A Guide to Growing Qualified Instagram Followers
We’ve asked social media managers and marketing professionals. Here’s what they said.
“What is one tip you have for growing your Instagram followers?”
To help businesses grow their qualified Instagram followers, we asked social media managers and marketing professionals this question for their best tips.
From knowing your target audience to starting an ambassador program, there are several ideas that may help your business’s Instagram page grow in qualified and engaging followers.
Here are 10+ tips for growing your qualified Instagram followers.
Know Your Target Audience
No matter what your business is — B2B or B2C — if you want to grow your following, you need to do your research and really get to know your target market niche.
What are their pain points? What are their habits? How can you help them? How can you entertain them?
Find a few of your target demographic on Instagram and see who they follow and what they post.
Instagram is all visual, so once you’ve determined what type of content your target would like to see, what they would react to, and/or what would entice them, create those eye-catching graphics, stories, and reels.
Post them 3–5 a day. Use a scheduler like Sendible.com and spread them out. Sendible will give you reports on which posts got the most likes and comments and what’s the best time to post to get the most engagement.
Once you see what your target likes, keep posting that.
Giselle Aguiar, AZ Social Media Wiz
Follow Organic Engagement Steps
Everyone will know if you’ve bought followers, especially on Instagram.
With that said, there are a few ways to build your Instagram following organically. Primarily, spend just as much time engaging as you do posting.
This includes commenting on posts that are trending and relevant to your topic or industry, utilizing Stories and the polls and stickers within them to drive engagement, following accounts that fit your target audience description, and strategically seeking out key influencers and micro-influencers who could be a potential partner for your brand.
Megan Coghlan, Backcourt Marketing
Utilize Reels
Video content is the most engaging piece of content that a user can use.
To grow a following, using Reels and IG videos will help bring up engagements and impressions.
Try to use at least one video a week to keep followers’ attention and generate new followers as well.
Shaun Price, MitoQ
Recreate Most Shared Content Related to Your Keywords
Use a tool like Buzzsumo to find the most shared content for keywords related to your brand.
By doing this, you can create and share similar, relevant content that is more likely to be engaging for your target audience, which can help you attract new followers.
Matthew Ramirez, Rephrase
Follow Other Instagram Accounts
Follow the Instagram accounts of businesses that relate in some way to your business, or businesses that may be interested in working with your businesses.
When people or businesses receive Instagram followers, they usually feel inclined to return the favor and to give a follow back.
You cannot always just wait for people to find your account and follow it; getting others’ attention through following their accounts is an effective method to gain new followers.
Matt Miller, Embroker
Use UGC & Sponsors to Boost Reach & Engagement
We share user-generated photos and videos on our Instagram as an additional marketing arm to improve our product ethos and reach.
Many videos shared by our customers are of doggos enjoying our supplements or feature product reviews that help credit our brand quality.
There is little better marketing than reviews straight from your users (or in our case, end-users–pups!).
Our Friends of Finn online community has done wonders for our business, not only with their direct support but with their digital referrals, reviews, media, and features on social media and by word of mouth.
Sometimes, we post the pups in our community on our social media featuring their parent’s accounts just to reciprocate the love.
It has significantly eased our social content strategy and given us invaluable user insight on how to better market our product.
James Shalhoub, Finn
Follow The 17 Hashtag Rule
Instagram is constantly changing its algorithm, and recently a quick tip to growth is to lessen your hashtags to 17 per post.
Beforehand, a majority of IG specialists were using 25–30 hashtags with around 25k post uses, now the number is between 16–18 hashtags.
Staying up to date on the algorithm is key to growth.
Daniel Tejada, Straight Up Growth
Get an Easy-to-Recall Username
If you are looking to increase your Instagram following, you must make it easier for anyone online to find you.
Be creative in coming up with a unique username and making the most out of it.
The simpler the name, the easier it is for someone to find you even if they just heard about your brand via word of mouth.
More people and brands follow you when the username is easy to pronounce and spell out.
If a username is easy to remember, it quickly sticks to people’s minds and can earn you many legitimate followers.
John Tian, Mobitrix
Follow Affiliate Marketing Strategies
Affiliate marketing is one of the best strategies for growing your presence on any online platform.
This strategy involves teaming up with another influencer, product, or service, advertising what they have to offer on your page in a collaborative effort.
The perk of affiliate marketing is there is usually a little cost involved, and both you and your partner benefit from the interaction.
Smaller accounts can follow affiliate marketing strategies but on a more casual level.
Instead of partnering with brands, try partnering with other individuals on the platform, whether they’re friends, family, colleagues, or people with similar interests.
Tag each other in posts and promote each other to your followers to improve your exposure and expand your audience.
Roy Morejon, Enventys Partners
Cross-promote Your Instagram Content On Other Platforms
Don’t think of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok as separate platforms, but rather as one huge platform.
Use different features on each of these sites to promote your Instagram further, and gain followers from completely different and unique communities.
For example, make sure you always have a link to your Instagram profile in your bios on each platform, or even add direct links to your profiles on your official business website.
Don’t be shy when it comes to social media promotion. Promote wherever you can.
In today’s oversaturated market, your promotion has to be consistent.
Nick Drewe, Wethrift
Start an Ambassador Program
Start an ambassador program for your business to increase your followers on Instagram.
An Instagram ambassador regularly posts pictures featuring your products — providing exposure for your brand.
The goal is to onboard ambassadors with high engagement rates so that your account will likely accrue new followers when they post about your product.
When implemented correctly, your brand ambassador program should increase your Instagram followers, save you time on collaborations, and increase sales!
Breanne Millette, BISOULOVELY
Maintain Consistency in Publishing Content
Instagram can be a frustrating platform due to its unpredictable algorithm, various community guidelines, and lack of results.
Due to this, marketers and businesses will often avoid using the app at all.
Although you might start with a small following, don’t get discouraged and keep posting no matter what.
It’s important to maintain a consistent publishing schedule and keep your feed updated.
This way, your followers will know that you’re active and it gives you a bigger chance of appearing in the “Explore” feed.
When publishing content, don’t forget to follow the community guidelines and make sure you’re not being spammy. Good luck!
Ebnu Sudarso, Milkwhale
Collaborate with Influencers
Instagram is a home for influencers.
We’re not talking about those with millions of followers here, micro-influencers and nano-influencers can also be powerful strategies to grow qualified followers.
Smaller influencers are not only more accessible, more budget-friendly for (smaller businesses), and easier to work with, but they also tend to be more relatable and trustworthy for your target audience.
So, at the micro-level, there’s stronger engagement, better costs, and tons of opportunities.
Andre Oentoro, Breadnbeyond
Create Your Brand’s Personality
Your Instagram account is what people see first when checking out your profile.
It’s important to build a strong brand personality to attract and impress your visitors at first glance.
Make sure to create an Instagram branding so that people can easily remember you.
Use color tones that represent your brand’s personality and speak your messages.
Match the tones with the content you post on Instagram.
This will help people recognize your brand apart from competitors.
Natasha Rei, Explainerd
