As social media is a big part of our everyday lives these days, no wonder it’s turned into one of the most powerful marketing tools so quickly. It’s impossible to imagine a business, either big or small, that does not have an account on all of the available social media platforms. Depending on whether or not the business uses its accounts correctly, it can either broaden its customer base or lose it. Yes, social media certainly has a big power nowadays.
With more than one billion monthly active users, the second-most downloaded app, and the 10th most popular Google query, Instagram ranks third in terms of the most popular social media channel. It is no secret that this platform has figures that any brands must not overlook when planning their marketing campaign. With all the possible tools available, Instagram offers tons of opportunities to gain more followers and promote your brand with relatively little time and effort.
Precisely for this reason, this technique is very popular among brands that are aiming to improve their following and engagement much faster. While buying Instagram followers can be tempting, it will do you more harm than good. Fake followers are likely inactive accounts, which means your post will receive negative engagements and it won’t show up on your audience’s newsfeeds.
The Instagram algorithm rewards real engagement more than the number of followers you have. Let’s figure out what you need to do to get more followers on Instagram in an organic way.
1. Know Your Audience
This is one of the most important steps that you should take even before establishing a business. You should have a clear picture of what your target market is, what you have to offer, and what view you want your customers to have for your product. This step is probably one of the hardest as it will form the foundation of your whole marketing strategy.
2. Interact With Your Audience
Part of knowing your audience is communicating with them and keep them engaged. The advantage of social media is that it makes your business more “human”, so your Instagram followers and potential customers can relate more to you and your brand.
Don’t be afraid to like or comment on your follower’s photos, and follow others. After all, those people will most likely be interested in your account as well (which is why it makes sense to have at least 10-15 great posts published before starting to get active).
Later on, when you design your own community, you can start doing cross-promotional posts with some of the other accounts. Needless to say, you shouldn’t do them too often.
3. Write a Perfect Bio
Let’s assume you have a clear vision of your audience and product. Now to develop a successful account on Instagram, you’ll have to fit all of that information into a couple of sentences.
Literally: Instagram allows only 150 characters in your bio, which is why you should be extra careful in choosing the right words and expressions. Having your company name and logo in the bio is a good idea. You can also try to fit in a little information about the products and services that your company is offering.
If you have a website, it’s the perfect time to put its link up in the bio, as it’s the only place where Instagram allows a clickable link.
4. Upload High-Quality Photos
It’s no surprise that Instagram is a visual platform, which means visuals are pretty much everything: high-quality aesthetical photos are extremely important. Since most of us use Instagram only on our phones, it makes sense to download some photo editors and utilize tools to ensure your photos look great when you upload them.
However, Instagram compresses photos or forcefully resized according to their standards. This is the reason why some images are randomly come out in low quality. To avoid this from happening, be sure to understand Instagram’s ratio requirements, check your phone settings, and resize your photos ahead of time before uploading.
5. Write Engaging Captions
Although the photo is the most important aspect of an Instagram post, take into account that the caption is like the cherry on a sundae: either makes it or breaks it. A well-crafted caption with engaging content, a clear message, and a Call-To-Action can attract more followers and drive conversions.
An ideal Instagram caption is depending on how much information you want to share. Nevertheless, a professional business sharing cheesy captions is not very desirable. Try to be as witty as you can (depending on your business industry, of course). Some accounts write captions in a short or single sentence yet provide valuable information to their audience. Others need more paragraphs to tell their story and share important updates and still get lots of engagement.
If a great photo attracts someone onto your account, a witty caption might also make them stay.
6. Use Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are the main way in which other users can find your post. They’re the connecting string between people with similar interests or businesses in similar fields. So make sure to include your product in the hashtag.
Try to use about 3-5 carefully chosen hashtags for each post, so it makes sense to do some research prior to posting in order to find out what hashtags are trending and relate to your product. Also, try not to use the #likeforlike, #follow4follow, and similar hashtags. That’s a cheap trick that will lead to anything but quality followers.
In addition, useful tools also known as Hashtag Generators like HashtagsForLikes can help you find the most relevant hashtags for your brand and get the most out of hashtags. This tool offers a package that enables users to access popular, trending, and related tags and analytics feature to track post-performance.
7. Go Live
Last but not least, going to live or even using Instagram stories can be very beneficial to your brand. It will once again make your brand seem more “human”. Furthermore, creating conversations with a Live video can interest people in learning more about your brand, can help expand your company’s reach and your followers can see that there are genuine people who are working behind-the-scenes.
For example, you can post an Instagram story about having purchased new equipment. It will show your followers that you are constantly striving to improve your business and product. If you’re promoting a product, you can do a tutorial through IG Live so your followers can see it in real-time. A Q&A is also a great way to answer important questions your audience has.
In a nutshell, there are quite a few factors to consider before trying to acquire followers through Instagram posts. Nevertheless, you will be amazed at how fast your followers’ base can grow — thanks to these tips!