How to Get A Lot of Followers on Instagram
Your business is on Instagram right?
With over 400 million active users and growing, it’s definitely a high traffic social media site that gives you exposure to a large audience.
Having a larger Instagram following can mean more sales for your business, more views on your blog, and a stronger community for your brand. But how in the world do some people have thousands of Instagram followers?
Today, I’ve got 13 actionable tips to help you grow your Instagram followers.
These tips have helped me grow my Instagram following to over 75,000 and will show you how to get a lot of followers on Instagram for your business too!
If you want a premium resource that goes more in depth, I’d check out Alex Tooby’s Instagram course here.
How to Gain Instagram Followers Tip #1: Like Lots of Photos in Your Niche
One of the top recommended strategies to grow Instagram followers is to spend time liking photos in your niche. During my research of how top Instagram accounts grew their following, several talked about how in the early days, they would spend hours liking other people’s photos each night.
My suggestion? Go through and like 5-10 photos on someone’s account. It would also help to leave a genuine comment and give them a follow. This helps to get your name out there and allows other users to discover you. I’d also suggest doing this primarily to users in your niche because they have the same interests as you and more likely to follow you back.
How to find users in your niche? Check hashtags, or view the followers of your favorite Instagrammers. I visit the accounts with large followings in my niche and click on profiles of people who have recently liked a photo on the large accounts profile. Overall, be authentic and not spammy.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #2: Theme Your Profile & Photos
If you followed strategy #1, people will naturally start to notice your username and may check out your account…so now you want to give them something to fall in love with! I’ve found that it really helps to create a theme for your Instagram. When someone visits your profile, they should see a nicely organized page of related photos as well as an engaging biography description.
To determine your theme, write down a few words that you want people to associate with your account. For example, luxury accounts would want people to follow them for wealth, money, and luxury motivation. You’ve probably seen some of these accounts before that post beautiful sports car photos, mansions, and luxury vacation photos.
Other accounts that have gained lots of Instagram followers are motivational and quote accounts. When you visit these Instagram profiles you’ll notice a theme of some sort whether it’s dark backgrounds with white text or white backgrounds with black text. Some use images that they’ll overlay with a dark filter so it makes the white text pop for the quote.
One of my most popular accounts (30,000 Instagram followers) is golf themed. I attract followers who are interested in golf and when they visit my profile, they’ll see photos of golf clubs, golf balls, golf courses, and professional PGA Tour golfers.
Which words would you use for your account? Once you’ve settled on a theme, try your hardest to stick to it!
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #3: Be Social
It ain’t called social media for nothin’! Respond to the comments you receive and leave comments of your own on others’ work. Rather than something stale like, “awesome photo,” try to leave genuine comments that encourage them to post more photos.
Comments are a great way to get others to notice you and make them interested in clicking on your account to view your profile. This can lead to them tagging you or shouting you out in future photos.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #4: Use Hashtags
When I grew one of my accounts from 2,000 followers to over 25,000 followers in just 5 months, it was the result of using hash tags. Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags in your photo description so it’s important to make use of these. I recommend posting your description as it’s own comment and then create a separate comment to paste in your hashtags.
For example, I would write a clever description on my photo with a call to action to my followers to tag their friends. Then after posting my photo, I click “comment” and it opens up a new comment under my photo where I then copy & paste a list of hashtags I’ve pre-written out in my notes app.
Do research to determine what hashtags are relevant to your niche and that get a high volume of visitors daily. Some hashtags have been used millions of times. Users will often search photos based on hashtags so it’s important to use them so your photos show up in the feed for that hashtag.
If you get lots of likes and comments, you photo may rank as one of the top 9 photos for that hashtag! This is how my account got explosive growth. I was ranking for nearly all 30 of the hashtags I was using because my photos got 500+ likes, which tells Instagram it’s a highly valued photo. Research hashtags and see how many likes and comments the top ranking photos are getting to see if you’ll be able to compete with them and outrank them. If your photos get thousands of likes, you’ll probably rank fairly easy for most hash tags. If you get only a few hundred likes, then you’ll have to find hashtags with less competition where the most liked photos for that tag are also only at a few hundred likes or less.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #5: Create a Unique Hashtag & Encourage Others to Use It
This is a great way to build community and gain new content for your account. First of all, create a unique hashtag (make sure it’s not already being used!) and ask others to use it. It works best if the hashtag has a specific purpose.
For example, with my golf account I created #GolfPracticeGuides as well as #GolfIsLife. Once people start using your hashtag (and YOU use it, too!), then you can repost images from your followers (giving them proper credit, of course!). Not only does this build community by showing your followers that you appreciate their photos, but it also gives you content for your own account.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #6: Host Contents & Giveaways
If you have something you’d like to give away, try running a contest. Some ideas? Have users repost a specific image and tag you in the caption. Or ask them to use your hashtag on their own images. You could even try a loop giveaway, if you want to collaborate with other Instagrammers.
