You can experience real Instagram growth by implementing strategies that have proven to work for the top accounts. We’ll share how you can elevate your engagement rate with a content strategy that competes against the best.
Some of the top strategies we’ll share include collaborating with influencers, posting regularly, and using Instagram ads. To avoid getting overwhelmed, master one of these strategies at a time. Once you reap the rewards of one real organic Instagram growth strategy, you can move on to another.
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5 Ways To Grow Instagram Followers Organically
You can grow Instagram followers organically without spending any money on the venture. This is ideal for small businesses that have a tight marketing budget.
Instagram offers a world of opportunities for brand growth, and you don’t need to spend much money to achieve your objectives. Continue reading for some of the top ones to start your Instagram growth journey.
1. Define Your Niche and Audience
You’ll need to start by defining your niche and audience since this informs the other steps you need to take. This lets you understand your audience’s interests, preferences, and pain points. Therefore, you can create content that resonates with your audience.
You can define your audience using other digital assets if you have an established audience. For example, you can look at your buyer’s email list and conduct surveys or ask users about the type of content they want to see.
Furthermore, you can pay attention to the questions users typically ask and create content around answering these questions. As a knock-on effect, you’ll dramatically reduce the number of questions your customer support department receives.
2. Post Consistently
Growing your Instagram following is a number game since the more you post, the more growth you’ll experience. Therefore, you must create a consistent posting schedule to remain at the top of your audience’s mind. Here are some of the top tips you need to consider when you want to post consistently:
- Create a calendar: Plan your Instagram content by creating a content calendar. This allows you to organize your posts, brainstorm ideas, and ensure a steady stream of content. It’s a good idea to use Instagram scheduling tools to organize your calendar. These tools also help you automate the posting process, making consistency easier.
- Batch content creation: Set aside dedicated time to create content in batches. This allows you to streamline the process and ensures you have a backlog of posts ready to go. As a result, it makes it easier to maintain consistency even during busy periods or when you need to take time off.
- Plan for spontaneity: While planning your content is important, leave room for spontaneous posts. This will help you capitalize on current trends, events, or moments relevant to your brand or audience.
- Reuse and repurpose content: Don’t be afraid to repurpose and reuse your existing content in new ways. For example, you can turn blog posts into Instagram carousels and repurpose photos into Stories or Reels. Then, you can share user-generated content to fill gaps in your content calendar. All of this makes it easier to post content regularly since there’s no need always to create content from scratch.
- Stay flexible: While consistency is important, staying flexible and adapting to changes is also important. Also, don’t be too hard on yourself if you miss a posting day.
3. Promote Your Instagram Account
Cross-promote your Instagram account on other social media platforms, websites, and email newsletters. Taking advantage of existing digital assets to promote your account allows you to get real followers from your current audience. It also costs no money since you can leverage the hard work you have already done.
Add a link to your Instagram URL to as many of your other digital assets as possible. You can also provide incentives for visiting your Instagram account from other locations.
4. Collaborate With Others
Partner with influencers, other brands, or industry experts to leverage their audience and reach. Collaborative efforts such as guest posts, joint contests, or co-hosted events can expose your brand to new followers.
However, it’s important to find Instagram influencers with a similar target audience. Also, communicate what you expect from the collaboration and what you want to give in return.
5. Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)
Encourage your followers to create content featuring your products or services. UGC provides authentic social proof and fosters a sense of community around your brand. This is a great way to scale your Instagram account with a limited budget.
Top 6 Instagram Follower Growth Mistakes To Avoid
Do you want to avoid the top Instagram follower growth mistakes? This is an important part of the puzzle to ensure you don’t sabotage your progress. With that thought in mind, here are things you need to avoid during Instagram growth:
- Ignoring analytics: Not analyzing your post performance can hinder growth. Therefore, you need to pay attention to metrics like reach, engagement, and follower demographics. This will help you understand what works best for your audience.
- Breaking Instagram community guidelines: You need to abide by the Instagram community guidelines to ensure that you don’t face suspension. Hence, you need to start your journey by reading the extended Instagram guidelines for the complete picture.
- Low-quality content: Poor-quality photos, videos, or captions can turn off potential followers. Therefore, invest time in creating visually appealing and engaging content that resonates with your audience. You can research what competitors are doing to understand the standard you must match.
