5 Tips to Grow Your Instagram
Instagram is a great platform for generating brand awareness, engaging with your target audience, and growing your customer base. However, it’s not enough to simply have an Instagram account; you must be using it strategically in order to get the most out of the platform. While follower count isn’t everything, you do need to have some sort of audience to see and interact with your content. Here are five tips for growing your Instagram following.
1. Have a strong foundation
Before you spend time researching specific growth tactics, it’s important to have a strong foundation in place. First, make sure you really understand your company and have a strong brand. What does your company offer, and how does it improve the lives of your customers? Think beyond your products or services as well. What are your values? What’s your brand’s personality? What visual elements will make your brand easily recognizable? Having a clear brand will help people understand what you’re all about.
It’s also crucial to understand who your target audience is so you can create content that will resonate with them and make them want to follow you.
Additionally, it’s important to have goals in mind. Growing your following is nice, but what larger goals is it helping to accomplish? Maybe you want to grow brand awareness or increase sales. Keeping your goals in mind will help you determine how to most effectively use social media.
On Instagram, make sure your bio is properly filled out and includes information about who you are, what you do or what you offer, a link to your website, and other helpful details. This is a great way to make a positive first impression when new people see your page.
2. Share quality content
Sharing high-quality content that resonates with your target audience is an important step in growing your Instagram following. Instead of posting whatever comes to mind each day, have a strategy in place so you know that the content you’re sharing will help you reach your goals and make people want to follow you.
Focus on providing value for your audience. Your Instagram posts should educate, inspire, entertain, or motivate your followers. What can you teach them that will make their lives a little easier? What topics will they find most interesting? What can you share that will make them want to take a specific action? These are all points to consider when planning and creating content. Also, remember that not every post should be a sales pitch or asking people to buy something. While promotional posts should be part of your strategy, that shouldn’t be the only thing you’re posting.
Once you’ve decided what you’re going to talk about, it’s time to create your posts. Be sure to use quality images that are in line with your brand. Include a caption, and make sure it’s well written. It’s also helpful to think about what kinds of posts your audience would want to share with their own followers, which will help more people see your content. For example, infographics are informative and engaging, and your followers might like to share the information with their friends.
When using Instagram, it’s also important to post on a regular basis, whether that’s every day or just a couple of times a week. Find a schedule that works for you and stick with it. Create a content calendar so you know what you’re posting each time, and consider using a scheduling app so you can create your post and let the app publish it for you.
Posting when your target audience is online is another way to help more people see your content, which could lead to more people following your page. If you have a business or creator account, this information can be found in the insights section.
3. Engage with your community
While sharing engaging content will help draw followers to you, you can’t only rely on people finding you in order to grow your page. You must also go find them! One way to do this is by looking at accounts that are similar to yours and see who’s leaving comments. These are people who are engaged followers and may fall into your target audience demographic. Click on their page and, if you feel like they would enjoy your content, leave a thoughtful comment on a recent post.
The keyword here is thoughtful. Saying something like “Awesome!” or “Nice!” can make you look like a bot, and doesn’t do anything to start a conversation or show genuine interest. If they posted a picture of a meal, ask what their favorite part was. If they’re showing off their home decorating skills, tell them what you’re most impressed by. A thoughtful comment is more likely to intrigue someone enough to click over to your page to see who you are (and potentially follow you!) than a generic comment.
4. Make it easier for people to discover your content
There are several ways to help your content reach people beyond your existing followers. For example, when you post, try adding your location. When other Instagram users search this location, they’ll be able to see the top posts and recent posts for that location, which could include yours! You can also engage with the other posts in that location to interact with people in your area.
Another helpful tip is to use hashtags, either in your caption or in a comment. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. Using hashtags relevant to your brand, industry, and the post itself can help your content show up when people search that hashtag. Users can also follow hashtags, meaning your post could show up right in their feed.
Advertising on Instagram is another way to get your content in front of your ideal customer. You can target users by demographics, location, interests, and more, helping you reach people who might be interested in your products or services.
5. Try something new
Want to reach more people? Try using other features of Instagram besides in the in-feed post, such as Stories, Reels, and IGTV. You can also try collaborating with other brands, which can encourage some of their followers to follow you, and your followers to follow them. Contests and giveaways are more great ways to encourage people to follow you – just make sure that these are created to attract your ideal customer, not just random people.
Bonus:
Hire Healthy Dash of Social
Growing your Instagram following is just one step in succeeding on the platform. It can be fun, but it can also be time-consuming and distract you from other important tasks. That’s where Healthy Dash of Social can help! We’re a full-service digital marketing agency that can help you grow your following, as well as handle social media management, content creation, influencer marketing and SO much more.Click here to learn more about our services and schedule your free 30-minute chat!
