Understanding Instagram Growth: Is It All About the Numbers?
When you’re pushing the start button on a new Instagram account, the challenge of building a follower base can seem daunting. The desire to rapidly inflate your follower count may lead you down the path of considering Instagram buy followers. But do the numbers really matter? And if they do, why is purchasing followers not a viable strategy?
The Significance of Instagram Follower Count
Despite the common belief that the size of your audience is a mere vanity metric, Instagram follower growth is, in fact, a pivotal indicator to track. Here are a few compelling reasons to build and continue growing your followers:
- A substantial follower count often translates into increased engagement opportunities, enhancing the reach of your Instagram posts and aiding in further account expansion.
- A broad audience base improves brand recognition and drives more potential customers into your sales funnel, contributing to meeting revenue targets and other key objectives.
- A large follower base acts as social proof, attracting prospective customers and facilitating brand partnerships.
While the follower count is essential, it should not be the ultimate goal. In your quest for growth, keep an eye on other critical business metrics like engagement and click-throughs to ensure balanced progress toward your overall objectives.
The Pitfalls of Buying Instagram Followers
The temptation to instantly boost your follower count by purchasing followers on Instagram can be strong. Yet, this should never be a part of your Instagram growth strategy. Here’s why:
- Acquiring followers artificially violates the Instagram Community Guidelines, putting your account at risk of being banned.
- While purchased followers might make your follower count look impressive, they fail to deliver real engagement or contribute to your business’s bottom line. They are unlikely to turn into paying customers or help you achieve your true goals.
So, what’s the alternative? An optimal growth strategy involves organically increasing your Instagram followers or legitimately promoting your profile through Instagram ads.
Boosting Your Instagram Follower Base: A Step-by-Step Guide
Are you ready to embark on your Instagram growth journey? Here are some actionable steps to help you attract more followers.
#1: Enhancing Your Instagram Profile Visibility
Before you dive into content creation, take time to optimize your Instagram profile. A complete and appealing profile can boost its search visibility and entice your target audience to hit the follow button. A half-baked profile, on the other hand, is unlikely to garner many followers.
Kickstart your optimization process by refining your Instagram display name. Incorporate your brand name, a catchy tagline, or a brief description of what your business offers. Use relevant keywords your audience might use in searches, while maintaining a human and approachable tone.
Next, harness your Instagram bio to provide more keyword-rich information about your business. This space is ideal for flaunting social proof like awards, customer testimonials, or collaborations with renowned companies.
You can also include branded hashtags in your bio to help new followers discover more of your content or contribute their own user-generated content. However, refrain from adding non-branded hashtags as they won’t aid your profile in in-app searches.
#2: Crafting a Series of Engaging Instagram Posts
With your profile all set, it’s time to create content that resonates with your audience and prompts them to follow your account. An empty profile won’t attract followers, so plan a series of introductory posts to publish immediately. You could introduce your business, your products or services, or your team members.
Don’t fret over when to post these introductions. Simply choose a time during business hours to post on your Instagram profile. As you gain followers and post consistently, your Instagram account insights can help identify when your audience is most active and the optimal time to post.
#3: Harnessing the Power of Hashtags
While hashtags aren’t a silver bullet for skyrocketing reach or follower growth, they can enhance visibility and put your brand on potential followers’ radar. By providing context to your posts, hashtags aid Instagram in understanding your content and delivering it to a relevant audience.
When you add hashtags to your Instagram posts, you also increase the chances of your posts appearing in related hashtag feeds or pages. For the best outcomes, stick to Instagram’s official recommendation of using three to five hashtags per post, including a branded hashtag, and measure the results.
While Instagram’s in-app insights don’t offer analytics for individual hashtags, you can observe results for specific posts. By adding only a few hashtags to each post, you can gradually deduce which ones yield the best outcomes for your account.
#4: Geotagging Your Instagram Content
If you are targeting a local audience, Instagram geotags can help boost your visibility among potential customers in your area. Start by researching local geotags. Input the name of your region, town, or neighborhood into Instagram’s search bar to find the most relevant and active one.
Feel free to use different geotags for each post, as long as they are relevant to your content. For instance, if your business attends pop-up events at various locations, geotags can significantly enhance visibility.
#5: Building a Distinctive Brand Aesthetic
With Instagram’s separate tabs for Reels and Stories, it’s easy to assume the grid layout has lost its importance. While maintaining an intricately designed grid may not be as crucial as before, a consistent and recognizable aesthetic never goes out of style. The more distinctive your brand appears, the easier it is for customers to remember it and spot it in a busy Instagram feed.
To create a memorable aesthetic, establish a style guide for your Instagram content. It should include the overall tone, preferred color schemes, fonts, and filters, as well as templates for reels and stories.
#6: Employing Persuasive Calls to Action
Even if Instagram users adore your content or brand, they may not hit the Follow button without a specific prompt. Leverage calls to action (CTAs) in captions, creatives, and dialogues to encourage viewers to follow your account.
