We recently just unrolled a blog titled, “ How to Get Real Instagram Followers in 2020” that broke down five steps to take in order to grow your Instagram community. Today’s blog is a sister blog to the original, which doubles down on to organically grow your audience in 2020.
There is no magic bullet to growth on social media. It requires hard work, creative development, and plenty of time. Seeing an overnight jump from 2,000 followers to 20,000 just isn’t a real possibility. However, with the right strategies and consistency, your brand can see sizable growth within the competitive Instagram landscape.
5 (More) Organic Tips to Help Grow Your Instagram Followers
Ready. Set. Go.
Unique, Different Content
Content is king. It runs the world. The best content gets the most attention, likes, and followers. You’re not going to grow your Instagram community if your content is sub-par. You need to be producing eye-catching, high-quality images, and videos in order to see your follower count go up. This requires you to look at your competitors and see what type of content they are producing and then putting your unique spin on it. How can you advertise l the same product or service, but in a more engaging way? Brainstorm.
An easy test for this is to create an Instagram post and then pull a similar Instagram post by one of your competitors. In a blinded test, show the two purposed posts to a team member and ask them which one they find more appealing. If it’s not yours… get back to the drawing board and start again. Unique content is the engine of your online growth.
Engage Within The Community Space
Part of Instagram growth is being active on your account. This means going past posting a new image or throwing up an Instagram story. You need to engage in real conversations with your audience through their comments on your content. Doing so will help improve your public relations with your buyers and fans, but also help increase your reach within your market space. Don’t be afraid to go to some of your fans’ pages and comment on their posts, or comment on competitor’s posts saying positive, encouraging things. This aids in getting your name in front of people who may not know about your brand.
Use Story Highlights
We don’t need to dive into the importance of Instragam stories, at this point in their lifecycle, it’s a given. However, some of the content you will produce on your story will be the most original and insightful content to date. Therefore, it is critical that you leverage that content for continued use. By creating story highlights, you can document and backlog this content for the consumption of current and future followers.
These highlights can also be segmented into categories that serve specific purposes. For example, you can have one story highlight category that talks specifically about your company — think “Who We Are.” Another could discuss your product line and another could be a FAQ section. These categorized story highlights help quickly introduce individuals into your company and what makes you special.
Post At The Right Times
You’re going to want to post at specific times on specific days. This is totally dependent upon your audience and their consumer habits. You can find in the “business insights” section of your Instagram business profile your entire analytic breakdown, from biggest audience locations to optimal engagement time. By posting at times when your audience will see and engage with your content at its highest rate, you are helping increase your reach — as your content is more likely to show through the Discover Page on Instagram to your followers, followers. Did that make sense?
Get Tagged and Create a Custom Hashtag
Encourage your followers to tag you in their posts when they are using your product or service! This is self-explanatory, but it helps introduce your followers’ audience to you — similar to how the Discover Page works. Additionally, come up with a custom hashtag that will be used for all your posts. This hashtag should encapsulate your brand and mission. It creates a tight-knit community for your followers and as the community grows, the hashtag becomes a micro-brand awareness campaign that is continuously ongoing through your posts and the related posts of your followers.