Instagram is hands down a great tool for business owners, service based businesses, and brands alike. All the visuals give us insight into others lives, trending topics, news and our favorite brands. You may want to increase your IG (Instagram) followers for your personal profile and business page. Expanding your online presence to bring new leads to your business is the best way to improve your marketing efforts.

Knowing how to gain more publicity and a larger following takes time, dedication and some strategic planning on your part. To increase your Instagram following in 2019 you’ll need to be consistent. 

What exactly does it take to get your following up from the hundreds to the thousands? You will learn the different factors that influence Instagram following and engagement and specific tricks and tips to command the gram and beat the Instagram algorithm.

Post Frequently

If you think you can post once a day and gain a huge following you may want to consider changing your schedule.

For a steady increase in followers, you need to be posting 2-3 times a day. Learning how to increase Instagram followers means that people need to see your content almost constantly.

Post in the morning, noon and evening. This way the morning crowd sees you and so on. Some people are not on Instagram all day so you need to pop up in as many feeds as you can.

Every time you post you should gain followers.

Hashtag It Up

So you post 2-3 times a day and can’t figure out why your numbers are still staggering. You need hashtags #!

Careful, if you’re a marketing coordinator, social media manager or business owner you only want to use hashtags relevant to you. That’s where you’ll find your target audience, whether they’re consumers, donors or fans.

If you’re into wellness try hashtags related to fitness and healthy eating. Are you a vegan? Put #vegan. Finding the best hashtags can take some time. You want to avoid putting only hashtags with millions of followers because your post will be drowned out.

Here’s a tip: only use hashtags that range from a few thousand hits to under 300k hits.

This way your content is seen by a multitude of people. Check out this graphic below which shows how I scale my client’s instagram accounts for quick growth with the right target audience in mind. 

Think of hashtags as the keys that allow other accounts, industry experts and consumers to find you. For an in-depth guide on hashtags strategies that actually work click here. 

Hashtag Research to Increase Your Instagram Following

 

Now you know the importance of hashtags but how do you know how to  find the right ones? You know, the ones that will actually allow you to find new dream clients…

You can manually use the search icon in the Instagram app to search for hashtags that your potential leads may be using. When you search for these hashtags other suggestion will pop up. Write these down, screen shot and save these various hashtags. 

Remember to take a look at how many hits each hashtags has. Stay away from hashtags with millions of hit because no one will see your post. Try to aim between 10,000-350,000 hits. 

Interaction Matters on Social Media

You’re steadily increasing your followers but you still have a long way to go. Comment back when people comment on your posts. Instagram works through genuine interaction. Comment on other people’s post. 

And while we’re on the topic of being genuine in your content marketing strategy you need to ditch the bots!

I know, I know, it seems like an easy quick fix to all of your social media marketing problems but listen, Instagram is smart and they know when you use bots. You’ll be penalized (if you haven’t been already) for using non-authorized 3rd party apps. 

Besides as a marketing director or business owner do you really want random, non targeted people (or fake accounts) following you just for show? 

The answer is no, no you don’t. 

If you’re a business owner follow top brands in your industry and comment (meaningfully) on their posts.

On your own profile post a graphic and ask a question. Get people to comment on your posts and make sure to reply back. This is a great way to increase your visibility without the use of 3rd party apps. 

Visuals Are Everything: Branding

As you probably know, Instagram is all about the visuals. Your content needs to be visually appealing to increase Instagram followers and engage your loyal tribe of enthused people (yay!)

Bright colors always work well and make sure your profile has some sort of theme so that everything flows perfectly. What are your brand’s colors? Make sure to use those constantly. 

A theme doesn’t have to be perfect formatting on every post. A theme can be a filter, topic ideas, or part of your businesses’s brand guide. For instance, as a lifestyle brand/content marketer I’m not going to post about affiliate marketing for a random beauty product. 

That would serve absolutely no purpose to my audience of service based entrepreneurs who need to scale their business on social media. 

You also need to appropriately brand your profile. Go sign up for Canva (it’s free) and make your own graphic images, quotes, and sales posts. Canva is great for branding because you can literally create anything you want using their awesome templates.

Make sure your posts are interesting, informative, and fun. Try to think outside the box with images that will really capture people’s attention. The more interesting your graphics the more likely that person will like and comment on your posts. 

What Should I Post?

Be sure to change it up frequently. Avoid posting the same things over and over such as only quotes, only selfies, only your products, and services. You need a nice variety to keep your audience interested. 

Increasing your Instagram business account following in 2019 means you’ll need to put strategy behind your marketing efforts. Each post on your Instagram business page should be meaningful. 

Take cool, interesting pictures. Try different angles, different scenery, your lunch/dinner, quotes/inspirational posts, and trending topics.

If it’s the first day of fall make a post welcoming the new season. Is there a football or basketball game (a big one)? Make a post about who you’re rooting for. This works for business owners, influencers and your own personal profiles.

Your page needs to look fun and interesting. People should want to follow you because you post great content.

Copywriting is Crucial, Okay?

If you’re hoping to get by on dull, lack luster captions its no wonder your business account has no activity — leading to no website traffic + sales (yikes)

Telling your brand story in each Instagram post caption will allow-your audience to get to know and trust you. No one is going to buy from or do business with a company or entrepreneur they know nothing about. 

Make your brand personality stand out when writing captions. Unless you’ve taken a course in copywriting and know how to write sales content without the icky salesy vibe then you may need to hire an expert copywriter. 

A Large Following Isn’t Everything (Nurture the Audience You Already Have)

Despite what this entire blog is about you need to understand that even though increasing your customer inquiries and data base of potential clients will inevitably lead to more sales, you also need to take care and appreciate the followers you already have. 

An audience of 500, 1,000 and even 1,500 is perfect. I’m sure you have goals of becoming a thought leader in your industry, and creating an irresistible brand that thousands of people know about. 

This takes time, consistency, effort and ENGAGEMENT!

Before you can have this huge following you desire be faithful to the 5, 10, 15 people that comment and like your posts regularly. Slide in their DMs and say ‘Hi’ once in a while. 

Build an authentic relationship with these people. Your ‘Day 1s’ are the ones who will help you get the success and fame you want in the future. 

Now You’ve Learned the Basics of Increasing Your Instagram Following

As you learn how to master and increase Instagram followers for your business account be sure to create a content schedule tailored to your brand or business. (My favorite app for this is Planoly or Plann)

This takes time, which is completely understandable. Many business owners outsource this work by hiring a social media manager or content creator to make amazing graphics, interact with followers, and write your captions.

Let me know if you have any questions down below! Happy content creating!