How to increase your Instagram account followers in 5 proven ways
Brands and individuals have found increasing their Instagram followers a daunting task. How to increase Instagram account followers has been the question that’s difficult to answer.
Instagram has an estimated 1 billion monthly active users and it is the 2nd most engaged social network behind Facebook, with more than 60% of users login daily. No wonder personal brands and businesses have being using this medium to engage their existing customers and acquire new ones.
Why you need more Instagram followers for your brand
Having a lot of followers can do your business a lot of good. Some of the reasons for getting more followers on Instagram are:
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To generate more brand awareness
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Attract new customers and get the old customers to buy more
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It gives your business social credibility and increase customers trust
However, if you’re a personal brand or influencer, with a large number of followers, you can easily monetize your Instagram. You can get paid for doing sponsored posts for businesses in your niche or through affiliate marketing.
In this post, I’m going to show you 5 proven ways to increase your Instagram account followers.
1. Use of relevant Hashtags
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Partnering with Micro-influencers
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Posting videos on IGTV
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Writing lenghty captions
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Engaging with other brands in the same niche
1- Use of relevant Hashtags
Research shows that an Instagram post with at least 1 hash tag will have 12.6% more engagement than a post without hashtag. I usually use at least 3 relevant hashtag to every post I make on Instagram, and this give my post increase visibility and engagement.
When using hashtags, it’s worth to note that relevancy is key. Make sure the hashtag you make use of is relevant to your product or brand, so that when people follow or search for that hashtag your post is among those displayed.
For example, if you posted about a skin care product, you may add hashtags like #skincare, #organic ( if it’s organic ) e.t.c. to give it more visibility to those following those hashtag. When using hashtags, make sure they are those been followed by your target audience and the hashtag has not being banned by Instagram.
You also have to get creative when using your hashtags. You can replace some words within your captions with hashtags, this will give your post an increase visibility.
2- Partnering with Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers are influencer with followers of not more than 25 thousand. And according to research by Fohr, micro-influence have more engagement rate (7%) than other influencers (5%). With this higher engagement rate, businesses can partner with them to give their brand more awareness and engagement.
A brand can partner with one or more micro-influencers in their niche to give them more awareness over other brands. Long term partnership is highly recommended in this situation, the more frequent the micro-influencers mention you in their posts, the more people get to know about your business and their more customers you get.
This is an example of a micro-influencer showing off her partner’s product and tagged them in the post
3- Posting videos on IGTV
IGTV is an acronym for Instagram TV. It is a standalone app which allow users to upload longer video contents and this make it easier to upload more in-depth video contents.
By uploading relevant video content on your Instagram page, you get more followers that derive value from your contents. And the more helpful and relevant your content is, the more people share and engage with your posts and the more followers you get.
Compare this post and IGTV video of Sephora, a skin care company. Their IGTV video got more engagement and views than any other post.
4- Writing lengthy captions
Unlike the traditional short captions people normally write on Instagram posts, lengthy captions is now the current trend. Brand are now making use of it to let their followers know more about them. Brands are using it to explain how to use their products, or to inform their followers about a new offer.
According to a research by Rohr, caption length has increased from 1.98% in 2016 to 5.97% in 2020, and engagement rate has increased from 2% in 2016 to 6% in 2020. This shows that captions length have effect on the engagement rate. So, make use of lengthy captions to increase your engagement rate.
Bear in mind that your caption don’t need to be lengthy but also captive and presented in a storytelling manner. This will enable your post to generate more engagement and social shares. Check out this post by Nat Geo Wild
5- Engaging with other brands in the same niche
Instagram is a social space, and the more you interact the more people become familiar with your brand. It’s worth noting that posts that include another handle gain 56% more engagement.
When you mention other brands in your posts, their followers will become aware of your brand and as you build relationship with that brand, you get more followers through them.
Try to reach out to brands or businesses in your niche or relevant niche, engaging with them on Instagram will give your brand more engagement, authority and followers.
Other ways to increase your Instagram account followers include:
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Follow for follow
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Sponsored posts
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Optimizing account
Try these proven ways to increase your Instagram account followers and increase your customer base. Is there any way you’ve used that worked and is not included here? Comment them below.