Avoid generic CTAs that fail to provide potential followers with any value. Instead, give them a compelling reason to follow your account, such as exclusive live sessions with your founder, early access to special offers, or unique content not published on any other platform.
#7: Leverage Other Channels to Drive Instagram Traffic
If you’ve already established a presence on other marketing channels, you can leverage them to attract followers to your Instagram account. For instance, share a link to your Instagram account on your Facebook page or in an email newsletter. Include a CTA and provide a compelling reason for your audience to follow your Instagram account, such as exclusive content or unique insights.
Even if your business is new and you’re building brand awareness from scratch, adding an Instagram link to your website can be beneficial. Anyone landing on your site through an ad, organic search, or a referral can easily find and follow your Instagram account.
#8: Replicate Content That Attracts Followers
As you create more content, you can gather valuable data to guide your strategy. If you’re unsure about what type of content to create next, your Instagram insights can offer clues. Here’s how to discern what’s working best.
Instagram insights can reveal the number of followers gained from each story and feed post you publish. To access this data, open the insights for any story or post and scroll down to the Profile Activity section. Look for the Follows metric to see how many new followers your post attracted.
Although this method works for stories and feed posts, Instagram doesn’t offer these insights for reels. To ascertain which reels are attracting the most followers, study your account’s follower metrics to identify spikes.
Instagram may also recommend your content to users who don’t follow your account yet if it believes they might enjoy it. Use your account insights to identify the types of content that typically attract more non-follower reach. Then, create more of such content to reach and eventually convert non-followers.
#9: Engage with Your Followers
When users take the time to interact with your content, ensure you respond promptly. Engagement is a key ranking factor for Instagram, and the more engagement your posts garner, the more visibility you can gain, leading to audience growth. This is particularly crucial for smaller accounts.
If you have limited resources for engagement, prioritize your responses. Plan to be online and ready to respond within the first 30 minutes or so after publishing a post, reel, or story. If necessary, set up saved replies on Instagram for quicker responses.
#10: Be Proactive with Engagement
While awaiting engagement on your posts, take the initiative to interact with other creators’ content. Engaging meaningfully with relevant accounts, such as leaving thoughtful comments, can put your brand on their followers’ radar.
To streamline your outreach, curate a list of brands that complement yours and influencers within your niche. Add them to your Favorites list to ensure you regularly see their content. You can even choose to view your Favorites feed exclusively for more efficient engagement.
#11: Collaborate with Like-minded Brands
Having trouble getting your content seen by potential followers? Team up with more established brands to create collaborative content. This could be a co-branded giveaway, a recipe using both brands’ products, or a joint project.
When you publish the content on Instagram, use the app’s Collab tool. Once the other brand accepts your invitation, the content will automatically appear on both accounts’ feeds, significantly enhancing your brand’s visibility.
#12: Forge Partnerships with Influencers
Collaborating with influencers can be an effective way to introduce your brand to a new audience and gain followers within your niche. The key is to ensure that the influencer’s audience aligns with your target customers.
To discover influencers within your niche, use Instagram’s search bar or third-party influencer marketing tools. Follow and/or favorite these influencers, engage with their content, and then reach out via DM to discuss potential collaborations.
#13: Boost Your Reach with Instagram Ads
If you have a budget for Instagram marketing, you can accelerate your audience growth even further with Instagram ads. While Instagram ads don’t offer a specific objective for follower growth, you can use Instagram’s in-app Boost tool to encourage profile visits and hopefully gain followers.
It’s worth noting that running Instagram ads should not be the first or only step towards building your audience. An effective ad might capture attention, but if your account lacks followers, content, or an engaging bio, your ads are unlikely to convert. Hence, it’s advisable to first implement the above steps and then supplement your efforts with targeted ads.
To set up an ad for Instagram follows, create an engaging organic post that introduces your brand, showcases your products, and resonates with your target audience. Test a few options to see what engages your current followers. Any organic post that performs above your average engagement rate is a good candidate for promotion.
After selecting an organic post to promote, tap the Boost button and select More Profile Visits as the goal. Next, create a target audience. If you have already attracted an engaged audience, you can use the Automatic option to target people similar to your followers.
If your audience is too small to provide Instagram with significant data, consider creating an interest- or location-based audience instead. Allow Instagram to target your local area or enter relevant interests. Then, select a timeframe and a budget.
As the ad runs, monitor the results to ensure the cost per follower aligns with your marketing budget. Are you receiving plenty of profile visits but not many followers? Consider revamping your Instagram bio or publishing more organic content to make your profile more appealing to your target audience.
Wrapping Up
Accumulating 1,000 Instagram followers or more is rarely an overnight achievement. However, with the growth plan outlined above, you can reach this milestone more efficiently, allowing you to focus on the goals that truly matter to your business, such as engagement, traffic, and revenue.
Remember, organic growth is always more beneficial than opting to Instagram buy followers, and a steady increase in your Instagram-like increase can signal a healthy, engaged follower base.
For those seeking professional assistance for Instagram growth, Social King is a reputable website with over a decade of experience. They offer safe and effective solutions to boost your Instagram audience, helping you reach your social media goals faster.
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