Whether you’ve just launched a one-person company or are part of a 100-person team, if you want to grow your business in 2021, you need to know how to get more Instagram followers.
Why? Because 500 million people are active on Instagram daily, and 79% of them search the social media platform for a product or service. That’s a giant audience actively looking for the things you sell.
Fact: some of the most successful companies in the world leveraged Instagram to build incredibly fast-growing businesses.
The competition is fierce, however. You’re up against over 25 million other companies with Instagram accounts. And forget about taking shortcuts, like buying likes and followers. Those shady tactics will not work and can actually damage your business.
If you want socially driven growth you’re going to need solid strategies to get more Instagram followers the right way.
Luckily, Instagram continues to create more ways to engage and grow your audience. The trick is keeping up with these new options and learning how to use them to your advantage.
To get you started, we’ve plucked 21 winning strategies from successful Instagram accounts that will help you get more followers.
Table of Contents
1. Find Your Target Instagram Followers
When you find the audience that is interested in the type of content you create, your fan base will grow quickly.
Instagram Insights, the platform’s analytics tool, provides a lot of useful information, so you can learn more about who these people are.
Narrowing down your current audience based on their demographics also makes it easier to go after potential new followers with similar characteristics. You don’t want to spend time targeting an audience under 25 if your product doesn’t appeal to them.
Once you’ve defined your audience, it’s time to look at the type of content that will prompt them to engage.
2. Use High-Quality Images
Instagram is a visual platform, so using high-quality images that stand out is table stakes for getting more followers.
Use filters and tools like Layout or Boomerang to create images that differentiate your brand. The more attention-grabbing your image is, the more it will attract new followers.
Now, we’re not saying that you need to create art for every post, but quality should be considered.
3. Find the Right Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the primary sorting functions for Instagram content. Targeting specific keywords in hashtags can significantly increase your reach.
While you can use up to 30 hashtags per post. Research your market and understand the hashtags that your customers and competitors use.
Start by taking a look at the best hashtags to use for every day of the week. Then, experiment with the ones that make the most sense for each post.
Just make sure you’re targeting a specific interest group and not just using all the hashtags you can think of. And if you want to use a lot of hashtags, you can always add some in a comment after you post, so your caption doesn’t look like a hashtag yard sale.
4. Join the Conversation with Your Instagram Followers
Instagram is a social network, so engaging with your followers is a critical part of how you grow an audience.
Potential followers might ask a question on one of your posts to learn more before choosing to follow your account. Chatting with them directly is your chance to show some personality and provide answers.
Your comments go a long way towards building trust with not only that follower but also anyone else who sees the exchange. It’s your opportunity to make the brand feel more human.
5. Use Instagram Ads for Maximum Reach
Instagram lets you create feed and story ads to promote your profile.
By using ads to promote a blog post your target audience would care to read, you are building a funnel that will increase their Instagram following and attract people to their website.
Use both feed and story ads to create campaigns that broaden your reach, increase brand awareness, and boost your posts in the feed. When you target the right audience with these ads, you increase your chances of finding new followers.
6. Share User-Generated Content
In Instagram, User-Generated Content (UGC) is content, such as videos and photos, that has been created and posted by unpaid contributors and is relevant to your brand.
If someone tags your brand in a fun post, share it on your profile. Sharing tagged posts helps people see how current followers feel about your brand and can lead to stronger relationships with potential influencers. Not to mention, it’s free content to fill your feed.
By showing how current followers and customers enjoy your products, you’re adding to the social proof of these user-generated posts. Just make sure you’re always getting permission before posting. It’s polite and lets the follower know how much you appreciate them sharing their story.
7. Write an Engaging Bio
Your bio is where you get to display valuable information about your brand, like a link to your website or a description of what you offer.
Including your branded hashtag and a link to your homepage in your bio is also a good idea. Instagram doesn’t allow you to link through posts unless you use Instagram Shopping, so your bio is your chance to send people to your home page.
Your Instagram profile should be focused on a single goal, like introducing your brand or directing followers to your website.
Read More on How to Craft the Perfect Instagram Bio
8. Follow and Engage with Other Brands
Even with an Instagram business account, you can follow other brands and comment on their accounts.
By posting a comment on other brands post, you become visible to that brand’s audience. You also created a connection with other brands that could, in return, follow that account as well.
Just how well does this strategy work? Sia Cooper, aka Diary of a Fit Mommy on Instagram, used it to add tens of thousands of new followers to her Instagram account.
9. Use Instagram Reels
If you’re not sharing to Instagram Reels in 2021, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity for your brand or business!
Reels, Instagram’s newest video feature taking center stage of the new main navigation bar, is a way to record up to 30-second video clips set to music on Instagram.
With Instagram choosing to put Instagram Reels at the forefront of Instagram, there is a significant push to have users browse and share Reels more often in 2021.
Reels can be found in their own separate tab on individual Instagram profiles (and also on the Instagram Explore page!).
Instead of users only seeing Reels from the accounts they follow, users will see Reels from all accounts. This is a major game-changer.
Sharing your Reel to both your feed and the Explore Page is an incredible way to increase your reach way beyond your followers — and possibly go viral doing so!
And since Reels is a new feature, it’s a good idea to jump on the bandwagon now while competition is still low, especially since Instagram is giving extra prominence to Reels on users’ main feed and the Explore page.
Elevate Your Brand by Gaining More Instagram Followers
Use these strategies, and you’ll be able to leverage your growing audience for increased brand awareness and loyalty. A larger audience means you’re able to share information about your products with more potential customers.
Not to mention, a significant follower count makes your business look credible to users, so it may very well encourage people to explore your account and follow it.
Once you gain more followers, you have the power to significantly boost brand awareness on Instagram. You’re able to share information about your products with so many potential customers at once and share it with their networks.
Not to mention, a significant follower count makes your business look credible to users, so it may very well encourage people to explore your account and follow it.
By using the strategies listed here, you’ll get more Instagram followers quickly and be able to leverage this huge audience for more brand awareness and loyalty.
