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Want to learn how to increase Instagram followers in 2020? Although user growth has reportedly dropped, Instagram still retains its position as the second most widely used social networking channel (in the U.S.) behind Facebook.

The Instagram application is the second most popular iPhone app (after YouTube). Out of a billion monthly Instagram users, 63 percent (around 63 million) log in on average 28 minutes per day. Out of 500 million people watching Instagram stories every day, a third are from businesses.

For a brand that wants to reach or increase engagement with its audience, there are plenty of users waiting to meet you in one place. Need any more reasons for using Instagram for a business? We have some social media tips for you.

But, like all social media tips, you have to find the right tone of voice. Or, run the risk of your dad crashing a festival and trying to dance with his friends.

No one wants to see this.

Be Ready With A Plan Of Action For The Entire Year

Are you searching for ideas on how to get followers on Instagram fast? Here is a quick step by step guide for you.

We focus on ideas, execution, and optimization when we write content.

When we share photos and videos on an Instagram account of a company or brand, it should be no different.

Take the time to brainstorm clever ideas about content that align with the seasons, holidays, upcoming events for your business, and (most importantly) your overall goals for traffic and sales.

You can also be versatile, and post as ideas come to you randomly.

But having an ideas library and a (temporary) schedule will keep you ahead of the game, rather than looking for anything to write. You might theoretically post several times a day, or several days a week, depending on your company. Make a schedule for yourself and stick to the Instagram stuff.

Post Images That Are Completely Edited And Look Perfect

When posting to Instagram, use only high-quality photos and videos. By high quality, we mean unpixelated, crystal clear images. Essentially, Instagram is a visual platform.

No place for blurred images. Or images that have cut off part of the image.

Yeah, it’s not a BBC or National Geographic norm that needs to be. But the focus has to be on that.

Low-quality content is not going to get interaction.

It may also cost you a few followers.

Experiment With Different Filters 

Just because you’re a company doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with filters and use the different measurements. You should, on the contrary, use filters for your content. You can also take advice from a social media marketing expert.

The more creative, original, and captivating your photos are, the higher the likelihood of people sharing and following your account.

To polish up your images even further, you can go one step further and download picture editing apps. As far as dimensions are concerned, don’t feel relegated to the square-also make use of the landscape and portrait options. Check the proportions to see what’s right for you or lookout for a social media marketing expert for more tips.

Use Analytics With Guidance From A Social Media Marketing Expert

You’ll have access to analytics with an Instagram business account (which is free), which shows when your audience is the most active. Use such data to refine your schedule for publishing.

Instagram also gives you insights into the breakdown of your audience’s age, gender, and location, which can be a starting point for personal analysis.

Tag People To Increase Instagram Followers

Another way people who don’t follow you will discover your page is to tag related accounts that will show up in their tagged feed.

If you own a fitness studio and you take a group shot following a Zumba class, tag each of those people in the photo. It will crowd into all their branded feeds.

Their followers (some of whom probably have similar interests) will see the post, and find out about your studio. This technique extends to other brands and business accounts, too.

For instance, if you’re a wedding photographer, tagging the vendors from a wedding in your photos is the best practice.

For example, a reception photo could theoretically tag a DJ, cake maker, wedding planner, and wedding venue, all tagged in the same photo.

It’s suitable for all the businesses involved: each gets more exposure and leads to further exploration as brides-to-be searching for vendors – chances are if anyone searches for a wedding venue via Instagram, they’re also probably looking for a photographer and several other relevant vendors as well.

If you can share your spotlight, and tag other people, do so.

It’ll come full circle to bring you more followers and leads from Instagram, too.

How To Get Followers On Instagram Without Following?

Let us have a detailed look at how to increase Instagram followers without following:

Develop Your Brand

The next thing that a person who visits your profile can see after their bio is your Instagram feed. And, to decide whether they like your brand or not, the impression a consumer gets by looking at your feed is significant. You can also buy Instagram followers.

It is also essential to maintain consistency in colors, posts forms, tone of voice, etc. as this is what defines the identity of your brand. And, it should be such that if anyone sees your post, they will associate it with your brand immediately.

You can also build and promote your hashtag, in addition to using common hashtags. These hashtags might be specific to your brand or even a particular campaign. Brand unique hashtags are a perfect way to boost your profile on Instagram and support your campaigns.

You can also inspire people to use it in their Instagram posts by creating a campaign-specific hashtag. It will offer you free user-generated content as well as ads that will help you reach out to more users and get more followers or can buy Instagram followers.

