Building an engaged following on Instagram to promote your brand is a difficult task.
If you're just getting started and wondering how to gain more Instagram followers, make sure you know who you're attempting to target. Create a strategy that describes your target audience and outlines how you will attract them to your account.
When it comes to building your Instagram profile, remember that buying followers is not the way to go. Neither is it producing clickbait stuff. Good audience research and high-quality content will assist you in building a genuine audience of individuals rather than bots.
How to get more followers on Instagram for free
1. Define your brand’s tone of voice and personality
This may seem apparent, but your brand's tone of voice and attitude should leave a consistent impression. You want to ensure that your online identity is friendly and personable.
Creating material in which an employee, or even better, a customer, describes your product or service can help your business become more relatable. If your brand is in the lifestyle category, you may build an aesthetic that communicates your clients' lifestyle.
Regardless of your eventual aim, all of your postings should have a similar brand personality and visual language so that they can be recognized as, well, yours.
2. Put together a social media marketing strategy
A solid social media strategy should be aligned with your overall business objectives and incorporate your social media marketing goals.
Do you want to increase brand recognition? Increase sales? Or do you want to generate visitors to your website?
The first step in getting somewhere is deciding where you want to go. The Hootsuite team has created a handy template to help you create your social media plan, which you can download for free here.
3. Understand your perfect audience
You're flinging feathers in the wind if you don't know who you're aiming for.
Your target audience's age, geography, occupation, and Instagram usage can all be used to characterize them. They are likely to share common challenges and worries, as well as lifestyle goals, and your material should address these concerns, inspire, and engage them. Your target audience will be more inclined to follow you and stick with you if you acknowledge them properly.
If you're unsure where to begin, consult our guide to creating audience and buyer personas.
4. Develop a consistent look and feel for your brand
Think of your Instagram grid as a crucial first impression.
Because Instagram is a visually driven social network, a consistent aesthetic approach can help to create your brand personality and make your posts recognized at first glance.
Every post on your Instagram grid should be interesting, demonstrating to followers that your high visual standards are worth following. Your postings should display as one unit in an aesthetically pleasant manner. If you don't have products with a consistent aesthetic, you can style them in an Instagram grid so that the posts compliment each other in placing, similar to an ad in a glossy magazine.
5. Use the right keywords
You must be discoverable in order to get followers. Your name and username affect how you appear in search results and should be consistent with your handle on other social networks.
Including a relevant term in your name will lead to more successful searches. You have 30 characters, so don't be afraid to incorporate that keyword into your name field.
Personal stylist Michelle Addison @michelleaddisonstyle, for example, uses the keyword "style" in her Instagram name, boosting the likelihood that she will be discovered by those looking for style and fashion guidance.
6. Use relevant hashtags
Instagram users can follow hashtags the way they follow persons. To gain more Instagram followers, determine the hashtags that your target audience is likely to use and use them in your posts.
You can use up to 30 hashtags in your post, but they must be relevant to your photo, product, or service. Targeted hashtags will bring in a more engaged audience. Avoid gimmicks like #followme, #likeforlike, and so on, as these will just attract bots or people who are merely following you to be followed back.
In a tweet showcasing a piece of art he discovered, photographer @vas photographs used hashtags like #sculpture and #publicart.
7. Create Instagram Reels
For a long time, Instagram's favoured child has been Reels (TikTok's rival format).
The Instagram algorithm prioritizes Reels on the Explore page. These short videos have their own tab in the app. Users can scroll through an infinite feed of Reels chosen by the computer to meet their specific tastes and interests.
Because of Instagram's efforts to expose Reels to as many users as possible, employing this content format provides you with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to reach those who don't already follow your account.
If you're new to this form of material, Hootsuite has a beginner's guide to using Reels for business.