A successful Instagram account is one of the best assets for any brand to have. But, in order to have a successful Instagram account, you must first have a significant amount of followers – more specifically, you need real followers who will engage with your content.
But how to get real Instagram followers? We’ve got all you need to know, broken down into eight helpful tips.
8 Tips To Get Real Instagram Followers
Let’s take a look at eight simple, yet effective, actions that you can start implementing into your Instagram strategy.
1. Optimize Your Instagram Account
This might sound broad – optimizing your Instagram account – but don’t feel too overwhelmed. There are simple ways to achieve this and, once you’ve done it, you’ll find that it’s one of the best ways to get real Instagram followers on your account.
In order to optimize your Instagram account overall, you’ll need to start optimizing various individual aspects of your profile. For example, you can optimize your bio by making it short, yet informative, and ensuring that it captures the voice of your brand. Additionally, you should include key words and relevant hashtags in your bio that accurately portray the niche in which your brand exists.
You can also go for image edits and optimize your feed by ensuring that all of your posts align with a consistent aesthetic of your business. This doesn’t need to be crazy-complicated, but your posts should look nice together, overall, when someone views your account. The overall image of your account, along with your bio, gives potential followers their first impression, so it’s a good idea to start off by optimizing these.
Another especially important aspect of your account to take note of is the day and time at which you post. Through the Insights feature, Instagram provides you with data on when your followers are the most active. Use this information to develop a schedule of days and times at which to publish your content – and then stick to this. If your followers know they can depend on your account to consistently post when they are active, they will be more likely to engage with your account.
Finally, be sure to include keywords in your captions. Instagram SEO, or search engine optimization, uses captions and hashtags to promote certain posts to certain users. So, if your captions include words that are relevant to your brand’s identity or your industry/niche, Instagram will be more likely to connect you with users who are interested in following you.
2. Use An Organic Instagram Growth Service
Another helpful option when looking to grow on Instagram is to utilize an Instagram growth service – the key here, though, is to use an organic growth service. This means that you will be gaining real followers and never paying for fake followers or padding your follow count with bots and spam accounts.
The benefits of using an organic growth service are numerous. For example, you’ll not only grow your follower count, but you will do so by increasing your reputation among your target audience on the app. This will lead to an increase in followers who want to see your content and will stick around on your page, giving you sustainable and constant growth.
We recommend using a service like Kicksta to grow your followers for Instagram organically, as this company prides itself on providing natural growth on Instagram. Kicksta interacts with optimal accounts on your behalf, automatically enhancing your reputation on Instagram. This leads to an increase in real followers on your account which, of course, is the goal.
3. Cross-Promote Your Instagram
An effective way to get real Instagram followers that often gets overlooked is the practice of cross-promoting your account. Most brands have at least one, if not multiple, other platforms through which consumers connect with them – use this to your advantage!
If you have accounts on other social media platforms, be sure to invite (and entice) your followers on those accounts to check out your Instagram account. You should include CTAs, or calls to action, in your posts on your other accounts, directing followers to your Instagram.
Additionally, in order to encourage your followers to check out your Instagram, you can create an incentive. For example, the first 15 new followers will receive a free product, or anyone who follows your Instagram over a weekend will be entered into a drawing to win a gift card for your brand. Be creative with this – it can actually be a lot of fun while also being effective!
Finally, you should be sure to at least include a link to your Instagram account on your brand’s website. Even better, you can create a pop-up, tab or banner on your website that reminds people to check out your social media accounts.
4. Use Trending Hashtags
Another super important tactic to include in your Instagram growth strategy is to optimize the hashtags you use, especially by using trending hashtags for your niche. Hashtags are one of the biggest ways that Instagram connects users with ideal accounts (remember when we talked about Instagram SEO?), so you’ll want to make sure your hashtag game is up to speed.