Optimize Your Captions

Your Instagram posts’ captions allow you to reach your current audience, and even inspire them to recommend you to their peers. So, why not take advantage of the opportunity?

There’s a lot you can do while reaching out to your audience. For example, tag people that like your Instagram captions, ask questions, launch conversations, etc. The more you are inviting your audience to comment, the more likely they are to invite their friends to participate in the discussion.

You may also give discounts or coupons, and ask your followers to tag and encourage their friends. Always try to tell the story behind the image or video you’re posting because that’s going to get more dedication.

Cheat Ideas To Get More Instagram Followers

Here are some quick cheat ideas about how to get more followers on Instagram:

Participate In Conversations

This is the other side of the story to what we said in the previous post. You should not only spark conversations but also take part in them.

If there is a debate in your niche started by someone that people take an interest in, it would be helpful for you to comment and join in. Who knows what? Some people may be intrigued and decide to check it out and follow your profile.

Monitor Your Photos

It’s essential to maintain a strong reputation if you want to attract and keep more people. One way is to keep track of what kind of posts your company gets added to. People will see all the updates on your Instagram profile that you’re tagged in. So, it’s important to track who tags you and what kind of posts you are in.

You can either use the “edit tags” feature to do this, or change the setting so that only the posts you approve are displayed in your tagged posts.

Get Local

You should opt for a local website SEO, local hashtags, and Instagram geotagging function. You can not underestimate the importance of your company concentrating on the local audience.

Here are two ways you can do it:

By adding geotags to your Instagram posts, Instagram helps you attract local users. Lots of people searching for local content using the search functionality of Instagram and adding geotags can help you rank for those searches. This is similar to local SEO but it’s for Instagram.

Add locations to your posts, and get featured when someone uses a location search for Instagram content. It means you can get more Instagram followers and draw local people to your profile.

Local hashtags also serve a similar function, allowing you to meet local people who are interested in a niche. A lot of people on Instagram are following local hashtags, and you can get access to the audience by using them.

Call To Action

Instagram provides you with several options for adding calls-to-action to your content, and all of them should be used. CTAs can help you get your audience to take the desired action, whether it’s a simple “swipe up to know more” on your stories or “shop now.”

If nothing else, you can add a CTA to your captions by asking people to share your content, visit your profile, or whatever you want them to do.

Work On Your Influencers

Influencers are people with a large number of loyal and dedicated followers, a quality that everyone in their audience covets. You may use influencers to gain access to and turn their loyal followers into your followers.

The one important thing to note is that the influencers should be specific to your brand and from your niche. You’re good to go as long as those criteria are met, as influencer marketing is a sure-shot way to get more Instagram followers.

There are other ways to use influencer marketing to gain more followers, and this will go far beyond this article’s reach. Do your research and use the power of marketing leverage.

Run A Contest To Attract Public

This may seem like a cheap trick, but it is a tried and tested way to gain Instagram followers. Many brands and advertisers are using this strategy and see immediate success.

What you need to do is run a contest and invite people to support you and tag your friends. Then, write your caption so that it allows people to tag only specific individuals that might be genuinely interested in your image.

Invest In Instagram Ads To Get Real Instagram Followers

No list of tips is complete without the mention of advertising to get more Instagram followers. It is, after all, the standard way for businesses who are willing to invest in it to get more leads (followers in this case).

In comparison to your posts and videos, which are only available to your current audience, Instagram ads are shown to a much broader, interested public. Through investing in advertising, you can attract a significant number of people from a specific demographic or target group.

If you’ve ended up clicking on this post, we’re going to take a wild guess and presume you’re interested in increasing your Instagram account. “How to increase Instagram followers?” This is a problem in the minds of every marketer.

Sadly, most of the articles written on the subject are either too ambiguous or too case-specific and only present a few low-impact and time-consuming ideas.

Furthermore, these Instagram follower growth strategies need to be updated almost as often as Instagram updates its ranking algorithm. There’s a fair chance that the tips shared in 2017 will be long forgotten, because well, Instagram has changed a lot over the past few years.

Of these observations, we have assembled a collection of standard and easy ways to get Instagram followers. We came up with this step-by-step guide to develop a follower base in our attempts to organize them somehow, more specifically: a route to 20k.

But it’s time for a fast reality check before you continue with it: there’s no magic bullet plan that can immediately get you to the 1k, 10k or 20k mark.

