We have already blogged about how to increase your reach on Instagram or increase engagement. Today we will tell you how to increase the number of followers on Instagram – by legal methods, on your own or with someone else’s help, paid and free ways, without registration and SMS.
If you are already actively maintaining a profile, but there is not enough time to switch to new goals and achieve higher indicators, then try delegating the routine part of the work to the deferred posting service . In it, you can plan the release of posts in advance, and in your free time think about how to increase followers on Instagram * on your own, using the tips from this article.
Purpose of promotion
Not all promotion methods are equally good for different types of accounts. First of all, you should decide on the goal – why your profile should become popular at all costs: you are an artist and want fame, you sell lawn mowers and want to increase the flow of customers from social networks , you are a massage therapist, makeup artist, tutor or coach , and looking for customers?
The main reasons why Instagram users gain an audience:
- Promote your personal brand . Social networks allow specialists to stand out from competitors due to charisma and get customers from their own loyal audience.
- Advertising earnings . Bloggers with a large audience make good money by integrating advertising publications into their content – talking about products, services and brands.
- Sale of products . In social networks, they announce and sell various goods – both material and intellectual: electronics, sports goods, clothes for children, books, courses, consultations.
- Business promotion . You can attract customers through Instagram, so entrepreneurs often think about how to increase the number of followers on Instagram. Not only cafes and beauty salons use social networks for this today, but also shoe repairmen, cleaning companies, factories for the production of solid wood furniture – companies from a wide variety of niches.
- The spread of creativity . Through social networks, you can talk about books, poems, music, announce concerts and performances. Instagram is especially useful for artists and illustrators, as the main unit of content on the social network is a picture.
- Promotion of independent media . For online publications, the size of the audience is a key indicator. An online magazine needs subscribers and is meaningless without them. And sometimes only at their expense can survive.
- Drawing attention to the project . Through social networks, you can gather a caring audience and work together to solve some problem or urgent problem, and do so on a regular basis.
To understand how to increase the number of followers on Instagram through a live target audience, you need to decide on your mission on the network, goals, accessible and acceptable ways to attract people. Based on this, develop a strategy and content plan, which includes posts with the information that you are going to convey. You will also need to first prepare the account that you are going to promote.
Preparing to recruit followers on Instagram*
Your account should have a specific theme, and you should clearly understand what content you are going to make and who might be interested in it.
To assess the potential and characteristics of the audience, you can analyze similar accounts:
- see how many subscribers are interested in the topic and who these people are;
- which posts evoke the most reactions in them;
- how often new publications appear in profiles;
- how the blogger or company interacts with their audience.
This will help you understand what kind of audience you can attract, how to interest them, what kind of response you can expect and what methods of engagement to use. At the same time, you do not need to duplicate the topics and content of competitors, but regularly review their profiles in order to better navigate the general information space and build on your own differences and advantages .
Since the most important contact with subscribers takes place through the profile, make sure that the information in the header is concise and understandable, and the design is beautiful and relevant to the topic.
What you need to consider when creating a profile and what you need to mention separately:
- a keyword in the account name will help your target audience find you faster, as it will be indexed by search;
- a completed description, even short and abstract, will form a clear idea of you for new subscribers, this will encourage them to stay and get to know you better;
- if you have a website or accounts in other social networks, connect clickable links, this is especially true if you are recruiting an audience to lead it to a website or product catalog.
Think over ideas for posts in advance and draw up a content plan. Schedule a content release for at least a month and publish a few posts in the feed. It’s very hard to get people interested in an account where nothing happens. If it’s hard to immediately come up with topics for publications, use the post idea generator . To establish regular posting without spending a lot of time on it, the will help . On the free plan, you can fully manage one account, upload content to Instagram from your computer, and set the time for posts to be published.
Ways to increase the number of followers on Instagram *
We have collected proven and legal promotion methods for you and divided them into two categories for convenience.
How to increase the number of followers on Instagram* for free
In order for the audience to grow and the motivation to maintain an account only increase, try the following promotion methods that can be used for free:
Use hashtags in your posts . Try to use target tags that are as relevant as possible to attract the attention of interested people. Why this is needed and how it will help, you can read in the article ” How it works: Hashtags on Instagram 2021 “. Let’s just say that hashtags will make your publications visible to people who do not subscribe to you, and they can also be used to maintain headings, develop a brand, catch a wave of hype, and show content to users from your region.
Note geolocation . This is a must if you have a regional business, cafe or home studio. The tag will increase the coverage due to users who are geographically close to you. They are also very likely to become clients of your beauty salon or hairdresser, especially since, taking into account recent events, it has become relevant to visit salons, massage rooms and other treatment facilities, if possible, within a radius of 1 km from home.
Attract the first subscribers from your contacts . In the settings, you can add other social networks and follow the people you have as friends. They’ll get a notification and be able to decide whether or not to subscribe back, so it’s quite delicate compared to, for example, sending subscribe requests in private messages.
Post a link to your account on other social networks . You can promote your brand or your services on multiple social networks at the same time, or at least link to your business page on other accounts.
Leave comments . You can attract the attention of potential subscribers by commenting on posts in related blogs, profiles of other bloggers, and thematic communities. This way you can show expertise, for example by answering someone’s question, or being witty. You can express your point of view, disagree or even argue, the main thing is not to get personal and do not offend anyone. Also be active by following and liking other profiles.
Joint broadcasts . Conduct broadcasts with specialists from related fields. This way you can exchange audiences, increase the number of followers on Instagram without cheating, and once again show them that you can be useful.
Friends of friends . If you have a good product or an interesting account, you can ask your friends to recommend you to their contacts in order to increase the number of followers on Instagram*. It’s easy for them and you enjoy it.
Participate in activities and be active . If you are an expert, you can act as a speaker; if you are a blogger, you can broadcast to subscribers on topics that are important to you. If you are selling something, show the product from different angles and tell some interesting information about it, for example, show the production process.
Post subscriber content . If possible, motivate them to create it. Such a strategy, for example, is entirely based on the GoPro account, which at the time of writing has 18 million subscribers.
Create a variety of engaging and useful content . Come up with your own tricks that will make users want to share the publication, or tell something useful in collections so that subscribers can save them.
Run marathons, challenges, or other activities . Set goals and invite followers to join or support you. Perhaps someone just lacked the motivation to start running in the morning or read one book a week.
Arrange polls and polls . Engage subscribers in interactive activities and discussions, ask them for advice in order to make a decision, ask for an opinion, even if you need to choose what color to buy a chair for the country. People like to answer simple questions, and this is another reason to use Stories. Also, with the help of subscribers, you can find new topics for posts or even adjust your content strategy.
Post more stories . Their reach is higher than posts, and so far they remain one of the most effective types of content. It is also worth learning new tricks – for example, learning how to shoot Reels. As long as the format is relatively fresh, there is a chance to attract a large part of the new audience with it. You can get inspired by the article ” 8 Cool Uses for Reels on Instagram.
Connect a business account . It has a lot more opportunities for launching advertising and promotion. For example, it will be possible to add messenger buttons to the description and study statistics in more detail.
Track statistics . Analyze the performance of posts in the statistics and note which ones have gained more coverage and attracted more attention. Adjust the content so that it falls into the interests and field of view of subscribers. Experiment with topics, pitch, and posting times.