The main treasure for any Instagram blogger are people – the more is the better. Influencers struggle to gain even 50 followers for a page on Instagram due to the new algorithms of Instagram. Simply growing big numbers does not matter a lot – hence there is no point to spend money on bots. You need many people who are active on your profile – only then you will be able to hit top ratings in your industry and become a recommended account on IG. So the question emerges – how to get more followers organically on Instagram? Luckily for you here are collected top 7 techniques that will help you to attract the audience to your profile.
1. Optimize your profile like a pro
This is the first thing you should do after you make a decision to become an Instagram blogger. To complete this goal, your account has to be prepared, and here are the key positions to take care of:
- Username. This one has to be very well optimized for search, meaning: not too long, easy to remember, and catchy, as well as somehow reflecting your personality or industry.
- Bio information and link in it. This is your brief presentation on the platform, which basically gives a hint about your blog for newcomers. The link that you place here is very important too – mostly, established influencers place here advertising links from their sponsors or merchandise shopping options.
- Captions and hashtags. This is a cauldron where you mix the relevant keywords that ought to make your account reachable for your target group.
2. Work on your visuals
Instagram is all about images. So, to win the attention of many people and motivate them to follow you, present them with a wonderful view of your profile. To reach that goal, make sure your post grid is looking perfect. That means you have to unify the look of each of your posts and highlights, according to a certain pattern and style. Your visuals are defining your blog mood, and if you give visitors enough hints about it, the chance of them staying becomes higher.
It doesn’t mean that all your pictures and videos have to look totally alike, but it will be good to develop a few recognizable features for your content. Choose two or three color correction schemes, to reflect the mood of your pics and enhance them according to the original data.
And don’t forget highlights! Stories have more filters that aren’t obliged to be the same all the time, but if you use highlights as folders for important content, make sure you have made cover images for proper categorization.
3. Post regularly
Lacking a tight schedule for uploading new content harms your progress severely, whatever good your content may be. Even if you are able to gain some followers as you start, posting without any plan will scare away everyone. Spread your posts throughout the day to embrace the most. It is recommended to avoid posting too much too. For example, if it’s a feed post, IGTV, or live stream – you should post it once a day, and stories along with reels should be hooking people up during the day. Check out the best time to post too, according to the information about the behavior of your target group. Of course, to make it all work you would use automatic planners, thus freeing up some time for creating new content.
4. Aim for shareable posts
Users sharing your posts is one of the most effective ways to expand your reach. Seven handshakes and all that. You need to produce materials that have enough value, or are extremely fun! And the second one, even though it seems easier – isn’t so at all. We all love to giggle over a good meme. And the secret of a perfectly shareable, viral meme is it being witty, yet resonating with reality – the meme is no abstract joke, it has to reflect the irony of our life. And creating a new meme is a form of art, complicated and often fruitless. But, you can always piggyback on existing templates, adding relevant text to the known image.
5. Take advantage of the algorithm
When the feed switched from chronological to a dynamic timeline, many bloggers started panicking. Well, panic is never helping, so ditch it right now and focus your efforts on taming the algorithm instead of trying to beat it. To do that, you must examine your target group and define the six factors affecting the appearance of content in users feeds:
- Preference: the potential of the users liking this post, based on their previous behavior
- Time: how recent is this post
- Relation: how often a user is engaging with certain accounts
- Regularity: how often user opens the app
- Following: what kind of blogs do user follows the most
- Use: how long the user remains in the app.
Your goal is to find people who seem to engage with content similar to yours and squeeze in the right time and place, according to the information you get.
6. Squeeze the max engagement from the existing audience
To hit the top of ratings and appear on recommendations, as well as on the Explore page, you need to increase your engagement. This metric is crucial for the ranking system. So, In other words, your existing audience will promote you to get new followers.
Don’t focus on gaining many likes. It will be much better to get more comments as well. And you have to reply actively, encouraging your followers to leave more comments, and visit your page more extensively to continue the conversation. Your ultimate goal is to make users hit the like button, save your post, and comment on it, so you could interact with them continuously.
7. Use all types of content
Instagram is a precious gift for bloggers because it allows them to create lots of different content, entertaining their followers with many tools. Such diversity helps to keep a blog interesting and engaging for the audience. Here are the formats of content that are available to you:
- Feed posts/carousels (photos and videos)
- Stories
- Reels
- Stories
- Live streams
- IGTV
Nice variety to choose from, isn’t it? All these formats require different schedules and optimization, so the amount of options that help you to get more followers is multiplied. However, remember that your visual style has to be somewhat consistent for all the forms of posts you want to use, for the sake of recognition.
Conclusion
With modern algorithms, it may seem hard to gain more followers on Instagram quickly. But given some efforts and thorough work along with constant monitoring, it is totally possible to complete. Remember that the main interest hook is still original and valuable content.