With over 800 million monthly active users and growing, Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world. It has also been named by Nielsen one of the top 10 apps with regards to engagement which makes Instagram a great place for businesses to grow their following and interact with potential customers. Instagram has exploded in recent years and the growth of this app does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It is an ideal app for businesses, brands and even just your average Joe who is looking to share his or her life with friends and family.
It is rather difficult gaining followers on Instagram especially if you are new to the app so if you would like to know what you need to do to grow your following, here are a few things:
Post relevant content
One thing you need to make sure that you do is post relevant content. What this means is that you should post content that your followers want to see. You also want to make sure you know about all new Instagram trends so that you can get in on the action and post popular content. You also need to have a niche online. This benefits you because you will attract more followers and boost engagement. Always make sure to make content that is relevant to your niche to drive engagement.
Use hashtags
Hashtags should be a very important part of your social media strategy. By using hashtags you make your content much easier to be discovered which will result in more engagement and potentially more followers. Hashtags also expose your content to a new audience which will benefit you big time. The best part is that there are hashtag tools available that generate the best hashtags to use with each post, and if that sounds like it could reduce your workload, you can try TaskAnt. The trick with hashtags is to choose ones that are not too popular because saturated hashtags increases the chances of your post being lost in a sea of other posts that have the same hashtag attached. Also avoid using too many hashtags, it is advisable to stick to 3-5 hashtags per post. You should also research relevant hashtags and track how well your previously used hashtags performed.
Try out services and influencers
Another thing that you can do is use services such as Growthoid which is an Instagram marketing agency that helps you gain more followers by taking over your Instagram growth and working manually to grow your follower count. You can also use Influencers who have a lot of followers and influence in a certain niche. Influencers are known to partner with businesses and brands on Instagram and partnering with one can expose you to their followers which could result in more followers for you. There are many different influencers in many different niches so when you choose one make sure that the person represents your niche and shares similar values as you and your brand or business.
Use Stories and Reels
A good way to gain followers is to use Instagram stories and reels. Instagram stories allows you to post pictures or videos under your profile that stay up for 24 hours. The cool thing about stories is that you can host polls and have questionnaires that create engagement. You can also use reels which are Instagram’s newest feature. A reel is a 15 second video accompanied with music that you can post onto your feed or in your stories and they are a great way to attract followers because Instagram usually puts them on the explore page.
Post regularly
The last thing we are going to discuss is how frequently you should be posting on Instagram. It is important to post regularly because doing so will give you favour with the algorithm. It is so easy to be forgotten because Instagram floods users with so much content every day so you need to post frequently to stay relevant. Essentially what this means is that posting regularly is the best way to find even more followers, and it is advisable to post on Instagram once per day. It does not matter when you post because there is no universal rule. Every audience is unique so just post when your followers are online.
So there you have it. 5 simple ways to gain more followers on Instagram. If you follow these guidelines, you will see an improvement.