Instagram quickly broke the stereotype of a picture-posting app for kids and became a content marketing, networking, and engagement-building tool for individuals, businesses, and brands. So, people came to see that the more they could increase their followers on Instagram, the more they could achieve.
People tried to do it the easy way – pay for likes and follower sites – but these shortcuts are never worth it. This is because the Instagram algorithm regularly gets updated to take out paid, low-quality accounts and interactions.
Besides, having a huge number of followers that do not make purchases, visit your landing pages, and advocate for your brands with friends and followers does nothing for you. So ensure you do it the right way. See the 10 easy steps to increase your followers on Instagram without ads and start growing that Instagram account.
1. Optimize Your Instagram Account
See your Instagram bio as the homepage of your account. Knowing the importance of images, captions, and a username, how do you think they will perceive your brand with none of these?! These things—a simple and recognizable username, and an appropriate profile picture—help boost your brand identity.
Also, choose names closely related to your brand’s name. Try not to add numbers or special characters to your username. And, as much as is practicable, keep them similar to your usernames on your other social media platforms.
2. Have A Content Calendar
If you hope to increase your Instagram followers, don’t let the ones following you already forget they follow you. Post your content at scheduled times. To achieve this, keep a regular posting schedule. Post however number of acceptable times but, keep it consistent.
Following this schedule will help you build a consistent experience for your followers and keep them expecting your next big thing.
3. Publish Engaging Content
Following the schedule for your content is as important as staying on top of current events, industry news, and pop culture. Stay on the lookout for trending or viral content and how you can promote it on your Instagram page. Is there a new meme or hashtag that is going viral? Or is there breaking news around your niche?
Find a way to leverage those events and write an article on your blog with your twist and promote it on your Instagram account to create engagements and increase your followers.
4. Increase Your Followers On Instagram By Having A Consistent Style
You’ve probably heard this before but, it really works. People will follow you not just because of the content you have posted but because they’d find themselves anticipating your next post. It’s more than just branding, it’s more about building that need in your potential followers to look forward to your next great content.
So, if you are consistent in your posts, you will build trust and confidence and gain more followers on Instagram who are interested in your content.
5. Offering Giveaways To Build Your Instagram Followers
Who doesn’t like free stuff, right?!
This strategy has almost always worked to help increase your followers on Instagram. You can try hosting a giveaway on your website and provide an option to follow you on Instagram and other social media networks. Or, post the giveaways on Facebook groups to spread more word about your promotion.
For someone just starting, this method will help you gain more followers, especially if you post on a relevant niche blog. However, if you are in it to get more sales, this method may not work as fast or as much.
6. Write Great Captions
It’s one thing to take amazing pictures and another thing to give them even more captivating captions. Captions give more context to pictures and videos and give your audience something they can relate to. Also, captions are a place to put your keywords so you appear in search results on Instagram.
You are allowed up to 2,200 characters for a caption. So, play around with your captions. Try out different lengths. Not all captions have to be so long depending on the pictures. Some may require short and straight-to-the-point captions, while others, longer and more informative to get engagements and increase your followers on Instagram.
7. Add Geotags To Your Posts
An Instagram geotag is a tag that shows your location in your story or post. It appears at the top left corner, just underneath your Instagram name. People can find your account in an Instagram search by location if you used a geotag. It is another way to have your posts discovered for free.
Geotags also help brands or businesses with physical locations get to their local customers and target people in particular locations, especially if you are unveiling a new product. You can try the clickable location stickers too in your stories, they perform similar functions.
If the endgame is to increase your followers on Instagram, then visibility will do you good.
8. Promote Your Instagram On Your Other Channels
If you have a sympathetic audience or followers on other social media platforms, then they should also know about your Instagram account. Let them know that your amazing content is accessible on Instagram too. If you have a website, you can increase your Instagram followers by embedding Instagram images from your page in your blog posts.
You can also add your Instagram handle to the bio of your other social media sites, or link your Instagram to your Twitter and Facebook so that it posts on all three platforms.
9. Work Together With Other Brands
Surely, there are other brands or businesses you already collaborate with in other ways, like in your local business associations. Now, figure out how you can collaborate with them on Instagram.
Then reach out to them and pitch the idea to discuss how it would work. A good collaboration could help all parties involved get more visibility, engagements, and followers.
You could try hosting a challenge featuring products from interested companies.
10. Keep Your Instagram Followers Happy
In your search to increase your followers on Instagram, remember to keep the ones you have (and the ones you’d be getting) happy and you will notice more engagements and followings. So, after finding your voice and style, keep your content original and interactive. Try not to sound rigid or sales-driven.
Think of your followers as friends and post memes, or motivational content, or re-sharing interesting, credited photos or artwork to lighten up their day.
Conclusion
Instagram has continued to show it will be here for a long time and is steadily growing in popularity to prove this point. So, as a business ensure you take advantage of the simple ways to increase your followers on Instagram to increase reach, engagements, and sales.
