How to Get More Instagram Followers: 16 Tips & Strategies

If you aren’t impressed with your Instagram growth and engagement, you should be concerned about how to get more followers on Instagram.

As of 2023, there are more than 2 billion users on Instagram, among which over 200 million businesses.

Interestingly 90% of these users follow at least one business (Instagram, 2023).

This clearly positions Instagram as one of the most popular social media platforms where you can ramp up quality followers for your professional or personal business. You only need to know where to focus your time and energy.

What’s more? Over 500 million people use Instagram every day. There’s never a shortage of potential audiences your can reach.

Plus, social media engagement is higher on Instagram than on any other platform.

So, if you want to build a community of loyal, authentic and genuine audiences on Instagram, this guide is for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What You’ll Need to Get More Followers on Instagram

• An Instagram Account: You don’t need anything special to get more followers on Instagram. All you need is an Instagram account which you can easily create for free. After that, everything you need is the tips in this guide.
• A Social Media Analytics Software: You’ll need this tool to keep track of your Instagram activities and results. CoSchedule, Hootsuite and Buffer are 3 great tools for this purpose.

Part 1: Optimize your Instagram Profile

Before you do anything else to get more followers on Instagram, look at your profile and ask yourself, does my profile give new visitors a straight-up reason to follow me?

2 in every 3 visits to a business profile on Instagram are from new visitors.

Your Instagram profile is where you make the first impressions on visitors, and It’s where they decide to follow or not.

Before they hit that follow button, they want to know what they’re getting out of it. You have to rethink your Instagram profile.

Here are some tips to help you:

1. Write a Compelling Bio

Instead of the regular tagline and slogan-filled bio used by all and sundry, use your Instagram bio to give visitors a clear picture of what to expect from connecting with you.

Your bio can take only up to 150 characters, so you must be witty about what you put in there. Create a short, memorable and compelling message.

Here are some examples

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2. Make Yourself Easy to Find

Your username is your Instagram handle. You want to make sure It’s your official business name so that your customers from other channels can easily locate you.

If that’s already taken, use a name that’s as close and consistent with the name on other social handles. This makes it easier for people to recognize and remember your brand.

Consider what people are likely to type in the search box when looking for your business on Instagram.

Avoid using numbers, symbols and special characters in your username. The adjectives that should qualify your username are easy, recognizable, and searchable.

3. Add Keywords to Your Name

You can use any name you like. And adding your most relevant keywords to your name is okay. A lot of Instagrammers use this because it works.

Only two fields show up in Instagram search results, username and name.

If you can’t use one in your username, consider adding one to your name, and you’ll appear in search results for that keyword.

4. Use an On-brand Profile Picture

Like your username, use an on-brand picture that makes your business easily recognizable.

It can be your business logo or a professional headshot, as you use it on other social channels. Make it consistent to profess your professionalism.

5. Value-add the Bio Link

Besides Instagram stories, your bio is the only place for clickable links on Instagram. It is a precious real estate where you can turn Instagram traffic into customers.

Most businesses link it to their website homepage and change it often when they promote special offers or content on Instagram. But this could be better.

To put the bio link to best use, you can use an app like Linktree to share multiple links.

Once users click on the link in your bio, they’ll see links to different destinations, your landing page, blog page, website homepage, special offers and more.

To make your link more clickable, use link-shortening tools like bit.ly. You can customize the link with your brand or offer name to make it less ugly and win over followers.

Part 2: Ace Instagram Content Creation

 There’s no shortcut to building authentic followership on Instagram. It all starts and ends with the quality of the content you put out. And some best practices to ace it.

Instagram is a visual marketing platform. Every piece of content that makes it to your Instagram feed must be the best quality it possibly can be.

When new visitors land on your account or your posts in their feeds, the content must be visually appealing so they’ll be willing to see more.

As a photo-sharing platform, a bad photo on Instagram is a big turn-off.

Photography is an art that can take time to master. You may need to invest in some video and photography equipment, take a photography course and even use some tools to edit your photos and videos before posting them.

It is also a good practice to create many versions of the same posts and select the best among them.

That said, there are many working parts to ace your Instagram content creation. We’ll look at them briefly.

6. Post Consistently

As much as quality, consistency matters on Instagram.

Creating great content gets you followers; doing so consistently helps you keep them. If you are the type that posts randomly on Instagram, you won’t get followers.

So how often should you post?

According to a widely adopted study by Hootsuite, 3-7 times per week is ideal. Aim for one post per day. And if you have the resources, posting more is no crime.

