Instagram, a popular social network providing a user-friendly interface, has over 1 billion monthly active visitors now. Being basically a visual platform, Instagram’s photo and video posts would gain 650% higher engagement compared to text only posts. It is an ideal platform to keep your eyes on your competitors’ marketing strategy and finding out where you are standing in your industry right now. Also, you can analyze its useful data to decide on necessary changes in your marketing strategy and improve it to gain new followers. In fact, increasing the number of followers is so important for many brands that they use different approaches from using Instagram follower bot to other automation tools to reach this goal.
However, having an Instagram account with lots of followers is not enough, you need engagement and one thing which is essential in having high engagement rate is getting real followers. Fake followers, though increase your follower counts, would not like your posts or leave comments; they would consequently decrease your page’s engagement rate, affect your posts’ rank negatively and eventually decrease the number of your real followers. You must focus on getting real Instagram followers in your Instagram marketing plan.
Instagram is incredibly dynamic and this means you cannot plan the same strategy for two pages and even use a solo strategy for an account all 365 days of a year. Here, we would recommend effective approaches through which you can increase the number of your followers. Don’t forget to use all Instagram features in this path.
1. Use automation tools to engage with other users
One of the most important ways through which you can help your posts go viral and consequently get more followers is to interact with Instagram users in order to engage them with your posts. However Instagram does not lets you to follow, like, comment and even send direct messages more than a limited number in a given time and considering that no one can be online 24/7, we recommend using automation tools. Instamber is a great automation tool which follows other users, likes and comments their posts and sends them direct messages on behalf of your page without getting shadowbanned by Instagram. It would increase your engagement and help your posts go viral and finally increase the number of your followers.
2. Share user-generated contents as much as possible
People are eager to be seen and heard on social media. Simply ask them to share their smiling photos during a weekend, or ask their opinion about a masterpiece and you’ll be impressed by new photos, ideas and comments which you can share on your page. When you ask them to participate and you care enough to publish their posts, it makes them feel they are part of your community; a feeling which changes them into loyal followers and consequently loyal customers.
Moreover, people who have not followed you yet, would trust your user generated contents more easily and might follow you.
3. Cooperate with great influencers
Influencers are active users having great pages with lots of followers. They build quality relationships with their followers so they would trust their opinions on different things especially when they share their opinion on services and products in their niche. It would be a great opportunity to get the attention of influencers and cooperate with them to get lots of followers. But how to find the best influencer for your brand? How you can be sure that the influencer has real followers and also the engagement proper for you. There are several ways to know these information like calculating the engagement of his recent posts but it wastes your time. We would like to introduce a practical tool named BuzzSumo. This tool gathers analytical information from different platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and suggests the best influencers in your niche.
4. Be consistent and stick to your posting schedule
No matter you post three times a day or once a month, people get used to your posting schedule. This means while they’re scrolling their Instagram feed on Monday night, they will pause to read your motivational sentences you always share on Monday nights. This habit would guarantee that your followers won’t easily unfollow you. So be consistent in posting and have a schedule. However, it is hard to stick to your posting schedule especially when your target audiences are in a different time zone. In order to be on time and not to miss any opportunity, our suggestion is to use post scheduling tools like Buffer which are effective tools in saving your time.
But what posts you should share. The first point is to produce high quality contents which are interesting for your desired audience. Define your page’s overall theme and publish engaging posts based on your social calendar. Photos are the first things to catch your audience’s attention. A good photo must be attractive in both resolution and subject to get clicked on. But content in Instagram is not just photo or video. Your posts should have interesting captions as well.
The caption expresses your opinion, suggestion or explanation about a picture or event. A good caption should make your followers closer to your brand and products while they are entertained. It’s a good idea to invite them to take some actions for example to leave a comment expressing their opinion.
5. Run a contest
Invite Instagram users to take part in your page in exchange of some discounts or rewards. A contest is run to increase the number of your followers, your engagement rate, and also brand awareness. It’s clear that easier rules and bigger rewards motivate more Instagram users to participate and follow you.
6. Use Instagram Stories
Are you getting ready for an event? Have you met someone special in your business? Are you listening to a specific music in your office while drinking coffee? By sharing these moments in your Instagram page’s story, followers get engaged in your page. You can also make polls or ask your followers’ opinion or share Live videos to engage them more. Good news is that you can be more informal in your stories.
To get more followers, use the right hashtags in your stories. This would lead to a big number of new users to your page who can be your potential followers.
On the whole, you must know enough about your business and your costumer behavior to provide a useful content and marketing strategy. Instagram’s technical algorithms, tools and artificial intelligence are the other skills you need to learn about to increase your followers and audiences gradually.
