Instagram is essential for building awareness, reputation, and revenue for any business in 2023. The main goal on Instagram is to grow as many REAL followers as possible; people who will become inspired and influenced by your brand. Growing more followers leads to more likes, engagement, and shares of your content, allowing your business to thrive online.
But what can you do to ensure that you grow Instagram followers in 2023?
Set a good example
If you’re wanting other users to follow you, you should not be afraid to follow some yourself. Set a good example for your brand. Follow friends, family, other local businesses and people. Influencers, communities, people who use on-brand hashtags, and those in your target audience are all important when starting off. No one is impressed by a page that only follows 36 accounts and is asking for the world.
About 1/3 of these accounts will follow you back, so already you’re growing your following with minimal effort. A follow creates curiosity – maybe 2/3’s will check out your page, but keeping that 2/3’s there is all down to the next step: First impressions.
First Impressions Count
The first thing your followers (and potential followers) are going to see is your Instagram profile picture. This can be used to identify you as a brand or individual even before they hit your profile. It has to set the scene, be the face of the page, and encourage users to learn more.
Once users have landed on your page, their decision to hit the blue button relies solely on your earlier efforts to optimise the aesthetics of your profile. This consists of your profile picture, biography, highlight features, and the 6 most recent posts featured on your grid. A good first impression can lead to a follow in seconds. A bad one can leave users with no lasting impression of your page.
- Bio – keep it short, and speak for your brand. Use hashtags if necessary. Emoji’s can add personality to some brands, but reduce professionalism for others – know your tone.
- Highlights – include all relevant past stories that are essential to capturing the right first impression. Any current promotions or offers are great here too.
- 6 most recent posts – it goes without saying that your first 6 posts will change daily/weekly when you add new content. That is why it is essential to make every post beneficial to your brand. Think about colour schemes, repetition, how the layout will look overall etc. The site ‘Later’ is a good tool to ensure consistency in this. Don’t let your captions lag behind – a good caption can take a post from a 6 to a 9 real quick.
Don’t neglect your followers
Try not to place ALL of your focus on gaining new Instagram followers. Take some time to engage with your existing ones. There’s no point in gaining 10 new followers, to lose 4 the same day.
People love to know there’s a person behind the brand. Schedule some time to scroll. Check out what your followers are up to, who they’re following, comment on post’s you find interesting and share on your story if they’re relevant to your brand’s image. The more engagement you show, the more your followers will be willing to share your page with others, and will ultimately gain more followers for you.
Another good way to increase engagement is to end your post captions with an open-ended question or CTA (call to action). E.g. “Have you ever experienced this?” or “Tag a friend who would love this”. That way you’re inviting potential followers to be involved in your posts, check out your content, and be part of the community you have created.
Once you have people engaged and willing to act upon your request, you can use CTA’s to your advantage and shape the behaviour of your followers. Want to grow Instagram followers? Tell people to share your content and WHY new users should follow you. Want to sell a product? Direct them to a landing page. And so on.
Giveaways and competitions
People love to be involved in anything where there’s a potential to win free stuff. Giveaway’s and competitions are huge on Instagram recently, with many business accounts doing them monthly! This is your opportunity to make connections with other similar Instagram accounts/businesses that will help to promote your brand.
You want to choose accounts that have the followers your brand needs. Most giveaways and competitions require Instagram users to follow all accounts involved, and to share the promotion on their stories. Because of this, even people who don’t enter will still be exposed to the giveaway/promotion and therefore to your brand. Make sure your giveaway/competition is eye catching, something that will stop scrollers in their tracks and want to learn more.
Depending on the amount of accounts involved, your profile should see a huge influx of followers who are interested in what you’re about. Be careful to not over complicate your giveaway. Anything with too many rules or too long of a running time might scare some users away. As a society we are impatient, demanding ease and immediate gratification from a task.
I believe this to be an essential tool to grow Instagram followers and engagement in 2023.
Hashtags
It goes without saying that hashtags are absolutely essential to the success of your Instagram account in 2023. Did you know that when you upload a post, it only gets shown to 10% of your followers? When you apply hashtags to a post, Instagram checks for relevancy and engagement, then ranks your hashtags to establish a potential place on the explore page. The explore page is your pot of gold– your ultimate goal to grow your followers on Instagram.
There is a ladder-type process to this and depends on your following at the time. With a smaller following base, your best option is to use ‘Easy to Rank’ hashtags in order to bring more exposure and increase followers on your page. You’re not going to make it to the explore page with 200 followers and a post filled with ‘Difficult to Rank’ hashtags. When building your brand on Instagram, do some research on the most universally used hashtags, and ones that are a little under the radar – here’s your starting point.
