How To Grow Instagram Followers Organically
When it comes to marketing your business in these modern times, Instagram should be a crucial part of your strategy. With 38% of the population on such a dynamic platform which features so many functions that encourage engagement and interactivity, Instagram is an invaluable opportunity and a relatively inexpensive tool to showcase your brand and reach new and targeted markets. Yet, many businesses on Instagram, especially those with brand new accounts, find it hard to continually grow their account and build a larger following to promote. Despite it being a challenge, there are many things you can do to make sure you’re maximising your reach on Instagram. Keep reading for some of our best tips on how!
Post high quality, relatable, on-brand visual content
With Instagram being such a visual platform, the most basic way to encourage users to connect with you is to make sure that your feed is on point! Use high quality visuals – sorry, but those blurry iPhone shots just won’t do it – to show off the best of your brand and boost your business’ credibility. The subject matter of your images are also important here. Think about your target audience and their lifestyle, likes and dislikes, humour and sensibilities and post content, both visual and written, that would appeal to them. There are some amazing free design tools out there that can help you with this process.
Increase call to actions
It may sound simple, but providing your audience with a clear directive in your posts can give them an increased sense of urgency, increase the engagement on your posts and funnel a larger audience to your social media – some of who will hopefully be converted into customers. Call to action (CTA) phrases such as, “Like if you agree”, “Tell us why in the comments”, “Tag someone who would love this” or “DM us for more info” are clear, direct, and easily adapted for any kind of post. However be mindful to use only one, or at most two, CTAs in any one post as too many can irritate or confuse your viewers.
Encourage User-Generated Content
User generated content (UGC) is any content that is posted by anyone outside of your business. Encouraging UGC is great for your business as not only does it give your business more credibility and get more eyes on your product but you can also repost the content that is posted, helping you minimise the content you need to produce on your own. Encouraging UGC can be as simple as setting up a geotag (if you have a physical venue) or creating a branded hashtag for people to tag in their posts. Not only do these actions create a sort of community around your business and products, it also makes it easy for you to find when you’re looking for some content to regram. For a more active approach, you can also consider running a giveaway or competition, or even conducting an influencer campaign. Find out more about how to run IG campaigns and competitions.
Do Community Engagement
Similar to how you make new friends by meeting new people, growing your circle of connections for your businesses’ Instagram involves continually engaging, interacting with and seeking out both accounts who either already connect with you, or who may want to follow you. When it comes to community engagement, there are multiple elements to consider – all of which we’ve outlined here.
Tagging
Another way to increase the engagement on your social media is to tag other accounts, particularly those that often re-share content. Examples of these are community groups, influencers and publications. Just make sure you tag accounts that are relevant to your business (for example, don’t tag a foodie account if you’re a beauty brand) and make sure that you’re tagging them in content that you would be happy to have re-shared. Don’t forget about tagging other business who you work with as well! For example, if you’re a cafe who stocks a particular brand of tea, make sure you tag them, not only to give them credit for their products, but also to gain access to anyone who might be browsing through their tagged photos!
Make the most of Instagram Stories
The great thing about Instagram as a marketing tool is that is already has many in-built features that encourage interactivity and engagement between brands and consumers. Most of these can be accessed through Instagram stories. The simplest way to bring greater exposure to your account with Instagram stories is simply to reshare your latest posts in your stories! Given Instagram’s feed algorithm, simply posting on your account does not guarantee that those you follow will actually see it. By reposting it on your IG stories, you’ll guarantee that a large audience will access your posts. However, with more features like live streaming, countdown, polls, Q&A and filters, they are a myriad of ways to use stories to bring more organic traffic to your account.
Does growing your Instagram audience feel like too big a task for you ? Contact us and we’ll take care of it!