- Ignoring trends: Sticking to outdated trends or not adapting to new ones can make your content seem stale. Hence, you need to avoid ignoring trends since they can be the content that your audience wants.
- Not posting Stories or Reels: Instagram Stories and Reels are valuable features for increasing engagement and attracting new followers. Incorporate these formats into your content strategy to diversify and reach a broader audience.
- Ignoring follower feedback: Ignoring feedback from your followers can lead to a disconnect between you and your audience. Therefore, listen to their suggestions, complaints, and preferences. Then, adjust your organic growth strategies to deliver optimal content.
Fake vs. Real Instagram Followers
Do you want to know the difference between fake and real Instagram followers? Understanding the difference is important to ensure you don’t make the mistake of getting fake followers.
Firstly, real Instagram followers engage with your content through likes, comments, and shares. They often have complete profiles with genuine interests and connections.
However, their growth occurs gradually over time and aligns with your target audience demographics. You need to be patient when gaining real Instagram followers. In comparison, fake followers exhibit low engagement and sudden follower count spikes. They may also not align with your target audience or show
genuine interest in your content.
How To Increase Instagram Followers for Businesses
Businesses need a different growth approach to regular accounts to increase sales and utilize advanced targeting of audiences. Here are some of the best ways for how to increase Instagram followers for business:
- Create a business account: You need to start by creating an Instagram business account that allows you to take advantage of more features. For example, you can set up dedicated product pages.
- Instagram ads: You can create Instagram advertisements that direct traffic to your Instagram profile. Therefore, you can get casual visitors to click the follow button. This strategy allows you to target the same potential customer multiple times. You’ll need to post content for it to arrive in their feeds.
- Product updates: Consider posting content that updates your customers about your products. The more loyal fans will want to follow your Instagram account to learn more. Furthermore, you can build up anticipation in advance by sharing when you plan to showcase the updates.
- Monitor and analyze performance: Regularly monitor your Instagram Insights to track the performance of your growth strategies. Consequently, use this data to identify trends, understand the preferences of your audience, and optimize your content strategy accordingly.
- Utilize Instagram influencers: Partner with influencers or micro-influencers in your industry to reach their followers and gain exposure for your brand. Choose influencers whose audience aligns with your target demographic for maximum impact. You’ll need to pay for access to influencer audiences, but the return on investment is usually high for this marketing strategy.
How Long Does It Take To Implement an Instagram Growth Strategy?
You may be eager to get results quicker rather than later with your Instagram growth strategy. However, there are a number of factors that determine the speed at which you can enjoy the fruit of your labor. Here are some of the top things to consider to set realistic expectations:
- Available funds: Your Instagram growth increases the more money you spend. That’s because you can use Instagram ads and influencers to generate more followers. However, this isn’t the best way to start since you need to understand the basics. Otherwise, you’ll lose money by not implementing the right strategy.
- Content production: This is one of the biggest hurdles to growing an Instagram account and takes the most time. Therefore, you need to plan out an effective content strategy and use that to drive growth.
- Engagement and Interaction: You’ll need to engage with your audience daily to keep them interested. Otherwise, they will turn to competitor accounts with higher engagement and interaction levels.
- Strategy development: This phase involves researching your target audience, analyzing competitors, setting objectives, and developing a comprehensive strategy. Finalizing your plan may take a few days to a couple of weeks. However, don’t spend too much time on this phase. Start as soon as you can, and you can always make adjustments.
- Profile optimization: Optimizing your Instagram profile with a compelling bio, profile picture, and relevant information that you can do in a day or two. Don’t spend too much time on this because the profile is only a small part of the overall puzzle.
Real Instagram Growth: Start Improving Today
There’s no better time to begin working on your Instagram account. Use a combination of the strategies in this article to beat competitors to the highest follower count. Also, as you build a following, you’ll notice a snowball effect of faster growth.
Now that you understand how to implement real Instagram growth strategies, put your knowledge to the test and try them firsthand. Start with a few that best align with your talents and interests. This gives you the best chance of success when starting. Also, don’t implement too many strategies at once since it can get overwhelming.
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