Content is definitely Queen and creating content for your audience is by far one of the fastest ways to get recognised and start building your brand. Instagram is one of the most powerful platforms for sharing your content.
But how do you get real followers on Instagram, fast?
I’ll show you the exact steps to quickly gain engaged and valuable Instagram followers, without the need for back handed tactics- that just quietly, don’t work very well, and are not sustainable. Real followers, who are engaged in your content and who are following you because they want to see you in their feed for a reason are the types of people you want as followers.
Disclaimer: This post contains links, that if clicked, and you make a purchase, or start a trial, I may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I 🧡
How to get more Instagram followers
1. Know your own brand
Your brand is your style and before you go charging into Instagram with reckless abandon, stop and think. How do I want to be received? What is it I’m trying to convey? How do I want to turn up on this platform… and what sort of tone and style do I want to convey?
Inspire Me Home Decor is a classic example of knowing her brand. While not everyones style, Farah Merhi has her brand down pat. She knows her style, she oozes confidence and she stays true to her brand ethos.
Every single post on her Instagram account oozes Farah. You know exactly what to expect. It’s lush, lavish and eccentric. Farah’s images are always the same – she captures her products beautifully and posts them with little post editing. She knows her brand! And it works, obviously. She has over 7.5M followers and a very successful business.
The one key take-way here. She knows her brand. She stays consistent in her style and she has amassed an audience who knows what to expect from her account.
2. Use keywords to get found in Instagram search
The most highly searchable words in your Instagram account are your name and your handle, or username.
Adding keywords to both of these fields means that you’ll likely come up on someone’s search for that particular keyword.
Run a food blog? having the keywords recipes or food in your handle and name goes a long way towards being found.
Shonda Wagner is a classic example of doing this well on her recipe account on Instagram.
It doesn’t matter what your niche is, adding your number one keyword to your name or handle will go a long way to getting noticed.
3. Post relentlessly consistently
Consistency is key on Instagram, and in fact on most social platforms. Posting every day to Instagram helps not only your post engagement and reach but also helps you to increase your followers. One Tailwind study showed that posting daily increased followers 4x faster than posting weekly!
Thats a massive difference.
I use two content planners to post to my social channels Tailwind and the Canva Scheduler. Both do a great job.
By posting to Instagram daily you’ll grow followers 4x faster than posting less than once a weekClick to Tweet – Tailwind Study
Surprisingly, most accounts do not post daily to Instagram. Thats a huge advantage that you’ll be gaining by doing so!
4. Create a content plan
Being consistent on Instagram can feel overwhelming but by creating a content schedule or plan you can automate much of the hard back end stuff and put your posting on autopilot.
Start with a content calendar, plan out your content around holidays, special occasions or seasons. Know whats coming up and get your content ready before hand. Christmas, Easter, Summer holidays, Thanksgiving – you KNOW when these holidays are and you can plan accordingly.
Other times of the year you can plan themes or topics or seek out trends (you can easily use Google Trends or Pinterest Trends to find whats hot and what people are searching for.
Once you have your content calendar sorted, you can easily use a content scheduler to automate daily posting.
5. Optimise posts with relevant, researched hashtags
Hashtags on Instagram are an important part of how users find relevant content. Unlike facebook, hashtags on Instagram are encouraged.
Instagram recommends adding between 3 and 5 hashtags per post as the optimal number to gain reach. They go on to say that using more, will not get you additional distribution.
Later however analysed over 18M Instagram posts to find out the optimal number of hashtags to use on posts. And their findings were contrary to Instagrams advice! In fact they noted that both reach and engagement grew when the number of hashtags increased.
The takeaway? Go big or go home when it comes to your hashtag strategy.
Later
My take? The exact number of hashtags is less important than the quality of hashtags. You can easily find hashtags for your brand in a few simple ways.
Search for a keyword hashtag in your niche, by clicking on the top result, you’ll get search results for top posts.
Find a post that is similar to what you might post and that has good engagement and see what hashtags are used on that post. Don’t copy their hashtags exactly- just take inspiration!
Or use a tool like All Hashtag to get an instant hashtag list.
Add your hashtags as the first comment on your post, not in the main body of your post. This means you save your main body space for your content and your hashtags, which are just for search, are located in a separate section.
6. Follow other users who follow your competitors
Head on over to an account similar to yours that you love. Check out their followers list. And follow these people. It goes without saying that if someone has followed one of your competitors for content specific to your niches, they may also want to follow you.
So, show them you exist! Follow them and hopefully they will follow you back. Especially if your profile is optimised to show value.
You can follow up to 40 people an hour without Instagram snagging your for spammy behaviour, so make sure you don’t overdo it or you might get your account limited for a period of time.
7. Create content that people will want to share
Think about the type of content that you love to instantly pass on to your community. What does it look like? It’s usually memes, or infographics or quotes. These types of content have the ability to easily grab your audiences attention and are interesting, fun or informative enough for others to want to share.
Make it look great so people are compelled to repost. And make it memorable so the propensity for it to go viral is increased.
Think about TikTok. The best videos on TikTok go viral pretty quick.
8. Dip your toe into Reels creation
Reels are short form video content. Anywhere from 15 -60 seconds in length. The best news is that Reels can increase your visibility by 50% more than traditional feed posts.
Instagram advises to try to utilise all the products they have to attract followers and increase engagement. They recommend that you use feed, stories, IGTV, lives and reels to gain the most traction. They also encouraged leaning into more video content to help with engagement.
We recommend that you post a mix of content types and lean more into video.
Instagram
7 Tips for Creating Engaging Instagram Reels
- Keep reels short to encourage sharing
- Use on screen captions
- Utilise hashtags
- Stay current by using trends
- Be unique
- Shoot your reel vertically
- Use insights
9. Create written, as well as visual content
A lot of people, especially bloggers use Instagram as an extension to their blogs. You can literally write a mini blog (or micro content) as part of your Insta post.
Using Instagram as a mini blog means you get to not only add value b posting great visual content but you can also use the platform to write mini posts.
Use that space!
Grab whatever content you’re posting on your blog and create a mini post for your Insta account. Truncate the paragraphs, pick out a list of steps, create a mini breakdown or pull out the juiciest bits and create a mini post.
Added bonus! … Your readers will no doubt want more and head on over to your website to get the full story.
Wrap Up
Instagram is a great way to both build and reach your community. On top of that, creating engaging and shareable content for your audience has never been easier or more effective.
Theres a tonne of ways that will help you quickly grow your followers on Instagram. Pick 2 or 3 and make it your priority to stick to your plan for 30 days and see what happens! Let us know in the comments what you’ve tried and what worked best for you!
QUIT THE NINE TO FIVE 
Leave a comment