Your engagement increases when you post great content consistently, causing Instagram algorithms to notice your content as valuable, which can supercharge your exposure and open the door for more followers to find you.

Also, regularly giving your audience great content can make them share your content.

7. Know the Right Time to Post

Some studies suggest that the best time to post on Instagram is between 8:00 am to 12:00 pm PST on weekdays.

This discovery is too general to apply to all, as time zones are a crucial variable. There’s no static rule about the best time to post on Instagram.

Since every business and audience is different, you need to find out what works for your audience. If your content receives the maximum engagement during the day, that’s the best time for you.

You may have to experiment to find out. Social listening and analytics tools can help you find the best time to post. These tools can help you decide using the data and insights from your past posts, traffic, impressions and engagement.

8. Schedule Your Content

Once you find your best time to post, scheduling your Instagram post in advance is the way to go.

But who knows? Your best time could be 3 AM midnight.

Besides convenience, scheduling posts in advance make you maintain a consistent social media content calendar. You’ll have time to create excellent content rather than trying to come up with something on the fly.

Post schedule frees up time, allows you to create a more comprehensive content strategy and allow you to interact with your audience. It also gives you time to gather assets to create more great content.

Scheduling posts on Instagram used to be a huge headache, but things have changed. Thanks to recent updates, You can now easily automate posts on Instagram.

Plus, you can use several third-party tools to queue up Instagram posts.

9. Use of all Content Format

Instagram stands out from other social media platforms because of its unique content formats. These varied content types allow you to showcase what your brand or business is made of.

To get more followers on Instagram, you have to leverage these formats:

• Feed Posts: Traditional high-quality photos and videos that fill the Instagram feeds. They are the bulk of Instagram content.
• Stories: These are short format, vertical images or videos that disappear after 24 hours. They offer quick and easy ways to share moments and experiences.
• Reels: Reels are short, entertaining videos with creative ideas and more emphasis on being entertaining. They can be up to 90 seconds long if recorded in-app. Pre-shot videos can be up to 15 minutes long.
• Lives: Real-time video to host events, tutorials, or AMAs. You can stream or broadcast videos to your followers in real time.  And you can share a replay or access it in your Live Archive once it ends.

By using different Instagram content formats, you give people a chance to know your business more and help them develop the affinity to connect with and follow you.

Part 3: Promote Your Content

To get more followers on Instagram, you have to be proactive with content promotion.

There are several Instagram content promotion strategies. Here are some you can start using right away.

10. Cross-promote Your Content

If you need an easy way to get more Instagram followers, there may not be a better option than cross-promoting your Instagram account on other platforms, either owned or earned.

It may be your website, blog, podcasts, Twitter handle, TikTok etc.

Typically, Cross promoting means posting your Instagram content on other platforms. It’s an effective way to quickly grow your Instagram audience, especially if you promote to an existing fanbase.

Say you have up to a million followers on Tiktok, and your count on Instagram is still crawling. Cross-promoting your Instagram content to millions of followers on TikTok is a surefire way to get some of them on Instagram.

Simply connect your Instagram account to TikTok and create a few Tiktok content that invites people to your Instagram page. Since they already know you and the type of content you produce, they’ll join you on Instagram for more great content.

TikTok is just an example. You can direct people to your Instagram via other channels, including websites, newsletters, etc.

11. Do More with Captions

The caption for your Instagram post can do more than describe your content. You can use captions to engage your audience and encourage them to act, comment, and share your content.

But there’s more you can do with them. You can use captions for Instagram SEO by adding keywords to them.

Before 2020, Instagram users could only search for hashtags and accounts. But now, people can search on Instagram using keywords. Putting relevant keywords in your Instagram caption can significantly boost your content reach.

Another thing you can do with your Instagram caption is tag people to share your content.

Once you tag anyone on Instagram, they receive a notification so they can check out your content and even share them. Good enough, your post will appear in their Instagram profile under the tagged tab.

Note you need to tread softly with tags on Instagram. Only tag people you are sure wouldn’t get offended by it. Tag people that are relevant to your post.

12. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtagging is a great way to make your post reach more people and gain more followers. It makes it easy for users to search specific terms on Instagram. There’s no platform on the web where hashtags are as relevant as Instagram.

Hashtagging on Instagram serves multiple purposes. But the most important thing is to tie conversations from different users and create a web of content that leads users to what they seek.

Using hashtags is one thing. Using the right hashtags is another thing entirely.