It’s always a good idea to use hashtags that represent your brand, apply to your niche, or make note of your Instagram. However, you should also be using trending hashtags. You can find trending hashtags through the Explore page on Instagram.
This will help your posts to stay relevant and be promoted along with other trending posts and accounts. Using trending hashtags will ensure that you don’t fall behind your competitors and that your account stays relevant among current and potential followers.
If you’re having trouble coming up with optimal hashtags to include in your posts, you can also use a free hashtag generator to help you brainstorm. There are many options out there, and they all use the information you provide them with to help you develop the perfect hashtags to get your account noticed.
5. Work With Brands In Your Niche
Collaborations are a highly effective way to get real Instagram followers and grow your reputation on the app. By connecting with other brands in your niche, you can develop partnerships that are mutually beneficial.
For example, you can co-host a contest with another brand in your niche, in which users are required to follow both accounts and tag their friends in the comments in order to be entered into a giveaway. This spreads awareness of your account to your followers’ friends as well as the followers and friends of the brand with which you are partnering.
Additionally, you can collaborate with other brands by promoting one another on your accounts and encouraging followers to check out the other brand’s content. Such collaborations increase awareness of your brand among users in your niche.
You can also form partnerships with influencers in your industry. Oftentimes, this works as an exchange through which brands provide influencers with free products and, in return, the influencers promote the brands to their large audiences. Once again, this is a tactic that will increase awareness of your brand among the users who will be most likely to follow your account.
6. Use Instagram Ads
Instagram ads are a notable way in which you can capture the attention of potential followers. You can transform your current content into ads or create entirely new content that can be displayed to users as they scroll through their timelines or as they click through their stories.
Instagram recently redesigned its layout to include more suggested posts mixed in with the posts of followed accounts. So, as users scroll through the app, they see more promoted posts. As we mentioned earlier, some posts are automatically promoted by Instagram through SEO.
However, you can also take action to promote your post, having Instagram advertise your account for you. This will, once again, show up in users’ feeds, putting your brand name in front of your target audience as they use the app.
7. Incorporate More Reels Into Your Content
Instagram has somewhat recently added Reels to its platform. Reels are short videos that tend to follow trends, similar to TikTok videos. Since this feature was rolled out on Instagram, it has increased in popularity so much that it is now a vital aspect of Instagram growth.
If you are looking to get real Instagram followers, it is very important that you employ the use of the Reels feature by posting Reels and engaging with the Reels that have been posted by other accounts within your niche. Posting Reels is now considered by some to be the most effective way to achieve growth on Instagram (as opposed to posting other types of content).
While it is still certainly important to post photos to your feed, create IGTV content, and remain active on your Stories, you’ll want to make sure that you are putting an emphasis on your use of Reels. It’s important to have a well-rounded account, so make sure that you don’t neglect the other posting formats on the app. But, for the time being, pay special attention to the trends and news within the world of Instagram Reels.
8. Engage With Users On IG
As we mentioned earlier, in order to achieve successful growth on Instagram, you’ll need to have active followers on your account. And, one of the best ways to attract active followers – is being an active follower!
The more active you are on your own account, the more likely Instagram is to promote your content to potential followers, as discussed above. Engagement is one of the most important aspects of Instagram success, meaning that you need to actively engage with other accounts so that you can connect with accounts that’ll actively engage with your content.
Plus, the more your brand name is seen by accounts in your niche as you interact with them, the more relevant you will become in your niche. Name recognition is an important aspect of brand growth, especially on Instagram. So make sure the other accounts in your industry see your name popping up as you actively engage with the posts in your feed!
Get Real Instagram Followers – Fast!
Hopefully, by now you feel confident in your ability to get real Instagram followers and achieve success on the app! There are so many possibilities for how you can organically gain authentic followers and improve your brand’s position on Instagram. It’s all up to you which you try out first!
Try implementing these steps at various times as you update your Instagram growth strategy – we can’t wait for you to see how your follow account soars!