Alex DittyLearn the steps you need to take to increase your Instagram following
Growing your following on Instagram isn’t something that happens overnight and shouldn’t happen accidentally. It takes deliberate actions to attract the right people to your account and when done properly, you can methodically grow your account following. Enroll in our training course to learn the actions that you need to take in order to get more followers on Instagram.
1. Posting best practices
Post Quality Content
The most important aspect of building a following on Instagram is to share authentic and valuable content for people to interact with. A goal should be sharing posts that communicate your brand’s lifestyle and value while being relevant to your community and what they want to see from you. It’s difficult to build a quality following on Instagram if there’s no content being shared from your brand’s account. Look for opportunities to share visual content for your fans to interact with.
Join your community’s conversations
There are trends and conversations that your community is participating with on Instagram that your brand should also be involved with to get your content discovered by those individuals. Find the topics that your community’s most relevant members are participating with and share content to join that conversation. David’s Bridal is a great example of a brand that gets involved with their community’s activities with the launch of their #FallingforDB Instagram contest. After seeing that wedding planning content was commonly shared on Instagram their team brought David’s Bridal into the conversation with this contest encouraging women to share their bridal plans with the #FallingforDB tag to win prizes towards their wedding.
Promote with hashtags
Hashtags can be an effective way to increase the reach of your content but only when you’re doing it right. With hashtag use, you can apply existing hashtags that your community is using to expand the reach of your content or create new hashtags that benefit your overall social media marketing strategy. When using existing hashtags, research the tags your community is using to understand what you should using with your content sharing. If you’re creating a new hashtag, consider the purpose of the tag you’re creating in order to use it effectively. Often brands will create very specific tags for their Instagram contests that apply only to that specific promotion; alternatively you can create a general hashtag that will be used continuously by your community for additional marketing opportunities.
2. Make your content discoverable
Use influencers
If you’re sharing great content on Instagram but you’re not seeing the results with follower growth then you may not be reaching a large enough audience. One tactic you can leverage to increase the audience you’re reaching is to use Instagram influencers. Influencers amplify your reach by sharing about your brand to their followers. The targeted influencers like those found in Snapfluence, are able to aid in your overall content creation and promote your brand’s lifestyle to a wider range of Instagrammers with their highly engaged following.
Go exploring
Since its invention, the Instagram Explore Tab has become one of the best ways to find great users and great content of relevance to you. Take advantage of this opportunity for your Instagram marketing efforts. Use the Instagram explore tab to find Instagrammers related to your brand for you to engage. Instagram uses the explore tab to surface great members of their community. By regularly posting and interacting with your community you can increase the chances you have of being found on the Instagram explore tab. According to Instagram, “the goal of the formula is to surface the most recently interesting photos based on a variety of variables. We do not simply count likes. It takes into account much more than that to make sure new people with fewer followers also have the chance of being discovered”. So share great content and get involved with your community to increase your chances of being found in the Explore Tab and grow your following.
Cross post
When you’re posting great content you want to be sure that your community and target consumers discover this content. Leverage the presence you’ve built on your existing social channels to grow your Instagram presence by cross-posting your Instagram content to other social channels. Let your Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter followers know that you’re on Instagram and you’re sharing great content. Social media marketing channels don’t need to be silos, let them work together to benefit each other. Make all of your channels accessible to help them increase each other.
3. Create engagement
Run campaigns
Instagram contests are a great way to drum up the engagement from your community to grow your following. With Instagram contests, you can encourage your community to share content about your brand to their followers. The content they’re sharing acts as the initial catalyst to create involvement with your brand on the visual network. As you continue to share great content, the awareness that your community creates from the contest will help grow your following.
Incentivize content creation
Finding content to share can be one of the more difficult aspects of successful Instagram marketing. These contests give you the ability to encourage your community to share content to increase the content you have available to you. The user-generated content that’s shared is extremely valuable for your social media marketing by creating more engagement than posts from your own account. Use prizes and giveaways with contests to incentivize your community to create content promoting your brand Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau is a great example of a brand using UGC for authentic social media promotion. With their #TakeOnPocono campaign, they’re encouraging their community to share their ‘take on’ the Pocono Mountains. This gives them thousands of pieces of content to promote the destination for effective tourism marketing on Instagram.
4. Leverage your community’s content
Focus on ‘moments’
User-Generated Content can be one of your most valuable assets in trying to grow your following. By sharing the moments your community experiences, you can better post about the lifestyle your brand creates. Every brand has moments that they create for their community; the UGC your community is sharing gives you the opportunity to share these moments in an authentic way. Learn the moments that your community likes to share to facilitate increased sharing of your brand.
Highlight your community’s content
Your community is going to help you increase your followers with the authentic visual content they’re sharing. Use this content to help achieve your follower growth goals. As you encourage your community to share more UGC content surrounding your brand and promoting it on Instagram, consider leveraging the visual content to increase its reach and courage more to participate in this sharing. But when you’re learning how to use UGC on your site you need to make sure you’re following the Instagram display guidelines appropriately. By displaying the content on other properties like your website you’re also showing a more authentic perspective of your brand. This content will help with your overall social media marketing goals and will lead to an increased following.
5. Track your progress
Understand what works
Building a following on Instagram takes deliberate and precise actions. You want to build repeatable practices that you know are going to provide meaningful results for your efforts so you know that you’re taking the right actions on growing your Instagram following. You want to be measuring both the reach of your efforts as well as the engagement. You’re Instagram marketing efforts should consist of posts that are coming from your brand’s account as well as from your community. Measure who and how those posts are reaching your target consumers to understand how you can expect your following to grow. By tracking how you’re creating interactions on your posts you can understand what kind of content is working for you.
These tips will help you grow your following. It won’t happen overnight and will take time but with these right interactions you’ll be able to build a community of people who love your brand and are passionate about your lifestyle. There are a lot of things that go into successful Instagram marketing, but if you subscribe to these email lessons you can learn what it takes to grow your following.
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