Instagram finally reached 1 billion users in the summer of 2018. This means that among 3.2 billion people who have access to Internet, more than 1 billion has an Instagram account. Surveys show that this popular platform where users interact with their family and friends as well as their favorite brands is one of the most practical social media platforms for businesses, with more than 190 million active users in a month and the highest engagement rate among social networks. But like any other social media platform, a business’s success on Instagram is highly bound to its followers. Engage them in your brand and to do so, use helpful tools and approaches from stories and hashtags to an Instagram bot and listening tools.
Followers: Real or Fake?
It is more than important to have real followers on Instagram since these users would like your posts, leave comments on them, and would not unfollow your page as they have chosen your page based on their own preferences and interests.
Real followers are real Instagram users with a profile belonging to a real person in the real world. They can help you to gain better rankings in your followers’ feed while high number of fake followers not only would not improve your engagement, but also they will harm your brand, considering Instagram’s new algorithm. Fake accounts do not represent real people and have no active presence in your page. They just increase your follower count. This increase in followers may be good for a person with a public page but not for a business page.
As an active business on Instagram, you should also notice that people are not there to see your promotional content. They are there to share their photos and interact with other users; this is what social network means, as the name suggests. So give them the content they are interested in and engage them with your page. Interaction is a two way street. Answer all comments or at least a good percentage of them, like your followers’ posts and also write great captions with good CTAs. Ask them to tag their friends or run polls and contests.
These are basic rules of Instagram which can increase the follower count in the long run. Use organic and non-organic approaches to increase the number of your real followers. Here we talk about some of them.
Organic Approaches
Instagram itself has provided many features through which you can improve the quality of your posts and get more attention. The hashtag is probably the most important one.
Hashtags. These can show your posts to thousands of users; otherwise they wouldn’t see them. But hashtags should be used properly. Use 11-30 hashtags for each post; research shows that when there are more than 11 hashtags, the engagement rate of the posts will increase as well. Do not use hashtags only in your posts. Use them in the comments as well.
Instagram Story. This provides features like polls, stickers, locations and hashtags, and increases a page’s engagement. Use links in your story to lead traffic to your website’s homepage or product page. Review the latest comments to get ideas for Live videos and increase interaction with your followers.
Geotag. This feature can lead to more traffic to your page. By adding your location in each post, users searching for that location can find you, even if they do not follow your page. Geotag can have a huge effect on the impression of your posts. It is especially important for local businesses.
Introduce Your Instagram Page on Your Other Social Media Pages. Link your Instagram page to your Facebook profile, as almost 20 percent of your Facebook friends have Instagram accounts as well. If you have already linked them and you still want more followers, a simple way is to share all your Instagram posts on your Facebook account (and even other social networks).
Share More Pictures Rather Than Videos. If you are interested in video, share short videos. The average time of paying attention to each phenomena is 12 seconds and our mind needs 13 millisecond to process each image. This is the reason behind a decrease in the number of views, likes and comments on videos. Even for videos over 9 seconds, followers’ engagement decreases significantly.
Use Instagram Filters. Make your pictures even more attractive with filters. Ludwig is a good option for pictures captured in nature. Or you can use Lo-Fi for food pictures. Try X-Pro II for pictures taken in the daylight and Gingham for your selfie images.
Blue evokes trust, comfort and relief in the human brain so use it as the dominant color in your pictures to get 25 percent more likes. Sometimes, marketers use red as the dominant color in their pictures to attract the attention of Instagram users, though it is not a good choice to infuse trust in them. Light pictures also get more attention than dark ones.
Find the Best Time to Post and Be Consistent. Users are relatively more online on Instagram in comparison to other social platforms. There are always people online to see your post; post every day. Daily posts will increase followers 4 times more than weekly posts. Studies show different results. For example, some believe the best time to post is Wednesday 3 p.m., 11 a.m. and 3-4 p.m. on Thursday, and also 5 p.m. of Friday. Others mention Monday and Tuesday as the best days. Study your followers’ behavior closely to find the best time for your business and brand.
Following the steps above, the main purpose for all marketers is to gain high engagement rates and appear on the Explore page for more and more Instagram users. Reaching the Instagram Explore page helps your posts go viral and leads to an increase in the number of your followers.
Non-organic Approaches
Use Automation Tools. Get active on this powerful platform even when you are not online. As we said in the first part of this article, posting at the right time and on a daily basis is important for the rank of your posts in the feeds of your followers. Since you have a lot of tasks or are in a different time zone, you may lose some of these opportunities. Instagram schedulers help you to be on time and post when you are not online.
There are also tools that automatically interact with followers or other Instagram users on behalf of your page, i.e. Instagram bot. It would follow other users, like their posts and comment on them and even send them automated direct messages. By applying these tools, you can attract other users’ attention and if they find your page interesting, they will follow you in return. For example, a study shows that when you comment on other Instagram users’ posts, they are 401% more likely to follow your page. There are plenty of these tools with different prices and capabilities to help you in each task, like Instamber, which offers reasonable prices.
Influencer Marketing. This is a new approach in social media marketing through which you would partner with an influencer on Instagram who has a great number of followers. There are several types of influencers, including people who have a great number of followers without producing any kind of special content, those possessing a successful brand and Instagram users who share technical content in which they are specialized.
The engagement of your page can increase even more than 30 percent when users see another person is using your products. If he or she is a famous person, the effect would be even more. Be sure the person and his or her content is related to your campaign strategy and niche. Just as if some people would buy Instagram auto likes and strive to get real engagement from users, you’ll want to connect with influencers that can inspire real new followers in your niche.
Instagram Sponsor Ad Service. Through this approach, Instagram will show your posts to people interested in your niche who are not your followers. It’s simple; click “promote” at the bottom of your posts.
Try your best to reach the Explore page of other users. By going viral, you will gain real followers who are active. PowerLike is a good medium for going viral. When people with great pages like yours post, many users will see their posts. To get your posts on the Explore page of other Instagram users, tag these pages to draw attention to your page.
Instagram is a powerful marketing tool for businesses. Use it to publicize your brand’s name and improve your ROI. The approaches we explained here, if used properly, can help you to gain more legitimate followers.