If it comes to attracting fans on Instagram, it’s all about timing. Yes, there’s a collection of things you can do to improve yours. Yet unexpectedly going full-speed with all of them won’t yield anything exceptional.

How To Increase Instagram Followers From 0 To 100

Okay, so you’ve got a brand new account now and need to develop the initial momentum to get Instagram followers.

When you already have a company or a brand with a relatively developed community, then it shouldn’t be that much of a struggle to get the initial follow up. Give your current customers an email and invite them to join you on Instagram.

Remember, you need to give them an opportunity when you want people to do something. In this case, a discount to the first 100 followers for your goods would work just fine.

When you have a relatively extensive list of subscribers, you can break the deal so that first, the 100 followers get 30 percent off, the next 100 get 20 percent off, and so on, not to deter anyone who will later open the email from following you. But, before you send the email, make sure that you already have some entertaining posts to give your brand an idea.

When you don’t have an established group of customers/followers, you should turn to your peers, family, or colleagues and ask them to follow. This is one of our personal favorites because you can quickly get the initial follower base even without posting any content (although we would still suggest starting with at least one post).

And if you’re one of those people with a big family and a community of friends, you might just easily reach hundreds of followers.

Also, you can catch any site visitors if you have a brand website by adding an Instagram follow button to make sure your audience knows where you’re on social!

It’s time to select a plan to increase Instagram followers after you’ve completed this initial phase and to expand this base to at least 100 followers.

How To Get 1k Followers On Instagram In 5 Minutes

Create an enticing image of the profile and an entertaining and funny bio – don’t be afraid to throw some emojis into it if it’s something that resonates with your audience.

If you have a link to your blog, email subscription page, or practically some other brand connection that could theoretically expand your relationship with your followers, certainly add that too!

Also, if you haven’t launched your site correctly yet, this brings value to your brand — it tells your audience that you’re serious about your brand and has gone the extra mile and bought a domain. Ideally, you would at least have a “coming soon” page set up with a grab of the lead.

But don’t sweat it — by having a link in your bio, your Instagram page doesn’t necessarily grow faster. It’s more something that’s nice-to-have at this stage to start working towards monetizing your audience, which you will do entirely in the later steps as well.

When writing an Instagram profile, make sure your account is particular about what it will be about. If you intend to start an eCommerce company, then say so. Let them know if you are giving away free marketing advice. Maybe you’re launching the first 100 followers with a giveaway? They should know it. Allow people to join you, even though at the moment you have nothing up there.

If you want to take things one step further (and always should), publish at least one post that looks great and conveys your message about the brand. It will help you attract followers on Instagram because it will let potential followers know what you are doing and what kind of posts they should expect from you.

Unfortunately, it won’t help you get followers on Instagram just to get your account setup. Check for accounts that are in your niche or a similar niche to yours, and already have a significant following (although we wouldn’t go higher than 10k+ followers). Once you’ve identified these accounts, start following at least 10 of them, and make sure you also follow around 50 of their followers.

If you want to go the extra mile (and again, you should), you can check those 50 followers’ accounts before you follow them to make sure they fit your target audience properly.

Here’s the critical thing-make sure you frequently communicate with the accounts you follow! Like their latest posts, leave comments on them, respond to their Instagram stories and just send them a direct message where you introduce yourself in a single sentence and mention that you have started a new account. You will be honored to see them among your first followers who will get [insert the reward you wrote about in your bio].

Increasing the personal approach of the direct message in combination with regular engagement is considered an excellent tactic for getting followers on Instagram – especially if you haven’t chosen an account that’s too big and will see your message. You can do all of this in the later phases as well, but while you are still a new user, it is particularly important.

Become A Rising Star

All that we discussed in Strategy 1 still makes sense. You can focus on your profile page, describe who you are and what your account is about, reach out to other niche accounts, and connect with their followers.

The main difference here is that you need to build up your feed before you do the outreach. Remember, you’re not going to drive people into your next offer to get followers on Instagram — you’re going to drive them to your posts.

The Big Question

How many posts will you be publishing before serious Instagram outreach starts? In our opinion, it would be a reasonable starting point for at least 9-12 entries.

This means there’s enough material to represent you and your brand when someone lands on your profile. Keep in mind that your posts need to complement each other to create a cohesive grid and aesthetic for your feed.

It helps to have a beautiful layout for your pictures. Hence, every single picture is working to drive interaction from your current Instagram followers who see the posts in their feed.

The overall grid look, however, is one of the most important (if not the most important) things to help you get followers on Instagram. It shows you are taking your brand seriously and letting them know they can consistently expect similar quality content.

