Gaining a large following on Instagram has less to do with your perceived social standing and more to do with your ability to identify and master the platform’s most consequential activity.
Determine how often you should post (pictures, videos, stories, live sessions) to achieve your weekly follower growth goal.
How do you come up with an answer? Post once each day for a week and track your growth in new followers throughout that time. You should increase your daily posting frequency to two if the number of new followers you obtained that week is higher than the previous week. If you find that your following grows even more rapidly when you post twice daily as opposed to once daily, raise your posting frequency to three times daily the following week, and tally the results.
The quantity of posts you make each day should be optimised so that you get as many new followers as possible each week. The optimal amount of food for most people is one feed post every day.
Top performing hashtags
Always add a varied number of 5-7 randomly arranged hashtags that have the most posts and most precisely describe your content in the initial remark of your posts to reach the maximum number of relevant individuals who can convert into followers. If you want to learn more about Instagram hashtags and how to determine which ones will work best for your profile, check out this post.
However, keep in mind that hashtags are significantly less effective now than they were a year ago (they reach about 1/10th of the people they used to reach between 2011 and 2018). They will never be the deciding factor in whether or not your account grows, but they can help you get a few more followers and boost your engagement if utilised properly.
Increase the frequency of your encounters
Increase the amount of times your username appears on other’s activity feeds and the total number of people who discover you by engaging with accounts that don’t know about you (via likes, comments, direct messages, etc.).
That can be done by either manually engaging with hundreds of posts per day or automatically doing so with an Instagram bot. Focus on excellence rather than quantity. You should only communicate with those who are truly interested in what you have to say, as each like, remark, or direct message takes time and effort.
Tags-Utilize as many tags as possible
To maximise your exposure, you should get mentioned by as many individuals as possible; ideally those that have large, active followings and genuinely like your work.
More people will see the tag, check out your account, and follow you (if it’s relevant to them) if the account that tags you has a larger following and greater average Instagram interaction. Sincere connections win out every time, so reach out to other accounts in your network via direct message to discuss opportunities for cross-promotion via tagging.
Advertising that gets results
The final step in reaching as many people as possible is to promote your content using Instagram’s “Sponsored Post” (home-feed) or “Stories” adverts.
This is one of the few things that is highly dependent on your financial resources. More people will be impacted if a higher sum of money is allocated. The success of your advertisements depends on two factors besides your spending plan. First, your skill to make a captivating commercial; the less “this is an advertisement” it seems, the higher the click-through rate and the lower the cost per click (for an example of the most effective ad I’ve ever done, watch the video below). And secondly, your proficiency with the Facebook advertisements tool and how to best tailor your advertisements to your intended audience.
Knowledge of the target Audience
If you want to turn the people you’re trying to reach into loyal fans, you need to know what they perceive to be “great” material.
We can’t read people’s minds to find out if they believe a post is “great,” therefore the next best way to figure out what our audience values is to see what they interact with (via likes, comments, and direct messages). A photo isn’t “great” in this sense if it is seen by someone but doesn’t elicit any sort of reaction from them. In particular, we can learn more about the kinds of content that resonate with our followers by analysing the posts that have received the highest levels of interaction from both our own followers and those of other accounts they follow on Instagram.
Grid Visuals that Stand Out and Look Nice
Finally, the aesthetic appeal of your Instagram feed in grid view is a good indicator of how many people will follow your account. The average Instagram user spends only three to five seconds per account before deciding whether or not to follow it after seeing it for the first time (as in the video below). Therefore, a higher percentage of people will choose to “Follow” your page if your grid effectively conveys your value to them.