Instagram growth isn’t a walk in the park, but armed with these essential tactics, the journey towards a thriving follower base becomes much more manageable than you might imagine.
Table of Contents
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll gain insights into:
- Understanding Instagram Growth Fundamentals
- High-Level Guidance on Crafting a Winning Instagram Content Strategy
- Valuable Tweaks and Tips for Organic Instagram Growth
While there’s no magic formula for skyrocketing your Instagram followers, there are numerous effective strategies to bolster your Instagram growth. Below, you’ll discover 13 steps to enhance your organic Instagram growth, listed in the order we recommend implementing them.
1. Avoid buying fake followers at all costs to ensure the best Instagram Growth
It might be tempting to purchase 1,000 Instagram followers for the bargain price of $12.99, but the downsides far outweigh the fleeting benefits:
- Instagram actively discourages and purges accounts involved in fraudulent activities.
- Fake followers are mere bots, incapable of genuine engagement or conversion into customers.
- Your credibility takes a hit, eroding the trust of your audience, and ultimately causing them to unfollow you.
Similarly, purchasing engagement metrics like views and comments, or participating in engagement pods, won’t help your Instagram growth. The goal isn’t just to amass a large follower count; it’s about cultivating a meaningful community.
2. Integrate Keywords into Your Username and Name to ensure the best Instagram Growth
The Instagram algorithm gives priority to search results that include keywords in the name and username. Optimize these fields as follows:
- Username (Profile Handle): Keep this consistent with your company’s name or other social channels for instant recognition.
- Name (Your Company’s Name): Incorporate relevant keywords here to enhance your visibility.
For instance, a skincare brand named “Ursa Major” includes “skincare” in its name on Instagram, making it easier for potential customers searching for skincare products to find them.
Adding a relevant keyword also provides an opportunity to convey your identity and product offerings at a glance – a crucial element since this is the first thing visitors see on your profile.
3. Craft an Optimized Instagram Bio to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Your Instagram bio is limited to 150 characters, but it plays a pivotal role in shaping the first impression you make on potential followers and customers. To create an effective bio, include the following elements:
- A concise description of your business and what it offers.
- Inject a dash of brand personality.
- Provide a clear call to action.
- Include a relevant link.
A well-crafted bio ensures that anyone reading it instantly understands what your company does, how it can benefit them, and where they can find more information. For example, the personalized stationery brand “Odd Giraffe” excels in this regard with its bio.
4. Cross-promote your Instagram Handle on Other Channels to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Redirecting potential customers from other platforms to your Instagram profile is a lightweight strategy to increase discoverability and rapidly boost your following. Consider adding your Instagram account’s link to the following locations:
- Product packaging.
- Relevant blog posts.
- Marketing and transactional emails.
- Your website’s footer and/or sidebar.
- Social media posts shared by team members.
- Email signatures for both you and your employees.
- Bio sections on other social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
- Networking events and webinars – leverage your Instagram profile’s QR code for in-person events.
Your Instagram link doesn’t need to be prominent; a small Instagram icon or QR code works well in most cases.
5. Identify Optimal Posting Times to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Determining the best time to post on Instagram is a key element in boosting engagement. Your aim should be to post when your target audience is most active. Here’s how to find out when that is:
- Go to your Instagram profile in the app and click on the hamburger menu (the three horizontal lines) at the top right of your screen.
- Tap on ‘Insights.’
- Under ‘Total followers,’ scroll down to ‘Most active times.’ You can view hourly activity for each day of the week or focus on specific days.
To take it a step further, use Buffer’s analytics to pinpoint the best times to post, the most effective types of posts, and the optimal posting frequency. Buffer analyzes data from your past posts and your followers’ activity, presenting it in an easily understandable format.
Additionally, consider the logical relevance of your content’s timing. For instance, a step-by-step recipe video will perform better post-working hours when people are cooking, while a coffee shop post might gain more traction in the afternoon.
Before diving into more advanced strategies, ensure you’ve completed steps 1 to 5, as they provide a solid foundation for the following steps.
6. Develop an Instagram Marketing Strategy to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Crafting a clear Instagram marketing strategy is pivotal to achieving business objectives and maintaining a focused approach to your content. Here’s a breakdown of how to create an Instagram growth strategy:
- Step 1: Define Your Goals: Determine whether you aim to increase brand awareness, boost direct conversions, drive website traffic, or achieve other specific objectives. Your goals will shape the content you post, your call-to-actions, and maintain brand consistency.
- Step 2: Understand Your Target Audience: Beyond basic demographics, gain deep insights into your audience’s challenges and how your content can help them overcome these obstacles.
- Step 3: Define Your Brand Voice and Aesthetic: Establish a distinct brand voice and maintain brand consistency. Use brand colors, adhere to a consistent content theme, and develop a recognizable personality.
- Step 4: Create Content Pillar Themes: Choose a niche for your Instagram account and decide on a few overarching topics to post about consistently. This approach reduces the need to constantly brainstorm new content ideas.
- Step 5: Develop a Content Calendar and Post Consistently: Consistent posting is key for Instagram growth. Aim to post at least once daily, combining various post formats. Content repurposing can save time and effort, so don’t hesitate to reuse content that performs well.
To achieve the best results, aim for a mix of scheduled and spontaneous posts. Utilize a scheduling tool like Buffer to simplify content planning.