The most popular hashtags on Instagram won’t get you followers if they are unrelated to your content.

You have to find the hashtags your potential followers are using. The fastest route to the right hashtags is within the Instagram app.

Tap the Search icon (magnifying glass) and start typing any keyword related to your business.

Instagram will show you a list of related keywords. These are trending and business-relevant hashtags you can add to your post.

Alternatively, you can use free online tools like IQ Hashtags and IconoSquare to uncover relevant hashtags for your business.

Moreso, some Instagrammers even follow hashtags. Meaning your hashtagged content can appear in their feeds despite not following you.

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. That doesn’t mean you should use it. Although, some studies discovered that 10-12 hashtags are the most fruitful. You can always experiment to discover the best number for you.

13. Work with Other Creators

Another great way to get more followers on Instagram is to collaborate with other brands, creators and influencers.

61% of consumers say they’d follow a brand on Instagram after seeing it promoted by an influencer they trust. Influencer marketing, done right, help you get more eyeballs on your content and tap into a new pool of potential followers.

If you don’t have the pocket, you can opt for mutually beneficial collaboration whereby a creator promotes your content to their audience while you do the same for them. Win-win!.

One important thing to work with influencers who have the audience you are trying to reach.

The followers count is not the only factor to consider. You have to ensure their audience is relevant to your niche and industry.

Similarly, you don’t need to spend a fortune on big-sized influencers.

From research, nano and micro-influencers have better engagement rates than Macro influencers. Plus, they charge a lower rate for promotions.

Part 4: Engage Your Existing Followers

Another reliable way to grow your Instagram followings is to forge an engaged Instagram community with your existing audience.

Whether a business or a creator, you must set time aside to talk to your audience. Replying to their DMs and comments is a great point to start.

As you strengthen the bonds between you and your followers, they trust you more and have the confidence to share your content.

But there are more things you can do to make your existing followers the door to new ones. Let’s look at some.

14. Run a Contest/Giveaway

Do you want to get more Instagram followers fast? Run an engaging Instagram giveaway.

With the right strategy, you can reach thousands of new potential followers while strengthening bonds with existing followers. And who doesn’t like free stuff?

As an entry to your contest, you can ask users to tag a friend, follow your account or share your post with a certain number of people to be eligible to win. You can use a combination of all.

A contest might seem like a gimmick, but it’s a tried and true way of getting more Instagram followers.

Many creators and marketers use it, and its results are instant. Nonetheless, you need to be careful because as people follow you for the contest, they might want to unfollow you once it’s over.

To play it safe, only run a contest that attracts audiences interested in your brand’s offer. That way, you can be sure that the followers you reeled in with giveaways are genuinely interested in your brand.

15. Leverage User-generated Content

Customers’ voices are trusted voices. No matter your reputation, people trust customers’ statements over your promotional statement. That’s where user-generated content comes in.

User-generated content is any type of content that you curate from your followers. These can be videos, photos, audio, texts, reviews etc.

Featuring user-generated content on your Instagram stories make your follower feel valued. Making them more interested in sharing your content and opening the door for more Instagram followers.

There are different ways to go about user-generated content.

The goal is to humanize your brand and show potential followers what you are up to.

You can ask customers to share their favorite moments with your brand or product in images or videos. You can create a branded hashtag for them to post their images.

Alternatively, you can ask them to tag your handle or mention your brand in captions or hashtags. Then you can republish their post.

16. Go Live on Instagram

One of the ways to delight your followers is to show them the unscripted part of your business.

People want to interact with you in real time and see some behind-the-scenes footage of their favorite creator. With Instagram live videos, you can get in a live chat with your followers, listen to their thoughts and answer their questions.

More Helpful Social Marketing Tutorials:

• How to Buy Twitter Followers: Building following organically on TikTok takes a lot of time and dedication, but there are shortcuts you can take to fast-track your journey. Learn how to buy TikTok followers here.
• How To Get More Likes On Facebook: Facebook is the biggest social media network in the world. There are billions of likes up for grabs. If your posts aren’t getting enough, here’s how to get more likes on Facebook.
• How to Start a YouTube Channel: Starting a YouTube channel can be a great way to make money online. This guide teaches everything you need to create a successful YouTube channel.

Wrapping up

There’s no such thing as overnight success when it comes to getting more followers on Instagram. And despite what you might have read online, you must commit to the game long-term.

Start with the 16 tips and strategies in this guide. You’ll be well on your way to building an organic following that engages and converts.

Need more social media marketing tips and advice, drop us a line in the comment section below.