If your business has finally decided to jump on the Instagram bandwagon, you’re definitely on the right track. With more than one billion monthly active members, it’s now bigger than Twitter and LinkedIn (combined!) and brand engagement is higher compared to Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
But, before you can really consider yourself successful with the network, you must build a following. Let’s take a look at the best ways you can do that.
1. Buy Instagram Followers
To jumpstart your account, you can buy Instagram followers from ViralRace. There are some who caution against this practice, but it’s not the practice itself that is the problem. It’s that many services are giving you fake followers, which Instagram cracks down on.
You should buy real followers, and legitimate services will give you the option to choose niches and certain accounts and hashtags, so you can make sure the followers you’re buying are targeted, and actually interested in whatever it is you have to offer.
2. Research Hashtags and Use Them Well
Hashtags are used as a content categorization system on Instagram. They assist in content discovery, so if you want people to find your content, you need to be using hashtags.
Instagram allows you to use 30 per post - and though you don’t have to use that many every time, it’s a good idea to have a list of hashtags you want to use on your content.
Use a tool like Hashtagify to find out what kinds of content is on the hashtag, and how popular the hashtag is. The more popular it is, the faster your post will disappear from the feed because people will keep using it for their own content. The key is to find one that’s fairly popular, but not so popular your content disappears quickly.
If you’re worried about them making your caption looking cluttered, you can put space between your caption and the hashtags so people have to click “more” to see them. Or, you can place them in a comment under your post.
3. Focus on Your BIo
You only have a few seconds to make an impression on your audience, so make your bio count. It’s not your username that matters, but your headline. Use keywords, but make sure you’re tailoring your bio to your ideal audience to make it easy for them to understand who you are and what you offer, quickly.
4. Create a Posting Schedule and Stick to It
Consistency is key when building and engaging an audience on social media. You don’t have to post every day, but whatever schedule you create, you need to stick to it so your audience knows what to expect. You can use Instagram scheduling tools to load up your content and schedule it from a desktop.
Depending on the tool, it will either send a push notification to your device with the content ready to post at the time you scheduled, or it will post it directly to your profile for you. Most Instagrammers recommend posting anywhere between five and eight times a week, but others say there’s an unwritten rule that you should not post more than once a day.
5. Tag Other Brands Where Appropriate
Source everything in your picture. If the post is high-quality, the brands may repost it, bringing you new followers and potential customers.
Every brand loves free media because it means people enjoy their products. Even if they don’t choose to repost your picture, they may reach out to you with an offer to collaborate, which can help both of you.
6. Only Post High-Quality Content
The content you post is the main reason your audience is there to follow you. Whether it’s photos of your product, breathtaking photography, or something else, your content must stand out from the crowd.
Research shows that photos with faces get 38% more likes and 32% more comments, so when possible, capturing people is a good thing.
It’s best if you can establish a theme on your account - and stick to it with whatever posting schedule you create.
7. Partner with Influencers
Identify influencers in your niche, and reach out to them to find ways to work together. Maybe you can pay them for a sponsored post. Maybe you can ask them to promote your products and services with a giveaway.
Influencers (and micro-influencers) are those with an engaged audience that’s similar to the one you want to build. By reaching out to them, you can get your products, services, and account in front of a new set of eyes and hope that they will come along and follow you, too.
There are several tools for finding Instagram influencers, and many are willing to work with you to develop a mutually beneficial arrangement, even if you are on a tight budget.
8. Give Away Products/Services with a Contest
One of the easiest ways to gain traction is to give away free stuff. You can do this through influencer partnerships like above, or you can run a contest.
Running an Instagram contest will take some planning, but it can do wonders for your following and engagement. Plus, when you get good results, you can do it again and again, changing things as you need to based on the previous results to keep things getting better each time.
Use any or all of these tactics, and your Instagram account should gain a slow and steady stream of new followers every day.