 will be able to share posts and find others at the same time. If you are a participant in the 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 will find out how many people saw the photo thanks to hashtags. Hashtags are key to gaining organic followers. Hashtags are not evil – thanks to them, social media is “organized”. Combine different types of hashtags for optimal results. Analyze which hashtags reached the most people.

Don’t waste a single field! Before sharing a photo, remember to fill in all the fields you can. In particular: location, tags (tag profiles of people, places, businesses, communities, etc. – they may reshare your photos), captions, hashtags. Always fill in the location of the given photo. People often search for posts at specific locations to get inspired for creating their own photos. Tag other profiles in your photos (relevant ones, of course!). That means profiles of places, events, communities, etc.

Where the devil can’t go, send Instagram instead If you have a website, don’t forget to embed your Instagram profile on your pages and invite people to follow you. Tell people what you want them to do! When writing an article, use the option to embed an Instagram post. This increases the chance that readers will click through to your profile. If they are interested, you’ve won. Of course, don’t forget about multichannel. Link to your profile in email marketing and on your profiles on other social networks. Don’t neglect offline channels either (especially if you have a brick-and-mortar store, organize training sessions, speak at lectures, etc.) Link to your Instagram profile on other social networks and on your website. Make use of multichannel.

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