Franchise PowerUp 
Started as a space with filters for photography enthusiasts, Instagram has grown into the largest mobile platform that has combined a shopping platform and a social network. Today, with over 1 billion registered users, Instagram is an extremely attractive platform for business and sales and individuals looking for promotion.
Targeted ads and smart algorithms from Facebook have allowed Instagram to attract a huge number of people who sell products or develop their personal brand on the platform. Today, any novice blogger is wondering – how to grow my subscriber base? The number of followers directly affects the success of the profile and the number of sales. And while it seems like there is a lot of automated and free apps to grow your audience, the reality is a little more complicated.
It’s Not All as Easy as It Sounds
A couple of years ago, this article would’ve been packed with links to various bots, paid and free programs aimed to build up your audience synthetically. Today, this is the past. Yes, you can still find such services, and you may even increase the number of your followers. But will it directly affect your sales? The answer is “NO” since such programs usually wind up followers without any reference to the specifics of your services, the geography of users, as well as their quality. Simply put, you will get bots and people who aren’t interested in your products or services.
As elsewhere, in order to get a high-quality result, you need to work well and approach the process wisely. The following 6 tips are the basis for any strategy to grow your Instagram audience. All of the tips below are versatile and work regardless of the specifics of your business.
- Post Intelligently
- Be Proactive in Discussions
- Pay Attention to Your Instagram Bio
- Talk About Instagram Outside of Instagram
- Stay Tuned for Updates on the Platform
- Study Analytical Data
First Things First
As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said – “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” We fully share the attitude of the legendary French.
As we said above, followers alone won’t make your Instagram account better. To reach a whole new level, you need a marketing strategy. Study your target audience, its geography, age, preferences, purchasing power. Ask yourself: why do I need to attract new followers? Someone does it for the sake of branding; someone needs additional traffic to the site, while the others hope to increase the number of sales on Instagram.
When developing a marketing promotion strategy, you will be faced with creating a content plan that is an absolute must for Instagram promotion. At this stage, you can start thinking about attracting new followers through a well-thought-out content plan. As you can see, getting new followers is approximately at the 3rd-grade procedure of a much larger process of Instagram promotion.
1. Post Intelligently
While it sounds obvious, the process has its pitfalls. You need to post content on the platform following the basic rules:
- Observe the regularity of posting. New content should constantly appear and according to the developed posting schedule. One of the tools for automation and deferred content posting, such as Hootsuite, is your assistant. You need to call a sense of anticipation for the next post from your audience. Besides, regular posting will give a new follower an understanding that the account is active. However, do not get carried away and make the posting schedule too strict. Your account is not a railroad directory. Don’t forget about the best time of posting based on your target audience’s preferences.
- Be creative with captions. The caption is the first thing your visitor will see, so it should be original, informative, have a CTA and inspire him to read the entire post. Use questions, humor, riddles, and try to make your captions as interactive as possible.
- Use correct hashtags. It is worth monitoring popular hashtags in your niche and among your target audience to use them at their peak response. Avoid hashtags like #f4f, as it looks spammy and won’t bring you any tangible benefit.
- Don’t be afraid to play around with different types of content. Although the basic post will still be “picture + text” content, you shouldn’t dwell on it. Instagram has long expanded its boundaries, and now you can create long stories, post videos, and IGTV. In the era of video content, it is good to invest in creating just such compelling videos.
2. Be Proactive in Discussions
In the matter of attracting new followers, your personal activity takes a huge place. We aren’t talking about drowsy posting in anticipation of a miracle, but about constant participation in discussions, both under your publications and under the posts of other people & influencers.
According to statistics, more than 21% of customers admitted that they subscribed to the social pages of their favorite brands just for interaction with the brand. At the same time, more than 74% said that by subscribing to a brand on a social network, they expected some sort of customer support activities.
Thus, answers to subscribers’ queries and constant participation in discussions give the right signal to Instagram algorithms and the living who can make sure that this brand pays attention to its followers.
Posting comments from a brand’s account on influencers’ pages also increases the visibility of your brand. But do not get carried away and spam openly.
3. Pay Attention to Your Instagram Bio
Just a couple of lines of text next to the avatar. Is that so important? Of course, it is because your bio is, in fact, the first thing that a potential new follower will see. Do your best to ensure that even this small detail works to attract new subscribers.
An attractive bio consists of several parameters:
- Beautiful photo. It should reflect your brand, be not too big, but not too small, attract attention but not concentrate it on one spot. It sounds difficult, but we’re sure your brand logo is exactly like that.
- Competent CTA. It can be anything, but “text+link” is a good formula. It can be, say, a link on a landing page on your website.
- Keep the human feel. No, there is no need to add errors specifically. But you can write the following sentence with a lowercase letter. You can write using slang. Visitors to the page should understand that a living person is waiting for them here, not the SMM mechanism.
4. Talk About Instagram Outside of Instagram
This question is a matter of cross-promotion. It is important always to remember to transfer traffic and subscribers base from one source to another. Instagram promotion is no different.
You can only take your first steps here but have an extensive base of email contacts, good web traffic, or a subscriber base on another social platform. Your task is to remind them constantly that you have a pretty awesome Instagram page with unique content.
Of the most famous practices, adding an Instagram icon to the home page of the site, posting links to the acc on other social platforms, and so on. As for email marketing, there are successful cases of attracting people from there to Instagram. Do not be afraid to carry out such a flow, since if the person has already subscribed to you somewhere, then there is a high probability that he will follow you on Instagram too.
5. Stay Tuned for Updates on the Platform
Like any other popular social network, Instagram doesn’t stand still and is constantly evolving. Once upon a time, stories were just an attempt to compete with Snapchat, and no one took them seriously. This is perhaps the app’s main feature, which allows brands to remind subscribers of their presence constantly.
The same can be said about innovations like IGTV or Instagram Reels. It is difficult to predict the impact of what importance they will have on the platform, but it is safe to say that this impact will definitely be. Therefore, any Instagram marketer is simply obliged to follow the official Instagram blog in order to stay tuned and ready for new features.
6. Study Analytical Data
Don’t experiment in trying to guess what your audience is thinking, how your content works, and what metrics your page has. All this data can be conveniently gleaned with the help of Instagram analytics, which we strongly advise you to study on a daily basis.
Ultimately, no strategy will work constantly; adjustment is always needed.
In the end, we would like to advise you to be patient. Building an Instagram follower base isn’t a one-day business, especially if you don’t have large advertising budgets and are starting from scratch. However, this isn’t something far-fetched – on the web, you can find many stories of how bloggers turned their Instagram profile into a platform for generating revenue or how the business started as an account selling colorful charging cables. Don’t despair if the first days don’t bring tangible growth – this is a long game. The main thing to remember is that by choosing the right promotion strategy based on the tips listed above and constantly adjusting it, you will ultimately create a solid foundation for successful growth on Instagram.
