Blow up your Instagram

Instagram has become a powerful tool for many brands, driving profitable traffic to landing pages, growing conversions, and building an engaged community of followers. With over one-quarter of the world’s active internet users active on Instagram, it’s more important than ever to have a robust strategy in place to grow your Instagram followers and turn leads into sales. In this post, we give you some hints and tips to blow up your Instagram followers.

Optimise your Instagram account

Before you try to gain more followers on your Instagram account, one of the most important steps you need to take is to ensure your account is fully optimised. Much like in real life, on Instagram, you only have a small amount of time to make a good impression. Link your Instagram account to your Facebook Business Page to help build customer trust

One of the best ways to attract your targeted audience and make a good first impression is to update your bio. Without a bio, profile image, and link to your website Instagram users won’t know that it’s you and maybe put off following you so ensure you spend some time optimising your account.

Use relevant hashtags

Through the implementation of an Instagram hashtag strategy, you can grow your followers quickly and efficiently, popping up on your target audience’s feeds regularly.

A few years ago you could put any old hashtag onto your post, but since the Instagram algorithm changed your post now needs to feature the right hashtags for your target market.

To gain new Instagram followers using hashtags, you need to choose around 15 that follow the below logic:

10 generic hashtags

If you own a hairdressing business, for example, the hashtags would be #hairdressing #hair salon #hairoftheday etc. You can also put more generic ones here such as #like4like #instagood, but you should try and refrain from these as much as possible.

2 specific hashtags

These would be specific to your niche, for example, #weddinghairdresser #balayage etc. These are related to the generic ones but target exactly what your audience is searching for.

3 ultra-specific hashtags

These hashtags depend on the content that you’re posting. They need to describe the image, video, or reel perfectly.

You can also create your own hashtags here for example #HelensHairdressing etc. so that your followers can always find your work.

Using hashtags correctly for your business can help scale and grow your account much faster than you think. However, be cautious when repeating your tags.

Post on a regular basis

As with any social media account, consistency is key to gaining new followers organically. People that post on Instagram at least once a day tend to gain more followers than those who post a few times a week and this is primarily because of Instagram’s algorithm.

If you post regularly and gain good engagement rates, Instagram’s algorithm is more likely to show you posts at the top of your followers’ feeds.

Of course, the quality of what you post should be high. Just because you post every day doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get more engagement. Focus on content that will speak to your audience and is authentic to you.

Post at the right times

In addition to adding the right hashtags to gain more followers on Instagram, you should also consider what time you publish your posts.

Instagram analytics is a great way for you to understand what times and days your posts perform best at allowing you to tailor your Instagram posts to those specific times and days.

Utilise giveaways

Giveaways are one of the best ways to increase engagement and instantly blow up your follower count on Instagram as they are ridiculously effective.

A recent study showed that when you use a giveaway on Instagram, you will gain 350% more likes and comments than any regular post, which is why many brands and influencers use them to their advantage.

Engage with your followers

One of the most powerful ways to grow your Instagram following is by engaging with your followers and being authentic in doing so. Engaging with your audience means that you have taken the time to read what they have to say and have commented accordingly.

If you are proactive, you can gain plenty of followers this way turning hundreds to thousands.

Some great ways to engage with your followers are:

• Respond to every comment you get with at least 5 words (excluding emojis)
• Like and comment on your followers content
• Reply to Instagram stories and Instagram live sessions

You should also want to connect with other people in your niche. Explore accounts that use a similar hashtag to yours as these will most likely be interested in your content too.

Engagement doesn’t have to take up much of your time, but it can help to increase your authentic audience if you dedicate an hour or so each day to it.

Get featured on the Instagram explore page

One of the most powerful ways to instantly blow up your Instagram following and gain massive exposure with minimal effort is to get a post featured on the Instagram Explore Page.

Every Instagram account explore page is different and is made up of content of things you’ve recently liked as well as posts liked by people whose content you’ve liked.

It might seem strange, but it’s one of the best ways for you to gain followers and increase engagement on your platform. Here’s how it works:

When your friends and followers engage with your photos through comments and likes, your posts will show up on the explore page of users following them.

Therefore, the more engagement you get on your posts, the more people will see it and the more people will like your content (increasing the chances of blowing up your content).

Final thoughts

As complex as Instagram can be, it doesn’t have to be. By implementing a few quick and easy techniques to your social media strategy you can quickly and effectively grow your follower count with an engaged audience that wants to see and connect to you and your feed.