Welcome to the awesome world of Instagram.
Globally, Instagram has more than 1.5 Billion monthly active users.
INSTAGRAM is the 2nd most followed social media platform on the internet, and the majority of its users are young adults.
If your target market falls under the age group of 20 – 30 years, you will get a great reach on Instagram.
For us (A digital marketing and sales agency), it gets very much important to have a clear cut vision as to “WHY” we want to promote any client’s product/services/brand on the internet.
Every product/service/brand does not have a space on Instagram, you can still use it to maintain a social presence.
Before we get into “12 WAYS TO GROW YOUR FOLLOWERS ON INSTAGRAM”, let us see why a brand needs to use Instagram.
- To increase brand reach.
- To share creative content.
- To create an engagement with the current/prospective customers.
- To help boost conversion rates.
As a product/services/brand these should be enough reasons for you to use Instagram.
Moving on,
Let’s see “12 WAYS TO GROW YOUR FOLLOWERS ON INSTAGRAM”.
- Know your target market: Most of the time business owners or promoters make a huge mistake. They just open an Instagram account and start putting random posts. For them opening an Instagram account is just a formality or maybe a tick on the do’s list of social media presence. They make some posts and then stop doing it, and say Instagram is not generating results for them. One of the biggest reasons is that they do not “Know their target market”, they don’t do proper research.
Now, if you want to grow your followers you do not do this mistake. Know your customer first. Do proper research. Find out the following things before you start posting creatives on Instagram:
- How many companies/product owners are present on instagram.
- Understand their posting behavior, and how their followers react.
- Understand your target market likeability factors.
- Understand their likes and dislikes on instagram.
- Understand their engagement patterns.
- Check the existing groups and understand their patterns.
2. Use a standard theme for your posts: Every brand carries a pattern, which comes in the form of color combination + a card design theme + a few selected words which repeat itself.
Why is it important to follow this;
- It becomes your brand identity.
- Your customer recognizes you instantly.
- It is proven that every target market has its own color that helps in conversion.
3. Put a Post/stories consistently: If you really want to grow your follower base, you need to post on a daily basis. Put at least 1 post daily if you can plan and put more posts, it will be more helpful. The idea here is to keep your followers engaged and active. The more you post, the more visible you get on Instagram. So, just keep posting and stay relevant.
4. Use storytelling in “Captions”: On Instagram, there is a common mistake that many marketers make them design an amazing picture but when it comes to captions, they fail. Pictures on Instagram can attract people to some extent, but if you put loose captions they may not feel connected.
As a smart marketer, you need to follow a pattern that helps you and your brand to increase followers;
- Avoid grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.
- Engage your target market with the first 10 words.
- Keep your story short and simple.
- Show your brand personality.
- Use hashtags, don’t overstuff it.
- Use a few emojis.
- Use contest/giveaway or some of the other engagement tactics.
- Include your other social media channels and platforms.
Be smart, your captions are the best way to connect and create engagement. So write it carefully. Spend some good time over it. Draft it many times, keep it crisp.
5. Strategically use hashtags: Instagram runs and feeds on hashtags. Strategically, you need to use the hashtag to reach your target market. Follow a few parameters before using hashtags;
- Make sure your Instagram account is not private.
- Uss a maximum of 10 hashtags for a story and 30 for a post.
- Use community hashtags. (For example #weddingphotographers)
- Use hashtags connecting with daily routine activities. (For example #mondayblues)
- Use emojis in hashtags.
- Use hashtags relevant to your page.
- Use websites that help in finding mostly used hashtags.
6. Post during the “High Engagement” time: There are certain time slots during the day when posts generate high engagements. Follow these slots(later);
- Monday: 6am, 10am, and 10pm EST
- Tuesday: 2 am, 4 am, and 9 am EST
- Wednesday: 7 am, 8 am and 11 pm EST
- Thursday: 9 am, 12 pm, and 7 pm EST
- Friday: 5 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm EST
- Saturday: 11 am, 7 pm, and 8 pm EST
- Sunday: 7 am, 8 am, and 4 pm EST
7. Use videos with engaging music: Videos are exploding on social media, people love videos, they connect with it more than pics. As a marketer, creating and using short videos can help you boost your engagement on instagram. While creating videos focus on creating short videos, and maintain;
- Your marketing communication.
- Use stickers and emojis in videos.
- Call to action.
- Announce a giveaway.
Influencers on Instagram are using “Live Videos” to connect with their followers. In the coming days, videos are going to generate
8. Engage with your existing followers: You want to increase your followers, do one thing. Start engaging your existing followers, surprise them, make them share your posts on their social media handles. Your followers come with a list of like-minded people who are connected with them. Your followers sharing your posts is like having free publicity and eyeballs, it increases the possibility of increase in a number of your followers.
9. Collaboration holds the key: Collaborate with influencers on Instagram, and create posts with them. This increases your reach and rubs their follower’s trust in you and your Instagram account/posts. It will increase your follower base.
10. Engage with existing communities: find communities that are relevant to your Instagram page, join them and make a valuable contribution to them. Connect with people in those communities, provide them content that they can relate with and they will start following you.
11. Use cross-posting: Cross-posting means sharing your Instagram posts on your other social media handles and platforms. Chase your followers wherever possible. You should focus on getting engagements with your followers on different social handles.
12. Use Instagram-ads: Instagram has restricted organic reach. You can use Instagram ads and target your user’s persona and connect with them. This only works when you are posting quality content. So use it only when you have quality content or else you will end up wasting your money.
DMS Tribe can help you in;
- Creating quality content for your Instagram page.
- Suggesting/executing strategies to help you grow on Instagram.
- Help you with Instagram ads.
Connect with us if you want us to help you increase your followers on Instagram and grow.
To your success
Team DMS Tribe.
