Instagram is an amazing marketing tool for brands. In fact, according to Statista, the Instagram user base will reach 1.35 billion in 2023, compared to the current one billion users. So, everyone is trying to get a place on the platform for their business and brand.
However, that has resulted in many businesses using different illegitimate methods to gain followers. That can cause your Instagram account to be banned or suspended. If it is an account you have built for years, this might be a really painful thing to bear.
So in this new era, there is no better way to gain quality followers than doing it organically. It will help you gain real followers who are interested in your brand and what you do, bringing good conversions to your page. It will not also be putting your account at risk in any way.
If this sounds like what you want, here are some tried-and-true tips to help you along the journey. Let’s see how to increase Instagram followers organically.
Table of Contents
How to Increase Instagram Followers Organically
#1: Have a specific plan and goal in mind
Know what you want to achieve, and be specific about it. You can’t expect to get a million followers overnight, so choose something that’s realistic for the time you have allotted. For example, if you’re starting from scratch with no followers at all and only have one month before your company’s social media campaign launches, then don’t aim for 500K new followers by that date. It will be too much work and may not even be possible within your time frame.
#2: Optimize your Instagram bio
The bio section is the first thing that visitors see when they click on your account. It gives them an overview of who you are and what you’re about, so it’s important that it’s well-written and relevant to your audience. Here are a few quick tips on how to make sure your bio is working for you:
- Write a compelling hook. Your bio should be a brief but enticing description of who you are and what you do. Think about the best way to describe yourself. Then, use that same hook in your Instagram bio.
- Add a link to your website, blog, or other accounts where users can find more information about you or buy products.
- Include a call-to-action (CTA) asking people to engage with you by following, liking, commenting on, or sharing posts from your page.
- Include a hashtag. Add one or two relevant hashtags that represent the heart of your business or brand, such as #blogger, #socialmedia, or even #yoga teacher if that’s what you’re selling!
#3: Post photos that are relevant to your brand.
It’s important to remember that your target audience on Instagram should determine what you post on the platform. For example, if you’re selling a product to people who are interested in fitness, posting pictures of food probably won’t do much for you. Likewise, if you’re selling a service geared toward writers and bloggers, posting photos of beautiful landscapes isn’t going to win over any new customers.
In order to get more followers organically on Instagram, make sure all of your posts are relevant to your brand (and target audience). This is one of the important things you should get right when thinking of how to increase Instagram followers organically.
#4: Post consistently and with a purpose
Posting consistently is good. Posting too often is bad. Posting infrequently is also bad. Normally, we would say that the best way to increase your followers on Instagram is by posting regularly, but there’s a catch: If you post too much, people will get annoyed with you and stop following you. On the other hand, if you don’t post enough, then no one will see what it is that makes your account so special in the first place!
That’s where The Plan comes in. Posting with purpose means identifying what your goal is for any given post (and not just any old goal). Are you trying to build relationships with influencers? Increase sales? Drive traffic back to your website?
How many likes do you want on this particular photo? You should know the answers before picking up your phone or getting into bed at night. It will make all of those sleepless nights worthwhile when they start showing up in real life.
#5: Use a consistent filter or editing style
Use a consistent filter or editing style. Consistency is key when it comes to branding, and the same can be said for your Instagram account. You want your followers to recognize your images as being from you because they look similar to each other.
This will help build trust and loyalty with your audience, which will lead them back to you when they need more content or products from you. The best way to do this is by using a specific filter for all photos or getting creative with how you edit them!
#6: Tag relevant influencers in your photos
This is another direction to look at when thinking of how to increase Instagram followers organically. Tagging influencers in your photos is a great way to get them to notice you and like your photos, but unlike other social media platforms, Instagram doesn’t have any sort of tagging system. So how do you tag an influencer in a photo on Instagram?
When posting a photo on Instagram, add the @ symbol and then the username of whoever you want to tag. For example, if I’m tagging Jacqueline Jossa in one of my posts about staying healthy after pregnancy, I’d type “@jacquelinejossa” at the top of my caption, and then she would see that mention when she logs onto her own account.
#7: Use hashtags to find new followers
Hashtags are a great way to find new followers. If you use hashtags that are relevant to your content and your target audience, you’ll be able to find people who might not have otherwise found you.
