Top 9 Tips on How to Build an Instagram Following

If you’re trying to build your Instagram following, you’re far from alone. There were over 200 million business brands on the platform as of last year, with a whopping 1 billion active accounts in total!

Whether you’re trying to showcase a personal or business brand, that kind of competition can make it hard to get seen. Countless similar users jostling for attention nowadays. How do you connect with your audience and encourage more engagement?

With the right social media strategies, building your following isn’t hard. Let’s take a look at a few crucial tips for enhancing your visibility on the platform.

1. Optimize Your Account

If you haven’t done so already, optimize your Instagram account. It will help potential followers find and get to know your brand.

You should consider your bio as your account’s homepage. In the 150 characters you have to work with. Tell you followers a little about your brand identity and what makes you worth following. You should also include a quality profile picture.

Don’t forget to link back to your website or any contact options you’d like to drive traffic to, with or without a call to action.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Competing with a flood of similar Instagram accounts can be hard if you don’t know who you’re trying to reach. Narrowing down your target audience makes it much easier to craft compelling content.

Who are they and where do they live? What do they like to do, and what problems are they facing? When, where, and how do they use Instagram?

Answering these questions makes it much easier to figure out what kinds of content your audience is looking for.

3. Create Great Content

This one might seem obvious, but it’s one of the most important steps on this list—and the mark of a successful Instagram account. If you don’t invest in your content, you might as well stop trying the other tips!

Start with eye-catching photos and videos, but don’t stop there. Your caption itself should be engaging, using questions, emojis, keywords, and other great strategies. In addition, don’t forget that many of the best Instagram posts—like infographics, fun stories, and expert insights—are designed to be shared.

If you’re having trouble with this, make sure you’re staying on top of the newest Instagram trends and research. Checking marketing blogs and signing up for newsletters can help. You might also want to invest in analytics tools that make it easier to see what’s working with your audience and what isn’t.

4. Find the Right Hashtags

If you want to expand your social reach, hashtags are a tried-and-tested way of doing it. Because users can follow hashtags, there’s a chance that even people who aren’t following you might see your content.

In other words, don’t leave them up to chance! Make sure you’re using ones your audience is mosst likely to search. There are plenty of analytics tools that can help you find hashtags based on their usage and performance.

5. Stay Consistent

One of the most basic but crucial Instagram tips is consistency. Users are much more likely to follow accounts that have a consistent look, personality, voice, and content style. If they struggle to recognize your posts at a glance, they may not want to see your posts in their feed.

Try to make your Instagram grid look and feel cohesive, and consider sharing content that doesn’t fit in your Instagram Stories instead. Your profile and your last nine posts are essentially a billboard for your brand, a first impression that helps users decide if they want more.

You’ll also want to think of consistency in terms of time. Regular posts encourage followers to come back for more. Posting a few times a day during the best posting times can help.

You can even use a range of Instagram scheduling tools to ensure that your updates get posted whether or not you’re away from your phone or computer.

6. Work With Brand Partners and Ambassadors

Reaching out to larger Instagram accounts within your niche can be a great way to showcase your brand. If you can connect with an influencer in a similar space, partnering with them can boost your content and get it seen by a much wider audience than you could on your own.

This doesn’t necessarily mean shelling out cash for a huge celebrity influencer! If you can find micro-influencers who love your brand, their genuine support can be a great way to get seen. Even sponsoring user-generated content that raves about what you offer can help increase your followers.

7. Consider Getting Some Early Instagram Likes

If you’re a newer brand with a tiny following—or no followers at all—you might struggle to broaden your audience even with the tips above. This is especially true if your posts have few likes, as this can sometimes make potential followers less likely to engage with you.

One great Instagram trick for this is getting likes through sites like stormlikes.com. These services offer likes from real users who are active on Instagram. These likes, in turn, act as a a crucial popularity signal that can drive engagement and attract attention in a natural way.

8. Steal Followers From Your Competitors

If you’re familiar with a few accounts that have a similar audience as yours, there’s an easy way to generate some quick interest with them: show an interest back! If you follow, like, or comment on a user’s photo, you can often generate some quick engagement and increase your followers.

9. Grow Your Instagram Following Fast

Though the platform is becoming more crowded with brands every day, building an Instagram following isn’t hard with the tips above. Considering the content of your bio, posts, and hashtags as well as key strategies for engagement can help increase your reach in no time.

Need more business and tech insights? Be sure to take a look at our other content for additional tips and tricks.