It can be helpful to check what hashtags are used by your competitors and which posts received the most engagement. Another good tip is to find potential communities that use hashtags to stay connected. These are the ideal followers – they’re engaged, interested, and willing to share.
Once climbing past the first step of the ladder, you’re well on your way to reaching those harder to rank hashtags, closer to the explore page, and in touching distance to a goldmine of new followers.
Instagram stories are the place to be in 2023
500 million people use Instagram stories every day.
Whether you understand it or not, we all know the Instagram algorithm exists and that we must try to stay on it at all cost! Since Instagram introduced stories, social media enthusiasts have gone mad for sharing the things that are happening RIGHT NOW. We’re part of an immediate generation who demand the here and now, and this more than ever includes social media. If done well, people will feel a closer connection to your brand and relate on a more personal level – the perfect environment to facilitate a brand’s goals.
Instagram ‘Lives’ take this even further. Knowing that you and your followers (those watching) are together in that exact moment, gives users a sense of face-to-face connection with the brand. This is so important for the virtual world we have been launched into in 2023.
Another essential tool on Instagram stories is to tag other followers and brands when relevant. The benefit of doing this is that it allows the tagged account to share your story on theirs, meaning your content and brand is getting exposed to an audience beyond your followers. If you’ve tagged a well-established account, with a large following, and similar content to your own, this technique should build your following over the next 24 hours.
Another great tool for expanding your exposure is to create story templates for your followers to use and share. Common examples are questionnaires and quizzes that can be screenshotted, edited, and shared by users who will often tag others in their stories. Suddenly you will find your template being shared further than you could measure. DON’T forget to add your Instagram handle so new followers can find you!
Promotions
Promotions on Instagram are a great way to distribute your content and brand to thousands of users that may be interested in your page. To get the best out of your promotions, choose a post that has received the highest amount of engagement. You can either create your own specific audience, or Instagram can select one for you.
One thing to consider about promotions on Instagram is that they are not free. But thankfully, you can set the cost starting from as little as £1 daily. However, this amount will only reach a potential of 2400 users if it runs for one week, compared to 12000 for a £5 daily budget. When you test out this feature you will see how the ‘estimated reach’ increases the longer you extend the duration and budget. This decision is up to you.
Like anything in life, the more you spend, the more results you will see. My advice is to start off small and test the waters. Promote different types of content to different types of audiences and for different lengths of time. Check the insight results, and keep an eye on your following total. The promotions that grow Instagram followers the most are the promotions worth spending a little more money on.
Don’t forget about other socials media platforms
Although we’ve focused mainly on Instagram, in 2023 it is crucial to be involved in as many online networking sites as possible. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest are up there with where you want to be in 2023. Know your target audience and where they spend most of their time online. If nothing else, having multiple social media accounts for your brand will allow you to promote yourself further.
The more social networking sites your appear on will increase your exposure to potential, engaged, share-happy users – the key to increasing your followers.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing on Instagram only seems to be getting bigger, allowing both brands and influencers to benefit massively. The basic idea is that brands will collaborate with an individual (with a high following) that could be Influential to their brand. By asking them to use and promote your products/services via their online platform, you aim for the influencer’s followers to become part of the brand’s followers, and eventually loyal customers.
To grow Instagram followers from this strategy, you must find the best affiliate marketer(s) (influencers) who will reflect and compliment your brand. Influencers are a huge part of our social media activity in 2023 whether we like it or not. If we see our idol using a product/service, 9 times out of 10 we will click on the link/tag to check it out. Then possibly 5 out of this 9 will go on to purchase what you’re marketing. Add values and percentages to this theory and you’ve got yourself a thriving business. Affiliate marketing allows you to get the users on your page, all you have to do from that point is keep them there.
Affiliate marketing also allows you to build your credibility rating, which is essential to growing followers. When users see someone other than your brand using your products, they will feel confident in the idea that they have been tried, tested, and good enough to appear on their grid.
Affiliate marketing is a little more complex than some of the other tips, but assuming you use a credible affiliate network, have done your research on the individual(s) and their online presence, and set your commission rates, you should see your followers increase in no time.
Remember…
In a previous tip I told you not to neglect your followers, but this still stands for your new/potential followers. Be sure to keep an eye on your influencer’s posts and who’s liking, commenting, and reposting – these are your people. Engage with them and let them get a sense of personality from your responses. This will only get your further on your way to gaining more followers.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that none of these steps are as strong alone as they are in combination with one another. To grow Instagram followers requires patience, hard work, and a persistence in keeping content optimised and engagement consistent.
