Instagram is now one of the largest platforms for influencers, marketers, travelers, and has a huge audience. Being one of the most popular social media sites it has more than 200 million active followers. For every service business and influencer to grow its social media presence, they need to learn how to increase followers on Instagram organically. More audience will bring more opportunities to engage with people.
The engagement rates of Instagram are much higher than other similar platforms. That’s it now starts widely used for advertisement of brands and companies. They however take the easy path to grow following and spend money for this purpose. These shortcuts are not worthy as low-quality interactions provide fewer engagements. So it is recommended to get the organic following.
To grow your business you need to get followers that show interest in your products, provide engagement, and buy products. For example, if the account has followers that lie outside its sale area or country, it is of no good. Prefer to grow slowly by maintaining a presence with quality posts and pages.
Account Optimization:
The first thing to do after setting an Instagram account is to optimize it. In this way, you are giving your whole information to your followers. A proper user name, brand bio, captions, hashtags, etc will provide an overview of what you are. Your account bio is just like your address. Provide a link in your bio to drive Insta traffic to your site.
Try a user-friendly business name that is shorter and easy to remember. Use the same username on all the social media platforms. In this way, you are increasing your social footprint.
Decide where you want traffic either on post, homepage, or website. Go with the strategy and take people to that place. Follow similar hashtags, interact with people there, and drive them to your place.
Define Target Audience:
The target audience is those people who you want to interact with. Keep on asking yourself about how old should be the people that are relevant for you or your brand.
For example, you are a clothing brand that sells clothes of children below 6-8 years and have service available in only a specific country or city. Your target audience must be parents with ages more than 20 years living in that area. Take an idea when they usually use Instagram. Maybe in the evenings, at night before sleep, or during weekends. Try to posts during these specific times.
Moreover, discuss with yourself about their pain points. They need a package of trousers & socks or they just need single items. Try to offer both in a range of colors.
Once you answer these questions about your followers, it becomes easy to select all other things. You become aware of timings, post colors, styles, offers, etc. So take your time and select things wisely to interact with most of your audience.
Be Regular:
Being regular is the one characteristic that can bring success in any case. However, on Instagram to grow your account it is really important to be in time with your posts. This is because nowadays social media users have so much to get engaged. If you are not providing them with regular posts someone else will do and get their attention.
Many Instagrammers do haphazard and random posts which are not good. Usually, brands prefer to post only a few times a day. In this way, they give their followers time to absorb their posts. Some people follow the strategy of sitting some time in a week and do all the postings which are never recommended. If this is the case you must make a calendar to do posting and put scheduled posts. So your Instagram account gets a schedule for a week which includes time and date to post. This schedule will surely provide you enough benefits.
Use Creative & Dedicated Hashtags:
On Instagram, people follow hashtags. Hashtags are the popular words people use after # to give a specific niche to the post. Use specific hashtags related to your products, services, or yourself. In this way, people following those hashtags will start getting your posts.
Moreover, make your dedicated hashtag of your product or brand. Emphasize it to get more followers for that too.
Use hashtags in between captions. Make them interactive and funny to attract followers. Make such an impression that people love to see your post and spend a good time on your account.
Select Time of Posting:
Timing to share posts is one of the key factors to increase engagement and eventually followers. Nowadays social media platforms are so busy that just a difference of minutes can put your post out of the newsfeed of users. That’s why it is better to post when there is a possibility of more people using Instagram. For example, in the evening, at night, weekends, etc.
Again judge the behavior of your followers and schedule posts accordingly. Try this and you can feel the difference in reach and engagement levels. You can also do this by a hit and try the method. Do posting on various times and check the results. Stick to the time that gives the best results.
Use Popular Conversation Platforms to Grow:
To grow your Instagram account use different platforms such as blogs, comments, conversations, etc. In this way, you are making it easy for other people to find you. Just like advertisements, using different platforms to present your self provides you an extra benefit.
Some people have a good following on other social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, etc. It is a better option to market the Insta account there to get followers. Share the link of Insta ID on those networks.
Another way to increase social presence to get notified is to participate in popular conversation platforms like Quora, Reddit, etc. Influence people there and in between conversations provide your Insta address. It is a good way to grow organically.
If you or your friend have a blog, write about yourself a blog and use it to market your Insta account.
Use Insta Account In Every Description on Social Media:
If you have accounts on multiple social media platforms, try to interlink them. By adding details of Insta account on the account description of other platforms, you can drive followers to Instagram.
The followers on one platform will love to follow on others too if he is enjoying you and your posts. So try to maintain engagement level on each platform.
Interact & Engage with People:
To put your liking in people’s minds you must have to interact with them. Engage them by providing quality content and try to indulge yourself in conversation with your followers. Try to do the following things:
- Reply comments from the followers
- Engaging posts that start conversations
- Get ideas from the followers by providing them options in your mind
- Put some rewards for them too. Maybe a gift hamper, or discount, etc
- For influencers, plan a meet up with followers
Your followers should be everything to you. Never disappoint them, interact with them, make their time on Instagram better by providing them content.
Develop Your Style:
People usually prefer to copy styles from bigger brands. This is not a recommended thing to do. It is better to make your style of designing and posting.
With time people will start noticing it. Choose color and design by keeping in mind of your product and customers/followers. For example for baby products, you must use colors that are in line with the colors that are funky, bright, etc. Similarly to market office furniture and products, the design must be soberer and decent.
Select accordingly to make an impression.
Put Daily Instagram Stories:
Instagram stories are small posts people love to watch daily on a singular go. Putting daily stories is a good way to engage followers. These stories will remain there in a feed for 24 hours.
As the stories can provide a lot of engagements and direct sales, it is important to put a good number of daily stories. You can put package and sale offers in the stories.
Use Videos & Live Videos:
Videos on Instagram have much better reach when compared to images. So prefer small engaging videos and post them regularly.
Another thing that can provide much better reach than another option is live videos with other people. Come in group live session with maybe followers or other people with other brands to discuss products, issues, and suggestions.
Try live sessions at least once a week and check results.
Tag Others & Get Tagged by Them:
Connect with different people and brands. Tag them in your posts and get tagged by them in theirs. Make sure that they can provide you with quality followers having similar interests. Make combined deals, for example, anyone who buys one thing from your platform can be able to get 50 % off on another platform you made a deal with.
Work & Collaborate with Influencers:
Another way to get recognized is to collaborate with influencers around you. Influencers are those having millions of followers. Anything recommended by them gets recognized in the market in no time.
However, many influencers take a lot of money to shout out. Either try to build a link or find a link to them or try smaller influencers.
Smaller influencers are better as they are just starting and want to show themselves as an influencer. Many times they usually give initial shout outs for free to enter the market. Find some of them and have a collaboration.