If you are struggling to grow on Instagram and get a good following then you are not alone. The platform is quite competitive and it can be tough to stand out. If you are looking for some quick and easy tips that you can incorporate in your Instagram promotion then this list can be of help. This can help you increase engagement on Instagram. We haven’t included any paid methods like services to buy Instagram followers on this list. These are all free tips that you can try out. So, check them out.
- Strategize
Okay, we promise you that this will be the only slow one on the list. We couldn’t really ignore it since it is quintessential to boosting your presence on social media platforms. You need to have a clear plan that you need to follow and stick to. There would be two things that you need to decide on the type and the mix of the post that you are going to upload on your Instagram profile and the schedule of these posts. Decide on your goal to grow on Instagram. Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads or become an Influencer? Depending on what you wish to do your posts will vary. But whatever you do keep it similar and consistent enough so that people can start linking your profile to your posts. If you are a brand trying to create brand awareness do not just keep on posting promotional content. Most content should be entertaining or educational and a few of them should be the promotion of your product or service. These will help you increase engagement on Instagram as you will be consistent with whatever you do as you are following a set plan. Of course, keep things flexible enough so that any optimization if needed can be fine later on.
- Know Your Audience
This is something that can be done with a bit of research and can greatly help increase the amount of engagement that you get on your posts. It includes researching who your target audience is. You need to be able to figure out all the key aspects of your target audience. These can be stuff like their age groups, genders, geographic location etc. These sort of things will help you know the key demographic that the majority of your target audience falls into. With this info in your hand, you can now better tailor your posts to suit the needs of your target audience. This way you will be able to catch their attention and make them engage with your posts. It will help you reel in potential followers who are interested in that kind of content. Thus, you will start getting more followers.
- Contest and Giveaways
Contests and Giveaways are another great way to make more people come to your profile and look at your posts. But it shouldn’t be too ‘salesy’. What you should try to do is think out of the box and figure out creative ways to make the contests more entertaining. You have to do all this keeping in mind your target audience as well as they will be the ones who will likely be interested in your other posts as well and may end up following you. You can hold an interesting quiz or a photography contest or something else that makes it fun for people to participate in. Giveaways are simple. You just ask people to follow your profile and comment a particular phrase on your post and you pick a few comments out randomly and they become the winner. Everyone loves to get free stuff. This is why this idea works quite well. But make sure that the gifts are interesting. Do not try to outdo yourself by keeping the prize something grand as you will have to end up making the prize better and better every time. Rather try to pick a prize relevant to your brand or something that is unique. Contests and giveaways are a lot of fun and people like to win stuff. This will help you get a lot of engagement and followers.
- Learn To Use Hashtags
One of the easiest and quickest ways to increase the reach of your posts is to use hashtags. Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the ‘#’ symbol. Now, people who regularly follow posts for certain hashtags or engage with posts that have certain hashtags will find posts with similar hashtags on their explore page. This will help them look at more posts that they enjoy looking at. But hashtag use needs to be optimal. You may be tempted to use a bunch of Hashtags but remember there is a trade-off. Studies have shown that engagement lowers if the number of hashtags in a post becomes more than 10 and if you want more followers you need to have good engagement numbers in your posts. There are general hashtags which are words or phrases that people generally search for, then there are industry-specific Hashtags and then there are branded or custom hashtags. The last one becomes very specific to your brand and is highly targeted to it. Industry-specific or niche-specific hashtags are to reel in people who are interested in a particular industry or niche. For example, fashion is an industry while gothic fashion is a niche. The latter is more specifically while the other one though general has a lot of competition. You have to use a mixture of these to get the best results. A bit of trial and error can help you narrow down on hashtags that work the best for your post’s visibility.
- Utilize the Short Video Format
Instagram reels is one of the newest additions to Instagram and a lot of people use it. The short video format can be quite important to grow your following as a lot of people watch Instagram reels because they are short and the person has to be entertaining within that short amount of time. This time constraint can help you come up with creative content ideas. So, don’t be shy to try out new things that you think can be entertaining. Don’t create boring content. You will quickly get a bad rap and people will start ignoring your posts. Take ideas from popular reels and try to use the features of the reels to their full extent.
- Be Active on The Platform
By this, we mean that you have to be an active part of Instagram. Comment on the posts of your followers from time to time and reply to their comment. Besides this, try to reply to posts that warrant import conversation. This will help people know you and if they like what you are saying they might end up checking your profile. If they like it then they might end up following you. You will see that a lot of popular accounts often comment on important conversations.
So, that was our list of some of the quick tips that you can use to boost your following. People often buy Instagram followers from service providers to boost their stats thinking it will help them attract more people. But we decided to stick to organic methods that you can start trying out without having to pay any money. We hope you found some good info and wish you all the best.