Instagram is one of the fast-growing social media platforms. The number of brands joining and growing customer engagement on Instagram is boosting continuously. It has become a cornerstone for businesses to increase their social presence. If your Instagram presence isn’t robust. It is the right time for you to sharpen up your strategies to increase your followers on Instagram. The larger your customer audience is, the more opportunities you have to engage with your audience and create unique experiences for them.
Explore further to learn eight ways to gain more followers on Instagram and drive real engagement.
How to increase followers on Instagram in 2021?
To use Instagram efficiently, your need to strategize accordingly. Gaining more Instagram followers is a great way to start with. Getting followers on your Instagram gives your business a boost and helps with the social marketing objectives.
Your aim on Instagram is to engage with your audience on a regular basis while attaining more traffic to your website. So; look after some of the ways to increase your followers on Instagram.
Use of products tags in your Instagram posts
Using relevant hashtags in your posts is an effective strategy. You can discover new audiences on Instagram. It can help you get more traffic on your profile. You can categorize similar content and make it even more discoverable, easy to browse, and bring your product to notice. Some of the most popular hashtags to gain more followers on Instagram are:
Product Hashtags
These types of hashtags are used to describe your products.
Seasonal hashtags
These hashtags are specially used for festivals and occasions.
Geo-tag hashtags
Geo hashtags are important if you plan to grow your business in the local market and get more followers locally.
Acronym hashtags
The tags that describe #TBT, #OOTD, #TTYL are known as acronym hashtags. These are funky types of tags mostly used by millennials.
Relevant phrase hashtags
Relevant phrase hashtags are used when you plan to increase your followers on Instagram by retargeting your exciting customers.
Branded hashtags
Branded hashtags are tags that are specific to one business. These tags help you enhance your brand value and reach your targeted audience.
Have an Instagram business account
As a business, you need to opt for an Instagram Business account. For this, you can convert your personal account into a professional account or you can create a new one. Here are some of the tips for having a Business account.
- Choose a name and display an image that suits your business.
- Add your website link to your Instagram account.
- Always add an impressive bio in your profile that represents your business.
After converting your Instagram to a business profile, leverage the exciting feature of Instagram Shopping by selling on Instagram. For this, you need to connect your product catalog and Facebook page with your profile; and get the approval for Shopping.
If you’ve been thinking about how to find more Instagram accounts related to your business, you can use the search and learn Instagram features. You can also search for relevant hashtags or participate in Instagram communities related to your industry to discover new accounts.
Build a habit of posting about your product
Create posts about your products at regular intervals. You can build a habit of posting about your product on a certain day of the week. This would let your audience look at your products, maintain interest in your business. And gain more followers for your Instagram business.
Besides, if you have a business based in the US, you can also offer checkout on Instagram to your customers. The checkout makes the selling process easy by offering an easy, quick payment method. People can a purchase right from the app. Thus, reducing the lengthy process of purchasing.
User-generated content
User-generated content is any text, videos, images, reviews, etc that is created by people, rather than brands. Businesses like you often share the posts from their loyal customers on your profiles. You can use this opportunity to get your customer’s attention and get more followers on Instagram by boosting your credibility in the process.
Post on Instagram at the appropriate time
While posting your content on Instagram, focus on the time your followers are most active. For this, you can use Instagram insights. The insights help you figure out when your audience is online. Go to your Instagram profile and tap the “Insights” button. Click on “Your Audience,” then select “See All.” From there, you can find when your audience is most active.
Besides, you should also consider the relevancy of your content. To do so; focus on Instagram algorithms. The algorithm decides when, how and which content of yours would be displayed to your customers. This would help you to decide your content strategies and could gain more followers on your Instagram profile. Also, you can experiment with different posting times and track engagement.
Use Instagram Stories to get more followers on Instagram
Instagram stories can help you increase followers on Instagram. Whenever a person lands on your profile, you have a short period to get their attention. And convince them to follow you. You can use stories to display your ideas, posts, products, to capture behind-the-scenes insider, posts, etc.
You can also use the highlight feature on your profile to provide better details about your business, brands, and products. Also, you can post different types of content in story features like photos, videos, GIFs, boomerang, filters, etc.
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Shopping with creators
As a budding business, you can collaborate with influencers. Shopping with the creators helps your content rank to a larger customer base. This in turn would get more followers to your Instagram profile. With this said, creators are considered the cornerstone of the community on Instagram. People love shopping for their favorite brands and styles. When they see their favorite influencer promoting the same product, it suddenly grabs their attention.
