Instagram is today’s premier social media platform, and the billion-plus active monthly users prove it. Whether as an individual or a business, growing your Instagram following will be very beneficial.
However, you may be wondering why your Instagram following isn’t growing despite putting hours of effort into creating and publishing content for your page. There are many tactics and strategies for developing an Instagram page that you will repeatedly hear. Those tactics may not be enough to grow your Instagram audience.
The following are simple yet powerful ways to grow your Instagram following:
1. Bio Optimization
One of the first steps to growing your Instagram following should be to optimize your bio. Your bio is probably the first thing a new visitor to your Instagram page will see. Because you are limited to only 150 characters in your bio, you should do all you can to make them count.
Your bio will tell followers who you are, what the page is about, and what they should do once they become your followers.
There are several things that you should include in your Instagram bio. A vivid description of the page should be part of the bio as it will tell viewers what to expect from your page.
You should also include a call to action based on what you want from your customers. The call may be to view more content, visit your website, or contact you directly.
You have the opportunity to place a link in your Instagram bio, and it will be the only clickable link on your page. Ensure you choose a worthy link and make it count.
The bio should reflect your personality and be intriguing enough to make people want to know more about you, your Instagram page, and your business. If you optimize your bio, you have taken a simple but potent step towards increasing your Instagram following.
2. Have an Instagram Marketing Strategy
A plan is essential to success of any kind, and the same goes for increasing your Instagram following. Therefore, you should formulate a plan to help you attain your goal of having more followers. However, the plan should be part of a larger Instagram marketing strategy that will lead to having a successful account on the social media platform.
A solid Instagram marketing strategy begins by asking yourself what you would like to accomplish by increasing your followers.
Do you want to grow your brand? Do you want to increase sales? Is your goal to increase traffic to your website? Answer the above questions and more. It would be best if you got a clear understanding of how a more considerable Instagram following will contribute to your business strategy and social media goals.
Growing your Instagram following is a worthy marketing goal, but it needs to be part of a larger picture. Only then can you know how to increase your following consistently and why. Otherwise, you may successfully get the large following base, but your business will stay stagnant.
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3. Creating an Instagram Content Calendar
One of the most critical aspects of your Instagram page is the content. The planning, creation, and publishing of content should be of supreme importance as it is key to growing and maintaining your following. Posting content on your page randomly will lead to a loss of followers because if you don’t produce content regularly, some followers may forget you exist.
Therefore, you should have a regular posting schedule for your Instagram page. Having a consistent content calendar will help expand your follower base as you can keep them interested since they know when you will be posting and can eagerly await your content.
Over 200 million Instagram users log on to their accounts daily. Publishing content at least once a day will ensure that those followers on the platform daily will see your content at least once. On the other hand, you should avoid publishing content too often, as some followers may view it as spam. If you lack inspiration, don’t worry too much about it, there are many Instagram post ideas out there such as quotes, questions, tutorials, UGC (User-Generated content), giveaways or seasonal posts.
4. Post At The Right Time
After creating an Instagram content calendar that will allow you to produce and publish content regularly, you should decide what time of the day you will be posting content. It may sound simple, but the time of day or night at which you post content has a great inclination on whether people view it or not.
The best time to post on Instagram will depend on various factors such as your followers, their location, your industry, and others. There is no universally ideal time for Instagram users to post content, but there will be great times for you to post based on your followers’ viewing behavior.
Use various IG tools such as Buffer to get Instagram Insights to see when the vast majority of your followers are online. You can then see when best to post content depending on when your users are most active.
It would be best also to consider when the content you post will be most relevant to your followers. The key is to try out various posting times and see your content’s engagement from your followers. If you can time your posts on Instagram well, you will see significant growth in your following.
5. Have A Consistent Brand Story
It is essential to have a consistent brand story to increase your Instagram following and grow your business. Branding is a crucial aspect of developing an Instagram audience because you want followers to recognize your content instantly.
The faster they do it, the easier it is for them to view your content and perform more significant actions such as clicking links and making purchases.
Using Instagram to grow your brand is one of the best things you can do, and having a consistent brand story will help with that immensely. To have a consistent brand story, you should first decide what you want your page to achieve. Once you know that, it will be easy to publish content that aligns with those goals.
If you consider your Instagram grid a cohesive unit, your main feed should have content that helps you achieve cohesion. With brand consistency, you will not only increase brand awareness, but you can also create brand loyalty which means you attract more followers and keep them as loyal followers.
The time when your Instagram account wasn’t growing is now over!
6. Use Hashtags
Hashtags on Instagram are a great way to build a community and generate new content for your page. If you know how to use hashtags well, you can substantially grow your Instagram following for free. Hashtags are probably more important on Instagram than any other social media platform. Therefore, you should research and use relevant Instagram hashtags to grow your following.
The first step is to create a unique hashtag that no one else on Instagram is using. Though you can use up to 30 hashtags on an Instagram post, you should go for quality instead of quantity. It would be best to focus on hashtags with a specific purpose, appeal to your target audience, and relate to your Instagram marketing strategy.
Hashtags on Instagram are vital because they can appear on search results. Therefore, a hashtag can help users find your content after searching or clicking on the hashtag on other posts.
Moreover, users on the platform can follow hashtags meaning that the hashtag can appear on the feeds of users who don’t follow you. If the hashtag leads them to valuable or interesting content, they may become your followers.
Once you have a hashtag, you should promote it and encourage your followers to use it. You can reward users who use the hashtag by mentioning the names and offering them credit in other ways. Doing so will encourage them to become more loyal members of your community.
7. Engage Your Followers
Instagram is a social media network, and like all social media platforms, engagement is key to growth. Once you create a community on Instagram, engaging with the community will help you grow it.
Many brands focus on improving the metrics about their Instagram pages without realizing that it is the people behind those metrics. An Instagram advertising marketing agency may help you utilize those metrics you are in the best position to get personal while engaging your followers.
The best way to engage your followers is to engage them in a conversation that will lead them to continue the conversation. Community engagement also involves:
- Commenting on posts by your followers.
- Responding to Direct Messages (DMs).
- Replying to comments on your posts.
- Sharing relevant content.
People are notified whenever you like a post, reply to a comment, or share content, and those notifications always offer a chance for someone to view your account and become a follower.
Engagement may also take the form of engaging other pages and content creators, particularly those similar to yours and you. The key is to develop relationships with people, whether they are followers or not.
As the relationships get stronger, you are bound to see your following grow as people will have greater trust in your brand. Every engagement is an opportunity to gain a new follower, and you should take full advantage of it.
Closing Thoughts About Why Your Instagram Account Isn’t Growing and Most Importantly How to Change That
To conclude, if you want success on Instagram, you have to grow your following. Increasing your follower base is challenging and requires taking the right steps. The above are some simple yet effective ways to grow your Instagram audience. However, they will not apply equally to every page, and it will be up to you to decide how they will apply to yours.
Growth Hackers is one of the leading Instagram marketing and advertising agencies helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners in growing their Instagram, driving targeted traffic, generating qualified leads, optimizing their conversion rate gathering and analyzing data analytics, acquiring and retaining users and increasing sales. We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
