Are you trying to get more organic Instagram followers? This is an important goal for any business. The more genuine Instagram followers you have, the more engagement you’ll get — and the more your website traffic and sales will rise. What business doesn’t want that?
With bots and spam accounts running rampant on Instagram, it might seem like a challenge to find real Instagram followers. But with a few tweaks to your strategy, you can easily attract your ideal followers to your account. Here are the tips you need to carefully plan your content so you can get more organic followers on Instagram.
Organic vs. Fake Instagram Followers
Buying Instagram followers might seem like an attractive idea, but this won’t actually work. When you buy followers on Instagram, you run the risk of getting banned by IG. It’ll also hurt your reputation among other brands and potential customers. Plus, there’s no reason to purchase IG followers because these followers will turn out to be fake accounts that don’t actually interact with your content.
On the other hand, if you attract genuine Instagram followers who are part of your target audience, they’ll benefit your business. Organic Instagram followers are important because they have the potential to turn into customers and stay with you long-term. They care about the content you’re posting on social media and they’ll interact with your account — which will ideally lead to becoming a customer of your brand.
How To Recognize Fake Followers
How can you tell if an Instagram account is fake? Fake Instagram accounts often have the following telltale signs:
- No posts on their profile
- Posts are bulk uploaded
- Small number of followers, large number of following
- Account was recently created
- Empty or spammy bio
- No profile photo
- Spam comments on posts
If you aren’t sure whether an Instagram account is fake, you can run it through a verifier online.
5 Content Planning Tips To Gain Organic Instagram Followers
Ready to start attracting organic Instagram followers? Here are the steps you need to follow.
1. Use An Organic Instagram Growth Service
The quickest way to get real, organic followers is through an Instagram growth service. But you need to make sure you’re choosing the right one. Many growth services offer immediate followers in bulk. However, these followers are often bots or fake accounts — which won’t actually interact with your content. If you buy followers on Instagram, you’ll end up hurting yourself more than you help.
Try using a tool like Kicksta to grow your Instagram followers organically. Kicksta is an Instagram growth service that uses a target method to attract real followers to your account. These people follow willingly because they’re part of your target audience, and they’re actually interested in your content. Kicksta’s growth method is safe and won’t be flagged by Instagram. It’s also effective to help you see steady growth over time.
Photo by cottonbro.
Working with an organic Instagram growth service like Kicksta is a smart way to circumvent fake accounts and wisely invest into followers who actually care. This growth method may take slightly longer. But in the end, you’ll be growing your account with engaged and interested followers, not bots. And that’ll boost your overall business growth long term.
2. Maintain A Consistent And Strategic Posting Schedule
Posting regularly on Instagram is important to help you stay top of mind with your followers. If you post on a regular basis, they’ll get to know your brand and hopefully turn to you when they need your product or service.
How often should you post on Instagram? Most brands post on their Instagram feed around 3-5 times per week. You can post Instagram Stories more often — even multiple times a day.
It’s also important to post at the right time of day. You can use Instagram Insights to see when your followers are most active. Then use a scheduling tool to schedule your posts to go up at those times. If you aren’t seeing good engagement, play around and try some other times. This will help you hone in on when your content is most likely to be seen.
It’s not enough to just post at the right times, however. You also need to post the right type of content. By sharing strategic content — content that’s planned around what your audience wants to see — you can boost your Instagram engagement. But first, you need to know who your target audience is.
3. Determine And Understand Your Target Audience
Before you can hone in on the most effective type of content to post, you need to have a good idea of your target audience and what pain points they have. If you don’t know who your target audience is — in other words, the group of consumers that’s most likely to need or want your product — there are a few steps you can take to figure it out.
Start by looking at the customers who already purchase your products. Details like their age, interests, and location will help you get closer to figuring out your overall ideal demographic. Checking out your competitors’ customers can help, too. And overall industry trends are also beneficial as you seek to learn more about the people who need your product.
Over time, as you continue to engage with your customers and analyze data, you can tweak your ideal customer persona as you learn more about your audience. The more you know about who they are, the better you’ll be able to tailor your content for them.
4. Use Relevant Hashtags
Using hashtags on Instagram is an important way to get more eyes on your content. Aim for a mix of trending Instagram hashtags, generic industry hashtags, and tags that are more specific to your brand on each post. By including a variety of different hashtags, you can attract as many people as possible. Come up with a list of hashtags that fit and then rotate the tags you use on each individual post to make sure they’re as relevant as possible.
How many hashtags should you add to each post? The limit imposed by Instagram is 30. Many brands find a sweet spot between five and ten. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the number of tags you add per post and make sure to track analytics so you can tell how many of your views and likes are coming from the hashtags you used.
In this post, Nature’s Bakery included a handful of hashtags that describe its product. If a user is looking for dairy-free food or snack ideas and they search the #DairyFree hashtag, Nature’s Bakery will pop right up. These hashtags are an effective but easy way for the company to market itself to that target audience.
Photo by Jeremy Levin.
5. Create Content That Forces Engagement
Once your number of Instagram followers is growing, it’s important to post content that makes it easy for them to engage. Having trouble boosting engagement? Try these content ideas to encourage your followers to engage with posts and Stories.
Giveaways
Instagram giveaways create more engagement because users are required to interact with your account to enter the giveaway. Partnering up with another brand is a way to get even more eyes on your post. Kodiak Cakes recently teamed up with Lodge Cast Iron to give away a bundle of products.
Story Polls And Question Boxes
Boost engagement on Instagram Stories by using polls to get feedback from followers. The College Nutritionist asked her followers whether they’d tried a certain product before:
Question boxes are another way to increase engagement and hear straight from your audience in their own words. Duluth Pack used a question box as a way to get questions for a future podcast guest.
CTA’s
A call to action is anything that encourages your audience to take action. One common example of an Instagram CTA is “Click the link in our bio,” directing users to read a blog post or view a product. In this example, Starbucks put a CTA in its caption telling readers to tag a friend in the comments:
Contests
Up the stakes by running a contest for your followers. Contests create even more engagement than giveaways because your followers are required to actually create or post something of their own instead of just liking your post. The Art of Tea hosted a contest where entrants had to post a picture of their favorite mug.
Boost Your Account With Organic Instagram Followers
Organic Instagram followers have a lot of benefits for your brand long-term. When you have a large number of followers who are part of your target audience, they’ll care about what you post. These followers will interact with your content and hopefully become customers of your brand. And over time, your business will continue to grow.
You can get more organic Instagram followers by using an Instagram growth service (one that focuses on real growth), posting strategic content on a regular basis, understanding your target audience, using relevant hashtags, and creating content that encourages engagement. These are the best steps to follow if you want to grow your Instagram account.
Main Photo by cottonbro.
