You’ve probably heard this before, but if you want more followers on your Instagram account you need to follow other people. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, or what your posts look like – the only way to grow your following is by following others.
But that’s not the only way! Following other accounts and expecting a following to come back will drive you crazy!
In fact, it might not be the best way at all. There are plenty of ways to get more followers without actually following people yourself (or showing skin), and we’re going to go over some of the basics.
…and you get to keep your clothes on!
Optimizing Your Profile
Just like Eminem says, “You only get one shot…” your profile is that one shot. Your profile, or bio, is the very first thing that visitors to your Instagram will see, and it’s important that it looks professional so that people are interested in clicking through.
After all, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!
(Sidenote: Unless you are a bikini model growing a following, do all this)
There are major things you should take care of right away when setting up your profile:
- Keep your username easy to search, use your brand name if possible
- Include a clear and professional photo
- Use the 150 character limit bio to be clear about who or what you are about
- Add a link to click for your company page/landing page or funnel
It sounds like an obvious thing to do, but it is vital to growing organically. Just keep this stat in mind: over 66% of profile clicks come from non-followers.
You can always check out services over at Legiit if you need professional help with your pictures or graphics!
Posting Consistently
It feels that most people on social media have some form of attention deficit disorder, right? Well, it’s most likely content overload!
Your Instagram account should partake in this ritual of providing content, but not just any content. Scheduled, consistent content.
The Instagram algorithm wants to see a lot of things from you every day, so it knows that you are a reliable and interesting source of content.
It’ll reward you for posting frequently by showing more people your content, which means more eyes looking at your stuff!
By keeping a posting schedule so you can create posts in advance is the best approach for this.
You May Also Like: How To Plan a Content Calendar With Legiit
Posting Consistently Doesn’t Have To Be A Chore
There is a common misconception when it comes to scheduling posts on social media. There are several services out there – some with free plans – that can help you with this.
The important thing is to be consistent and creative with your posts. It’s nice to post a picture of a tropical beach, but if this is all you do your followers will get bored extremely fast – not to mention their eyes from the same photos.
Targeting Your Audience
With proper planning, you should know your audience enough to keep their attention. You want to keep in mind that you never want to come across salesy, that will get a lot of people off your list fast.
What does your audience need or want to hear? If it is irrelevant to them, they will not want to follow you or stay following.
Example: Think of how Donald Trump became a social media powerhouse. He spoke directly to his audience (as well as those who weren’t). Love him or hate him, he is a social media genius.
If your brand or image is a business that sells Corvette performance parts, would you post a picture of your lunch?
Probably not, but you’d certainly post a picture or video of a Corvette winning a drag race…using your parts!
Or…
Imagine you are into martial arts. Maybe you have a business training kids.
Would you post the latest news about your favorite football player?
Or would you share some board-breaking images at your dojo?
Put in the Time to Know Your Audience
It is easy to be lazy and just post anything, but you should really understand these before you do:
- Are you providing some type of value, such as help with a problem, humor, useful information, deals, or inspirations?
- Would you share your post too?
Some companies will post about their products, but it tends to be in the form of a question on how to use them.
This is very effective and lets your audience know that you want them to engage with your content.
Use Hashtags Like You Use Money
Just like money, there are literally millions of them. But just like money, you wouldn’t use them just because you can.
Hashtags work like keywords for SEO: they help hashtagged posts become searchable by those who are interested in the tag.
For example, if you are a sports team and have some games coming up, use the hashtag #goBulls or #GoCardinals for those fans that will be searching for team-related posts!
In fact, using the wrong hashtags can create bad followers. What do we mean?
A few months back someone we knew was doing really well on Instagram. They had close to 40k followers, but only about 1% of them were following the page themselves.
How did this happen?
They used hashtags like #Instagram_Army and other related tags (which you will find below). It ended up bringing in the wrong followers.
After a couple of weeks, they saw their engagement rate drop, and some even unfollowed. This is why you need to be careful about where you attract your audience from.
Since any Tom, Dick, or Harry can create a hashtag, there are many overused, such as:
- #love
- #followback
- #facts
- #cats
You get the idea. Back to the Corvette performance shop. What hashtags should they use?
Love makes no sense, and their post would be buried with all the other 180 million associated with it.
You need to narrow down your hashtags to target relevant ‘views’ to your posts.
There are the obvious ones like #corvette #chevrolet, but what about using phrases like #performanceparts, #C7 #vette #corvetteracing.
This article wasn’t intended to be recommendations for hashtags, however, there are many tools out there – including Instagram – that can show you how many are connected on Instagram.
This will take some testing on your side, so keep track of which hashtags work best for each action you want them to take.
So do not blindly use any hashtag, use hashtags with purpose.
Engagement Posts
No, not engagement like “Oh I am getting married (for the 3rd time)” engagement…I mean to get attention!
There are a few ways to approach this.
Ask Questions
Your audience is talking to you, let them know that you will answer questions or post a poll from time to time. You can do this by simply putting “ask a question” in the caption of your next post and see what happens.
Use your audience to find out what they will be interested in knowing or learning about.
They don’t care what you know until they know that you care!
Tell Stories
Pull up the picture with the most likes and make a story about it. Why did you choose that part? How was it purchased, delivered, installed…etc.?
Give examples of products improving someone’s life, or even funny stories about your products.
Perhaps a customer installation went wrong…and it may be funny to the audience.
Post about it! (if you were given permission obviously)
Show Products in Action
Take some pics of a Corvette after installation or maybe post a burnout video. It is an angle that many don’t take advantage of.
You can even ask your audience to share the products in action! From this, you can even make custom hashtags for them to use!
You can also engage outside of your own Instagram posts.
Interact With Potential Customers
Replying to comments on your own posts or commenting on other people’s posts is a great way to get noticed.
You will gain trust from those who see you are involved, and others will take note of what you are saying about your industry or brand.
Engage with Competitors
There may be some engagement between you and your current or potential competitors. If you have a question, ask them – they will probably answer!
This will lead to new followers when others use the link in your comment to find your account.
Interacting with them on Instagram puts you in the know as an authority, no matter how big or small they are.
Remember to Keep It Real
The idea is to get real people who really care about your brand to follow you. Using the follow and follow back method has run its course.
There are too many zombie Instagram accounts roaming around, looking to suck the brains out of us all. Oh, and the algorithms on Instagram are always watching to smash them over the head with a bat (sorry for the visual).
Just keep this in mind. You want to be the Instagram account you always loved: full of useful and engaging content, some that will make you laugh…
Or make you cry…
If you get REAL followers that really engage with your posts, Instagram will reward you by showing you to other people’s feeds. It’s a simple equation.
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