Getting more followers on Instagram is a great way to expand your clientele and grow your business. There are multiple strategies for growing your Instagram audience, some organic and some paid. We will share our top 11 secrets for increasing your Instagram followers!
Schedule Posts
Posting consistently does two things: it makes your content visible more often to more people (potential followers!), and it helps to establish you as an authority in your field. When you post consistent content, people feel like they can rely on you, and they look forward to seeing what beneficial content your next post will contain.
Post Valuable Content
Going hand in hand with posting consistently is making sure that you are posting quality content. Don’t just post to meet your quota for the day! Think about who your ideal client is, what problems they might have, and how you and your business can help them to solve those problems.
Instagram is a great platform for creating free content such as graphics, quizzes, and tutorials that keeps followers coming back for more. You can also use the Instagram Guides feature to share recommendations and tips and to establish your account as a professional resource for a specific topic.
Use Keywords
Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users. That means that there are thousands upon thousands of potential clients on Instagram! The key is to make it easy for them to find you. One straightforward way to simplify the search process is by using your profile to advertise your services to anyone who might be looking.
Instead of just relying on hashtags to find what you’re looking for, Instagram has now made it so that information is searchable by keywords. Make sure you use keywords that describe your business and services in your profile as well as in your posted content, and don’t forget to link your website in your bio!
BONUS TIP: Use the Highlights section of your profile to show users what your account is all about, as well as to share any valuable insights or knowledge that can help to demonstrate your expertise.
Use Hashtags the Right Way
Just because keyword searching is now a thing doesn’t make hashtags irrelevant! The key to using hashtags effectively is to make them specific to your content.
If, for example, you are a personal trainer looking for new clients, using a generalized hashtag such as “#fitness” will put your content up against literally millions of posts, making it pretty difficult for someone to find your account amidst the veritable sea of other “#fitness” posts.
To create a more productive hashtag, look at what hashtags other businesses in your industry are using. You obviously don’t want to copy them, but getting an idea of how your competitors are advertising content is a great way to start brainstorming your own hashtags.
Think about exactly what it is that your business offers that makes it stand out from the rest, and use that specificity in your hashtags. You don’t want to be too specific, or no one will ever find you. In the example of the personal trainer, you want to find that middle ground between the ever-popular “#fitness” and the much too limited “#weightliftingfornewmoms.” Maybe a nice “#weightliftingforwomen”?
You can also combine both niche and more generalized hashtags to get the best of both worlds. Instagram will allow you to create up to 30 hashtags per post, but you will want to avoid using the same hashtags over and over again. In order to keep from creating what Instagram will consider spam content, work to create a few sets of unique hashtags that can be used on different posts at different times, and continue to research new hashtags as your account grows!
Engage With Your Audience
In order to effectively engage with your audience, you need to know them. One simple way to better understand your audience is to follow the hashtags that they follow. Following the same hashtags as your audience makes it easy to engage with them. Simply find posts that you resonate with and comment on and share them in your stories.
You also want to be responsive to comments that are made on your own posts. Answer people’s questions either in the comments section or in your Stories, and ask and share audience answers to your questions in your Stories.
Sponsor Giveaways and Contests
Everyone loves a good contest and the chance to win a fun prize. In order to sponsor a successful giveaway or contest, you need to make the prize something that your audience actually wants! The prize can be anything, a copy of your book, a discount for your course, or a coupon for a product or service that you offer.
In order to gain more followers through giveaways or contests, you can ask participants to like and share your content, and to tag, a certain number of friends whom they think would benefit from the prize in the comments.
Combine Different Marketing Avenues
Cross-promotion is an excellent way to gain more followers on all of your social media platforms! If you have a popular Facebook Group or TikTok account, be sure to let your followers on those platforms know that you also are available on Instagram, and vice versa.
Try to mix up the content that you post on different apps in order to show followers that there is value in following you on all of your platforms.
Boost Posts
Boosting posts is a paid form of advertising that can help you to expand your reach and increase your followers. If you have an Instagram business account, boosting posts is as simple as tapping the “Promote” button and choosing your Goal, which can be either “More Profile Visits,” “More Website Visits,” or “More Messages.”
If your goal is to gain more followers, make sure your profile is on point and select “More Profile Visits”!
Form Relationships With Influencers
In order to form relationships with social media influencers, your first step should be to discover people who you resonate with. Look for accounts that are relevant to your business, and don’t limit yourself to only working with people with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Micro-influencers, or accounts that have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, can also be great to collaborate with. One benefit of working with micro-influencers is that they often have a more specific niche, making it easier to find followers that are aligned with your business.
To work with an influencer you can offer to directly pay them to advertise your account, or you can offer to do product or service trades. You can also exchange social media advertising by sharing each other’s content on your individual platforms.
Use the Stories and Reels Features
If you have a product-based business, the Stories and Reels features are both great places to showcase your wares. You can use the Stories and Reels features to share fun scenes from your day-to-day life, as well as to talk about anything new or exciting that’s going on in your business.
You can also use these features to show a silly side, whether that’s through dancing, lip-syncing, or just being goofy. Be sure to use captions or text, as many people watch these features without audio!
Post-Longer Format Captions
Instagram started as primarily a photo-sharing site, but can now be used to tell a story in the captions (and continued in the comments!). Longer-style captions are a great way to share more vulnerable content and to build your authenticity.
In the end, people are looking to connect with other people, and the more human you can make your business, the better. Sharing behind-the-scenes stories about your life and business show people what you’re all about, and attract the right kind of followers.
Following these 11 tips is an excellent way to start gaining more followers on Instagram. Marketing on social media is one of the best tactics for expanding your audience and growing your business.
We here at Don Creative Group are all about helping small businesses build their brand and grow their reach. If you are looking for assistance in building a social media marketing strategy that gets results, be sure to give Don Creative Group a call today!