7. Craft Engaging Captions to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Instagram captions hold more influence than you might think. They can determine whether a visitor follows you or scrolls past your content. For example, the wellness brand “Cosmix” doesn’t settle for a simple “shop on our website!” caption. They elaborate on their product ingredients, how they address specific issues, and provide evidence to support their claims.
It’s important to note that Instagram captions perform best when they are either very short or very long (20 characters vs. 2,000 characters), as reported in HubSpot’s 2023 Instagram Engagement Report. The key to writing the perfect Instagram caption lies in understanding your audience and the context of your post.
If you struggle with caption creation, consider using Buffer’s AI assistant to generate an initial draft quickly. For instance, if you’re a skincare brand planning to post about indoor sunscreen usage, you can use the AI assistant to draft a prompt for your caption.
8. Employ Relevant Hashtags to ensure the best Instagram Growth
The strategic use of hashtags can expand the reach of your Instagram posts and expose them to a larger, targeted audience. Although you can use up to 30 hashtags, Instagram recommends sticking to three to five relevant ones for better results.
To maximize the impact of your hashtags, it’s essential to aim for a mix of popular and niche tags. This way, you avoid getting lost in a sea of spam while also ensuring you’re not hidden in a small, obscure corner of Instagram.
To find hashtags appealing to your target audience, use free hashtag generators that recommend the top hashtags based on the content of your image or video. Create a list of hashtags for your community and group them using Buffer’s Hashtag Manager. This allows you to streamline the hashtag selection process for your scheduled Instagram posts.
9. Understand Your Analytics to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Regularly monitoring your Instagram analytics is crucial for understanding what’s effective and what’s not in your content strategy. It’s essential to adjust your approach based on the data you gather. Instagram offers native analytics, but third-party tools like Buffer’s analytics provide a more comprehensive view, enabling you to create custom reports for stakeholders.
The most important metric to track depends on your Instagram goals and strategy. For instance, if you’re testing a new hashtag, tracking the number of new followers is more valuable than monitoring likes from existing followers. If you’re experimenting with posting times, focusing on impressions is key.
10. Collaborate with Instagram Creators and Small Businesses
Collaborating with other creators through influencer marketing or partnerships with small businesses can be mutually beneficial. It exposes both parties to new audiences, provided that the values and demographics of their followers align with your target audience.
For example, the period tracker app, “Flo,” partnered with “Charity Ekezie” to create a humorous, paid Instagram post, highlighting the company’s social initiative of offering premium features for free in several countries. Such posts are visible on both accounts, ensuring that followers of your collaborator see your shared content, thereby boosting your Instagram profile and small business.
If you’re on a budget, consider running a micro-influencer campaign. Smaller creators often have a closely-knit community that trusts their recommendations.
Finding relevant influencers can be done through manual searches, using hashtags and keywords on Instagram, or employing influencer discovery tools like “Modash.”
You can also explore partnerships with other small businesses, such as the collaboration between “LinkedIn” and “Headspace,” which resulted in a post about recovering from job loss.
Collaboration on Instagram doesn’t have to be limited to shared posts; you can also go live with a creator, do Instagram account takeovers, repost influencer content, or post videos created by them natively on your brand account.
11. Experiment with Different Types of Instagram Posts
Instagram offers various post formats, including Instagram Reels, pinned posts, Story Highlights, and carousel posts. To determine which types of posts will drive your Instagram engagement, consider experimenting with different formats.
While studies indicate that Instagram carousels tend to have the highest engagement, it’s essential to consider your audience’s preferences. For instance, they may prefer Instagram Reels for entertaining content and carousel posts for educational content.
To maintain Instagram growth, don’t be afraid to experiment with different post types and content themes. A combination of post formats, like that adopted by the skincare brand “100percentpure,” can keep your audience engaged.
12. Engage with Your Audience in Comments and Stories
Interacting with your Instagram audience by responding to comments and engaging with them on Stories can help you understand their problems, answer their questions, and generate content ideas. Engaging with your audience is an underutilized growth strategy on Instagram.
Responding to comments and direct messages is fundamental, especially when potential customers pose questions. Take inspiration from brands like “Chobani,” which diligently responds to almost every comment.
In addition to comments and direct messages, Instagram Stories provide an array of features to inspire content ideas. These include questions, interactive stickers, polls, countdowns, and links. For instance, the nutrition brand “Bulletproof” conducts a weekly Q&A on their Instagram account to address common customer questions about their products.
Stories can be grouped to create Instagram Highlights, which remain on your profile indefinitely, serving as a resource section to address frequently asked questions and simplify the sales process.
13. Pursue Verification to ensure the best Instagram Growth
Obtaining the coveted blue checkmark next to your Instagram account name enhances your credibility, visibility in search results, and engagement rates. If your goal is to boost Instagram growth, securing Instagram verification can be a valuable asset.
To get verified on Instagram, you can subscribe through your Instagram profile, but you must meet specific eligibility requirements, including adhering to Meta’s minimum activity criteria.
Enhancing your Instagram growth is an ongoing effort. With these 13 strategies in your toolkit, you’re better equipped to expand your Instagram following. To efficiently manage the planning, posting, engagement, and tracking required for sustainable growth, consider using an all-in-one tool like Buffer. Try it for free today to experience the benefits for yourself.