If you have users repost a specific image, it’s a good idea to brand the image with your account username somewhere in small text so that anyone who sees the image on other account profiles will check out your account as a result. For example, I tag all my quote photos in small font with @Under30Wealth so they clearly know it’s a photo created by Under 30 Wealth and have the username to visit for more photos.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #7: Encourage Followers to Take Action
As simple as it may sound, people are more likely to do something if you ask them to do it. Sharing a quote? Ask them to “like” your photo if they agree with it! Sharing something funny or relatable? Ask your followers to tag a friend! If you put the idea out there, it will encourage your followers to act accordingly.
Case Example: When I posted a recent photo of a beautiful luxury resort in Mexico, in my description I asked my followers to tag a friend they would vacation here with. It ended up getting over 40+ comments as my followers were tagging their friends and getting new users engaged with my profile. It led to me gaining several new Instagram followers that day from that one post and call to action.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #8: Ask For Other Followers to Follow You On Instagram
If you have a blog, Twitter, or Facebook, then you might assume your people are already following you on every platform. Hint: they probably aren’t! Share a quick tweet, Facebook post, Snapchat, etc. encouraging them to follow you on Instagram…it will reel in more followers than you think.
Case Example: Every week, I usually put out a post on each social media platform encouraging my followers on those networks to come find me and follow me on Instagram. I use this same strategy to attract new subscribers to my YouTube channel as well.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #9: Geo-Tag Your Photos
Posting a photo of a cool city you recently visited? Geotag it! That way, other people who used the same geotag can see your photo and potentially follow you since you now have so much in common (like South Beach you both sunbathed on while vacationing in Miami, FL).
In simple terms, geotagging your photos means you tag it with a location that appears above your photo and underneath your Instagram account username.
Grow Your Instagram Followers Tip #10: Find Out What Your Followers Like
One of the best ways to gain Instagram followers is to share photos that you audience likes. This leads to them being engaged (liking, commenting, and tagging friends) which helps boost your photo ranking in the news feed and hashtag rankings.
Go through your profile and review all the photos and videos you’ve posted to discover what type of content has received the most likes, comments, and tagging of friends. Post more of this content!
Case Example: I used to post a mix of mansion photos and quote photos on one of my real estate accounts until I realized the quote photos were getting the most engagement. I started posting more quote photos and still incorporated real estate images into the quote photo by using them as the backgrounds that the text layers over.
Gain Instagram Followers Tip #11: Link to Your Profile on Other Networks
In your profile on other social networks, it’s recommended that you add your Instagram username to your biography description so that followers on these networks can find you on Instagram as well. You could link to your Instagram account or just mentioned your user name in the description “Follow me on Instagram @YourUserName”
Usually I like to link to my website or a lead capture page so I’ll just mention my username in my description somewhere.
Grow Instagram Followers Tip #12: Collaborate with Influencer Accounts
Network with other influencers on Instagram. An Instagram Influencer is someone who has lots of followers and is one of the top accounts in their respective niche. Research your niche and determine who the top Instagrammers are and reach out to them!
Ask them to do a photo shout out exchange where you each post a photo of each others and tag their account in the photo and description so that your audiences can learn about the other person’s account. Or maybe you both collaborate on a giveaway/contest with your followers.
Get creative and come up with ways you can add value to the influencer so that they’ll be more likely to collaborate with your account and help you grow your follower base.
How to Get a Lot of Instagram Followers Tip #13: Paid Posting by Top Influencer Accounts
Lastly, you may consider paying for a top influencer to post a photo for you to their account. Lots of big accounts make a full time living by selling advertising to smaller accounts. Prices can range from $20 to $500 per photo that they post.
Research Instagrammers who have a similar audience to you and whose followers would be most likely to follow you also since your account is of similar interest to them. Reach out to these account owners by Direct Messaging them or emailing them and ask how much they charge to do a paid posting. Often times, you’ll find their email address in their biography description that says “For business inquiries please email me at ____”
Overall, try out these 13 tips to discussed today on how to get a lot of followers on Instagram. It takes time and effort to gain a following on Instagram but is totally worth it. As you gain more Instagram followers, you’ll notice an increase in website traffic, conversion rates, and sales revenue for your products.
How have you grown your number of Instagram followers?
Leave me a comment below on different strategies you’ve tried and found successful for growing your number of Instagram followers. Also be sure to read the comments of others to learn new creative tactics and strategies!
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How to Get Visitors to Your Website
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