If you want to go with 12 initial posts, we would recommend that you post them in at least 2-3 days. It depends on how much you expect to post in the future, but we think it doesn’t seem reasonable at all to get all 12 posts released in one day. (This, however, is just our personal preference, and if you’re very anxious to get started then knock yourself out and post them all right away).

Include a lot of different hashtags in every post (30 per post) to make your initial posts more discoverable to potential followers. It is necessary to show good engagement right from the outset on your articles.

We recommend both hashtags with minimal post shares (maybe 1k-20k), and common ones (10mil+). Chances are you’ll only begin to get Instagram followers from this operation! The most important thing to remember is that the content of your posts applies to your hashtags.

How To Increase Instagram Followers From 100 To 1000 Instagram Followers

Once you’ve got that initial traction, the following strategy will give you an extra boost to get Instagram followers. Here’s what you are doing:

• Identify some of the larger accounts (50k+ followers) that are close to yours or with the same target market you’re trying to reach in the same industry.
• Test if its followers are real (some great tools: SocialAuditPro, Fameaudit)
• If most of their followers are real, open their list of followers and start following these accounts (We suggest following accounts with a real human in the profile picture rather than a logo.)
• Start testing who is not going to follow you back and unfollow those accounts. For this exact purpose, there are plenty of apps for both Android and iOS-just give it a search.
• Ideally, at least 20 percent of the people you began to follow will go back to you. The more followers you have, the more ‘good’ your follower will be to the next scale; the more appealing your feed looks and the higher the rate of follow-back will be.
• You should start engaging with these more significant accounts (as long as they are not direct competitors) in addition to the follow/unfollow approach.
• Firstly, turn on these accounts for post notifications. Be the first one to like and leave a message each time they post something. There are still so many “This is so real” comments out there because of engagement bots, “That’s dope guy,” “Awesome message” kind.
• So try writing something about the caption or the post — the more personal you are, the better! Ask questions specifically, or add your own opinion. It will show that you are genuinely interested in other Instagram users in your culture.

We would suggest combining the follow-up / unfollow strategy with the strategies covered in the preceding step to reach 1000 followers!

Second, it’s a smart idea to start talking about scheduling your Instagram posts once you hit the 1000 follower level. It will give you more time to build content, connect with your fans, and continue to increase Instagram followers.

Scheduling and organizing your Instagram content with Hopper HQ means you can post straight from your desktop, visually schedule your Instagram feed, and save tons of time!

Growing From 1000 To 5000 Followers

Now that you have a strong base for production, it’s time to accelerate even faster. We’re not saying that you should stop doing what you used to do before. We think even though you’ve crossed the 20,000 follower mark, those approaches are excellent. However, with less effort, the addition of other methods from this point forward could give the same if not better results.

Firstly, the use of engagement groups should begin. If you haven’t heard of them, then the following article should be read to understand what engagement groups are and how they work: Increasing your Organic Reach with Engagement Groups on Instagram.

Second, consider investing in advertisements. If you’re creating a brand (and not just sharing your cat’s pictures), this is where Instagram advertisements are going to come in very handy.

Thirdly, indeed, start scheduling your Instagram updates. Once you have reached this stage, your Instagram counts every minute that you invest in. 

Influencers are also real humans! If you want to approach working together, be genuinely interested in what’s going on in their lives. If you aren’t on the shy side, record as a conversation starter, a short video of yourself, and send it to them as a direct message. You would certainly stand out from other accounts with whom they will have conversations.

If you are choosing several accounts as recipients, be sure not to create a group chat but send it separately to them. That doesn’t seem very intimate, otherwise.

You might be wondering as to how this would help you grow your  Instagram followers.

Okay, it’s pretty easy.

When browsing your Instagram updates, you will find a tab labeled “Following”. This is where people go to spy on what their friends are up to on Instagram — what photos they want, what accounts they began to follow, what comments they made, etc. If you never used it, then you should check it out ASAP.

You’ve Gained 10,000 Instagram Followers, Now What?

You do get the tremendous benefit that you can add links to your Instagram posts. It opens up a perfect chance to get your Instagram page monetized. Here’s one post about how to do it via email: How to Monetize Instagram.

Keep doing everything you’ve done so far to increase Instagram followers. Naturally, if something does not seem to offer any returns, then stop doing it and concentrate on things that have the most effect! At each point of this guide, you will review your Instagram marketing plan to ensure you remain on track!

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