You can also use hashtags to increase engagement with posts that already have followers. This can help increase reach because more people will see your post in their feed than if it didn’t have any hashtags at all!
If someone clicks on one of those posts, they might see others from similar accounts and follow them too (increasing reach again!).
Hashtags can also be used as search terms by other people looking for similar content/people in order to get new followers themselves. And this will increase the likelihood that someone will follow back since there’s an existing connection between both parties now!
#8: Engage with your fans and followers often
If you want to build a following on Instagram, it’s important to engage with your fans and followers often. You can do this by:
- Responding to comments
- Liking and commenting on other people’s posts
- Sharing other people’s content
- Commenting on other people’s Instagram stories
- Sharing your own Instagram stories
#9: Avoid fake Instagram followers
Users oftentimes wish to buy post shares to generate more traffic to their profiles. When thinking of how to increase Instagram followers organically, you may also be tempted to want to buy followers; don’t do it. Avoid fake followers. The number of followers you have is important, but you want to make sure they’re real people. Fake followers can be harmful and are often used to manipulate the engagement on your account. If your follower count is low, it may be worth looking into why that is or taking steps to increase it organically.
Don’t buy Instagram followers or boost posts. These tactics will only hurt you in the long run by making it harder for real users to find and engage with your content. If a company promises thousands of new likes overnight, beware: these companies usually use bots for their clients’ accounts (in other words, fake accounts), which can lead to negative consequences like being banned from Instagram altogether!
#10: Collaborate with other businesses
If you’ve ever seen a business collaborate with another brand, it’s usually to help each other out. For example, if one company is known for its design and another business needs a new website design, they’ll usually collaborate to create something that works well for both sides. You can use this strategy to get more followers on Instagram by collaborating with other businesses to create sponsored posts or advertisements.
Collaborating also helps you reach new audiences that might not have come across your account otherwise! If someone follows other accounts in your niche (like photographers or artists), they may see your post in their feed and be curious enough to check it out, which could lead them to become followers of yours as well!
#11: Join an engaging group
You may want to join a group of businesses with similar interests to get advice from people who are going through the same things.
Make sure the group is active and has a good size. If the group doesn’t have many members, it won’t be worth your time. Also, if there aren’t very many posts being made in that group, then it will probably be difficult for you to get noticed by followers/following members of that community since they are not seeing new content being posted on a regular basis.
Ensure that the group isn’t just a place where people post their own content but also engage with other members of the community. This step is vital because this helps generate organic growth within your Instagram account. Otherwise, organic growth will not occur naturally over time due solely to other accounts reposting each others’ images which means those accounts do not care about engaging with one another.
#12: Run some contests
You can use an app to run your contest, or you can do it yourself, but there’s no denying that contests are one of the best ways to build a follower base. You can get creative and run a contest related to your niche, like offering up some free swag as prizes. Or you could even offer up a discount code for followers who come in first place in a trivia-style game. Think outside the box – it’ll be worth it!
#13: Encourage users to follow you on Instagram through other social media accounts
If you have a list of email subscribers, send them a special offer that’s only available for people who follow you on Instagram. This way, every time someone subscribes to your emails with their name and email address, they’ll be prompted to follow you on Instagram as well.
If you have an active Facebook page or Twitter account with plenty of followers, use those platforms to encourage them to follow your IG account as well. This strategy works especially well if the content from your FB page/Twitter feeds is similar in style and tone to what’s shared on IG.
You Need to Be Persistent and Consistent When Trying to Increase Organic Followership!
Serious about how to increase Instagram followers organically? Two things are important; you need to be consistent and creative.
You need to be persistent in your efforts for the organic growth of your Instagram account. You will not get followers instantly, so you need to be willing to stick with it over a longer period of time. Consistency is also important because if you post one day and then disappear for two weeks, this will not work out well for you either.
You also need to be creative. It’s important that you think outside of the box when it comes to how you want your posts or stories presented on Instagram because people these days are attracted by creativity more than anything else! If they see something they like or find interesting, they’ll follow your page without hesitation.
Conclusion
We hope this article has given you some ideas for how to increase Instagram followers organically. It can be a challenge, but it’s also a great way to connect with people in an authentic way that doesn’t feel like marketing but rather genuine human interaction.
And if you’re looking for more tips on how to get more followers on Instagram (or any other social media platform), be sure to check out other posts on our blog on how to increase your organic reach!