The tagging of products in the post and its detailing in the captions will let you attain more visitors and increase your followers on your Instagram profile.
Monitor your growth and do competitive research
To succeed on Instagram, you need to be attentive. As a business, your focus should lie not only on increasing followers on Instagram but also on retargeting your existing customers. Use Instagram insights and analytical tools to keep track of your post engagement, profile visits, and competitive analysis.
Besides this, with the Instagram Business profile, you can access an Instagram Analytics dashboard that will provide you with free insights.
What should be your winning strategies to increase followers on Instagram?
To stand upright in this sea of competition, you need to have a strategy that can lead you to be successful. So, we have brought down a list of a grow your brand on Instagram that can help you sell effortlessly across the platform.
Go local to increase your followers on Instagram
Location tagging on Instagram is a useful feature. You can gain more followers for your local business. Instagram is a platform for discovering new products, retail brands and you can use this opportunity to reach your target audience by using geo tagging.
If you tag your post with a location; it has the potential to surface when a user searches the location or keyword under the Places tab. It helps in bringing you more local exposure. And posts with a tagged location result in 79% higher engagement than posts without a tagged location.
Follow the latest trend
As a social media buff, you should be well versed with the latest trends and products. Following the line, you should keep track of the latest activities and display the fashions and styles in your Instagram profile. This strategy of yours can lead to gain more followers on your account and helps you drive more sales for your showcased business.
Some of the top-selling products on Instagram are:
- Beauty and skincare products
- Fashion accessories
- Home decors
- Health and fitness products
Interact with your audience
Instagram live sessions and IGTV videos are the keys to run a successful marketing strategy. With Instagram, you can use Instagram Live and IGTV videos to convey your message or display any new feature, new updates, and launch products to your audience.
Whenever you start with any live session on Instagram, your followers are notified about your presence, and they can join you. Being on live sessions, remember to interact with your audience the maximum. Some of the ways to increase more followers using Instagram live are; launching new products, sharing your business events, hosting Q/A round, etc.
Experiment with different content types
Over the years Instagram has introduced many ways to share content on the platform. Using the platform to its best is one way to gain more followers on Instagram. As you can reach and connect with a wider range of people. Some of the most popular types of Instagram content are:
- Instagram Stories: You can promote your content and post through stories. On average amongst 1 in 3 people use Instagram stories to view a product.
- Shopping in reels; In recent years, Instagram has introduced a feature of Shopping in reels. It is a new way to share your favorite products, get discovered, and reach new audiences with short videos that entertain and inspire
- Instagram TV (IGTV): These videos also appear 4x larger than photos on the Explore page. And, since IGTV videos can be as long as 60 minutes, this type of content is ideal for long-form videos.
Get acquainted with Instagram Algorithm
The Instagram algorithm plays a major role in getting your content ranked in front of your followers. Having said that, the Instagram algorithm essentially favors content that satisfies the following six signals:
- Interest: How much does a user interacts with your posts
- Timeliness: How recent your Instagram post is. Instagram prefers the latest post.
- Relationship: What frequency do you usually post your content.
- Following: The number of similar types of accounts followed by the user.
- Time spend: How long does the user spend on Instagram
The Instagram algorithm strives to showcase content that’s more engaging for each individual user. So the more likes, comments, and shares; you receive, the more likely your latest content will be discovered by potential followers.
Showcase your brand voice
Before promoting your products on any social media platform. You should think of your brand as an individual and ask yourself — what’s your brand’s personality? Keep your voice consistent across all your content marketing, be it on Instagram or your website’s blog.
And regardless of what kind of brand voice you adopt, your content should reflect your brand’s passion for its mission. This will make your mission clear and would gain more followers on Instagram.
Why increasing followers on Instagram is crucial for businesses?
As a business, having a well-defined number of followers on your Instagram profile is a primary factor to be approved for Instagram Shopping. You can now connect your eCommerce business or surface products across Facebook Commerce by establishing your Shop through Facebook Business Partners. The partner’s integration like Facebook & Instagram Shopping and Social Commerce helps you sell effortlessly across the platform. Also, with Instagram shopping, you can now enable people to checkout seamlessly on your business website or within the app.
Build your Instagram profile to drive your business successfully
The best strategy to be successful on Instagram is to be socially active and be trustworthy. Instagram being a social media platform, provides you with a variety of opportunities to excel in your business Utilize this possibility to sell on new social media channels through Facebook listing partners that will help you sell effortlessly across the platform. Have some questions, drop down your comments below.