how to get more followers on instagram

How to Get More Followers on Instagram

Set Goals

• What will you be using Instagram for

• Understand your target audience

• Determine the type of content & story you want to tell

• Research competitors

• Test, repeat, & optimize to build your Instagram following

Optimize Bio

• Bio chance to capture the attention of users unfamiliar with brand

• A good bio consists of:

• Profile picture that clearly identifies brand, typically logo

• Brief description (only 150 characters) – consider utilizing emojis

• Call-to-action (examples: click here, contact us, shop our feed, etc.)

• Link (only place for clickable link)

Post Consistently and Frequently

• If you don’t build it, they won’t come!

• Posting consistently ensures fans keep checking you out

• There’s no penalty/fatigue from posting multiple times within a day – just make sure you can stick with this type of frequency

• At least try to post once a day for top of mind (according to Union Metrics, , top brands post on Instagram an average of 1.5 times per day)

Aweber Instagram –infrequent posting schedule which can hurt engagement rates and following on Instagram

Mailchimp Instagram – more frequent posting schedule –better engagement rates (likes,comments) and more people willing to follow on Instagram

Create Great Posts

• Instagram turns brand from conversationalists to visual storyteller

• Build content themes and content calendar

• Decide on content & ratio (photo, video, gif – what percentage do they make up overall content on your Instagram account?

Visuals

• High quality visuals

• Photographer/videographer first, marketer second

• Appeal to emotions and desires

• Calibrate look & feel through post production

• Be aware of copyright issues when using visuals from someone else

Captions

Deliver compelling copy to increase value of post and engagement by

• Challenge post

• Emoji

• Hashtags

• Mentions

• Location tagging

• Call-to-action

Connect With Social Influencers

• Social influencer - a trusted and active social media user with a large group of active followers in your target market

• Augure revealed that 84% of brands planned to include influencer targeting & 93% of those surveyed felt influencer marketing was effective for building brand awareness.

• Tomoson found on average, businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for every $1 they invest in using social influencers.

• Social influencers are a great way to build your Instagram following!

What and Why

• Shoutout for Shoutout(unpaid) – great if you don’t have big budget – works best when you are looking for allies who have similar following sizes as you.

• Shoutout (paid) – get influencer to mention brand

How

• Instagram takeover – cross promote content by having social influencer in related niche take over brand’s Instagram account.

How

Hashtags

• Hashtags allow discovery

• Hashtag limit 30

• Most interactions at 11+ hashtags for brands with < 1k followers

• Make sure hashtag and caption related

• Don’t use too many hashtags once you have a decent amount of followers - even though no penalty/saturation point, too many hashtags = too wide net

• Don’t make caption too short when using hashtags or it’ll look spammy

A few things to take into account when using hashtags, such as:

“Steal” From Competition

• Leverage your competition’s Instagram accounts to target followers already interested in your product/service.

• Create list of competitor’s

• Find their followers by using Crowdfire

• Engage with followers by liking, commenting, following

Contests

• Capitalize on the Instagram users’ “whoa-that’s-cool” mindset by creating a giveaway

• Several types of contests to run – like-to-win, comment-to-win, photo challenge, repost, tag-a-friend, email gated

• These types of contests typically have highest engagement due to lowest entry barrier – because of this you can expect to also get people who aren’t very interested in your brand

• Users ‘like’ or ‘comment’ to enter

Like-To-Win and Comment-To-Win

• To enter, users must post a photo to their feed according to your instructions. They then need to include the relevant hashtag that you tell them to use.

Photo Challenge Contest

• Participants must make a comment within your post and tag another at least one of their friends in the comment section

Tag-A-Friend Contest

Remember: To Increase Instagram Following - Invite Engagement

• Follow, like, comment, regram (with permission)

• Build relationships with influencers

• Shoutout for shoutout

• Instagram contests

• Use call-to-action on posts

• Use hashtags

Selling On Instagram

Now that you have built Instagram following it’s time to sell. You can use Soldsie or Have2Have.it

• Soldsie – comment selling. Followers leave a comment such as ‘sold’ which generates an invoice.

• This also makes use of social proof –followers see like minded individuals making purchase via comments, which makes them more likely to make purchase themselves

Now that you have built Instagram following

• Have2Have.it – make Instagram account shoppable

• User click on link in bio which takes them to page that looks/feels like Instagram

• This new page takes users directly to product – increase sales/conversions