The world of Instagram is filled with captivating images, memorable videos, and eye-catching posts. The question is, what are the best strategies to increase followers on Instagram? While there is no one-size-fits-all approach that ensures brand success on Instagram, there are several surefire ways to delight target audiences and grow your brand.
The key is to follow each strategy diligently while modifying your approaches based on metrics and recent findings. Here, we’ll examine some of the best practices to follow if you want to increase followers on Instagram.
Instagram remains one of the most profitable social media platforms. In 2022, the photo-sharing app had a whopping 1.28 billion followers. It’s no surprise that marketers rely on it heavily to establish their brand presence and grow their list of brand followers. With that said, here are 12 strategies to increase followers on Instagram.
Using relevant hashtags regularly can help expose your Instagram channel to new audiences who haven’t interacted with your brand. When used strategically, they help your content show up in the feeds of users who’ve viewed and engaged with similar content.
However, avoid adding immensely popular hashtags that are irrelevant to your brand or content. Instead, opt for hashtags that are trendy and niche-specific. If you own a business account, you can use Instagram Insights to determine which hashtags were most helpful in generating the highest impressions.
If you’re targeting audiences in a local area, take advantage of geotags to increase local visibility. What are they? They are geographical locations obtained from the exact location of a mobile device. When you add a tag, the photo is added to a map, displaying its location.
The question is: How does geotagging increase audience engagement? By geo-tagging your posts, your content becomes visible to followers residing in and around your area. This is incredibly useful if you’re running a small business that depends on local exposure to increase brand visibility and increase business sales.
You can also leverage these tags to discover when and where audiences are mentioning your brand. All it takes is a simple search of your brand name, relevant hashtags, and a physical location.
Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours, which can be frustrating if you’re relying on compelling visuals and emoji-driven content to interact with target audiences. However, you can keep that content alive by storing it permanently in story highlights. Highlights are groups of expired stories that show up on your profile.
By storing your most interactive stories for permanent visibility, potential audiences can get a solid understanding of your brand’s unique selling points, offers, and success stories. A portfolio of stories that exemplify who you are will increase brand exposure, and the follower count on your profile.
User-generated content is essentially brand content created by customers and loyal brand followers. This can come in the form of:
User-generated content is incredibly valuable because it adds authenticity, boosting your brand’s reputation. It also reinforces your credibility in a specific niche, whether that’s makeup tutorials or instructional videos on car maintenance.
By featuring brand content that other customers created and shared, you can reinforce brand loyalty and increase audience engagement rates, resulting in more followers. Take this strategy up a notch with a hashtag feed that users can use to post brand-related images.
Paid promotions can be a solid way to expose your brand to potential new audiences and drive traffic to your channel. Plus, if you’re running promotional ads as part of a business, you can set up a campaign budget to avoid overspending. To get started, you’ll need to:
The last point is critical. Advertising is a work in progress, and you’ll need to leverage performance data to modify existing ad creatives for greater clicks and engagement rates on Instagram.
6.) Add Relevant Keywords to Improve Brand Visibility
One of the best ways to increase followers on Instagram is by adding relevant keywords to your profile. Specifically, you’ll want to incorporate targeted keywords in your:
Instagram’s algorithms are constantly learning what users are searching for and will recommend relevant posts. This gives you a great opportunity to target the right industry terms to increase online brand visibility, bring in quality traffic, and produce higher click-through rates on your Instagram profile.
Plus, it will give you meaningful insights into your audience's intentions, allowing you to modify your Instagram marketing strategy.
The best time to post photos, videos, and other types of content is when your audience is online and actively engaged. However, there’s no universal consensus regarding the best time frames for posts. Several factors play a role in determining when your audience is online and whether they engage with your posts.
Some examples of these factors include:
The good news is you can leverage Instagram insights to determine when your audience is online. Click on ‘insights’ on the top, right icon, then click on ‘total followers.’ Once you do, you’ll be taken to a page where you can click ‘Most active times’ and see the most popular hours and days for posts.
To learn more about optimal posting times, check out our best time to post on Instagram with our blog.
Why run scheduled giveaway contests with your followers? They’re fun, interactive, and can give your profile the boost it needs to succeed organically. By running prize competitions with your followers, you can incentivize them to become regular customers while encouraging them to tag their friends.
The result? Greater brand exposure and more quality customer referrals. There are also plenty of ideas for a giveaway contest, including:
Before starting a giveaway contest, define the contest's goals and select a reward with specific details on audience participation.
Going live on Instagram establishes a sense of community and personal connection with followers. With live streaming, you interact with audiences directly in a real-time setting, boosting engagement rates. The best part? There are multiple ways to repurpose live streams. You can repurpose them as:
How popular are live videos? More than 100 million people watch Instagram live daily, and 80% of them would rather watch a live stream than read a blog post. Promoting products and services through live streams makes your audiences more likely to like, comment, and share your content with other followers.
Tutorial videos transcend any industry and are incredibly valuable, no matter your niche. According to a global survey, 28% of respondents prefer how-to videos. You can use them to establish yourself as an authority figure in a specific niche while expanding your pool of potential brand loyalists on Instagram.
For example, if your target audience consists of fitness junkies looking for high-quality fitness content, then tutorial videos on weightlifting will help position your brand as an industry leader in health and wellness.
By satisfying consumers with informed tutorials, you can convert them into regular followers and encourage them to promote your content.
Analytics can be exceptionally useful if you want to increase followers on Instagram. With Instagram analytics, you can assess:
With these insights, you can identify user trends and patterns affecting your marketing performance. More importantly, you can modify your social media strategy to drive audience reach and acquire more qualified leads for your brand.
Reels are short-style videos that can be modified with visual and audio features. Their popularity knows no bounds either. Reels account for 30% of the time users spend on Instagram, making them useful for extending your reach beyond your current list of followers.
The key to gaining followers with Instagram reels is to:
They can increase visibility rates because they’re included in the Explore page. Get creative with your reels by demonstrating your brand’s unique offers and how you can address audience pain points.
The best strategies to increase followers on Instagram are the ones that help solidify a strong presence on one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. If you’re aiming to acquire more followers on Instagram, Superviral can help. Buy followers today and turn your Instagram experiment into a successful brand story.