1- CHOOSING THE INSTAGRAM CONTENT THAT´S RIGHT FOR YOU

This part is going to take some thought and effort. To gain a huge following of real people on Instagram, you have to produce content that´s not only made specifically for Instagram, but also content that´s the right fit for what your audience wants. Finding the right approach and style is crucial, because it´s going to become the way your followers recognize you.

Generally speaking, there are types of images that work well with a lot of industries; posters with inspirational or humorous quotes, quality food photography, or scenic images are safe starting points.

That being said, carefully consider what type of content it is that you´re producing. You have to remember that Instagram is such a hit because it´s a wholly unique platform, and the experience it provides the user is completely different than something like Facebook or Twitter.

Consider things like: how are people going to find your content? What hashtags are you going to use? If someone searches one of these hashtags and finds your posts, are they going to be intrigued enough to click through to your account, or will they be disappointed that there´s no correlation between your post and the hashtag?

What is it about the images you produce that will make people do more than just scroll on by? According to Zabisco, humans process visuals 60000 times faster than plain text. In less than a second, a person decides, based upon the images you share, whether or not you´re worth their time. That means you need to stand out.

Once you settle on your content type and strategy, it´s extremely important that you stick to that theme. The number one thing that keeps people coming back to any brand or business is consistency, whether it´s a Starbucks Macchiato or a Snickers bar. It´s exactly the same with the kind of content you produce.

A common problem a lot of people face when starting out on Instagram is that they´re not entirely sure what type of theme or content it is they want to produce. Unfortunately, there really is no simple solution, because at the end of the day you don´t want to be a copycat of a larger account. To be really successful on Instagram, you need to be a little unique.

The best way to get started is to do some hashtag research. Check out SaaS´s like Iconosquare to find out what hashtags are trending and which one fits you best. Find competitors who use the same hashtags as you do, or even find users who follow these hashtags and see what other kind of content they like.

From there it´s just a matter of testing out your content. DO some A/B testing, try one type of content one week and try something else the week after. Find out what works best, and really get to know your audience.

To get you started, be sure to check out apps like WordSwag and Typorama for text-focused instagram posts.

2- CREATING CONTENT YOUR AUDIENCE WILL LOVE AND INTERACT WITH

Once you know what type of content is right for your brand, it´s time to really focus on creating great posts that you know are going to connect with your audience. This might seem obvious, but we always see the content creation itself getting neglected. Find out what your customers enjoy seeing on Instagram or what themes resonate with them, and populate your account with relevant images.

But you´ve got to connect with your audience, specifically. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

That´s why it´s so crucial to develop good relationship with your audience, so you learn what type of content it is they like. 

One good way to find out what your customers like is by checking out what your competition is posting, or what kind of imagery is used on the websites or blogs that are popular in your industry.

On Instagram, engagement is king. For best results, we found images that trigger an emotion or questions that elicit some thought work really well.

People like seeing other people

Include faces in your photos. Images with faces have been known to increase engagement, because our brains naturally want to interact with other people. Also, images that don´t include faces, but using a point-of-view where the camera acts as the eyes of the audience can help them make them feel like they´re a part of the image.

Calls to action

Every post should have a strong call to action or CTA encouraging people to follow you or like the post in the caption. By adding in a call to action, people are 25% more likely to follow through on that action than without it.

Think of a CTA as a way to remind people that there is an action they could take. By adding a CTA to your image, all you´re doing is reminding your followers that they don´t have to just scroll on past, they can actually do other things, including liking your picture, or writing a comment.

Ask questions in your captions to encourage people to respond. This is a very simple tactic to make sure that your instagram followers are interacting with your account.

Remember, the one thing you want to achieve the most with your audience is engagement -you want them to be interested in and personally connected to your brand and your account. Gently encouraging them to invest less than a second into each post does wonders for cultivating that engagement.

It´s storytime!

Develop a story with your posts. Capture people´s attention by providing a narrative; don´t just settle for a generic line of text. Get people invested and show off how much value you can provide in one go. 

Developing a story also ties into emotion. Always look to elicit an emotion with your posts. Whether you´re looking to inspire people, make them laugh or stun them, your posts should always aim to trigger an emotion with your audience. 

User generated content

Post user-generated content whenever possible. Not only will this give your brand social proof and make people far more likely to follow you, but it´ll also help you build a vibrant and engaged community around your Instagram account.

Your Instagram theme

Getting more people to interact with you also involves maintaining a consistent aesthetic theme so that your Instagram feed reaffirms your brand identity. A simple way to do that is to use the same filter. It makes your images more recognizable and your overall feed look more professional.

Remember that quality always beats quantity when it comes to Instagram posts. Don´t post something for the sake of posting. Always make sure your content is providing value to your audience in some way.

3-TREAT YOUR COMMUNITY ON INSTAGRAM LIKE GOLD

One of the biggest mistakes people make when building their instagram account is that they only ever see their followers as numbers.

Followers aren´t the only metrics that matters when it comes to instagram, but you can get caught up and become so obsessed in growing your follower count that you forget that each person who chooses to follow you is actually a living, breathing human being. It doesn´t matter what kind of account you´re running, whether it´s personal or business, the same is true everywhere.

You don´t want a huge follow count because it gives you bragging rights; you want a huge follower count because by increasing your reach and exposure, you increase the likelihood of finding one true follower.

A true follower is someone who absolutely loves your content and what you do. They´re the one that, if asked, will put down money because you asked them to, or purely because it´s something that you made. 

Be as conversational as possible when engaging with other users, and be true to how you speak in real life. Emphasize the personality behind your brand and let people know that you´re not just another robot.

4- POST ON INSTAGRAM REGULARLY

Aim to post on a regular basis, about once every three to four hours. However, don´t bulk post a whole bunch of photos in one sitting; users will often regard this as spam and unfollow you. Think of it like sowing seeds. You don´t want to just plug all your seeds into a hole in one go; you want to spread them out.

You´re going for consistency. If your audience can´t comfortably rely on you to post regularly, you´re not going to find many people willing to follow you on the off chance that you´re going to post something every now and then.

Use Iconosquare to work out the bet times to post to your account and maximize exposure.

One other tip is to always post on Sundays. Sunday is usually a pretty quiet day on Instagram, making it the perfect opportunity for you to get ahead of the pack and get your posts in front of even more people.

5- THERE´S GOLD IN YOUR INSTAGRAM BIO

On Instagram, your bio is a crucial piece of real estate. You can best make use of this section by having a strong call to action. You can use up to 150 characters, so a short snappy CTA works best.

A strong CTA should be an absolute no-brainer for your audience. You already know that they can see your content, so make it worth their while to actually take a look at your bio by offering something that you know they´ll love.

To create a strong CTA, you want to be as simple and no-nonsense as possible. Because you only get one live link when it comes to Instagram, which is in your bio, you want to be able to get as much value as possible out of that link.

Your bio should also be compelling. Your potential followers on Instagram have a few seconds to decide whether or not they want to follow you. Your bio should capture their attention and make them want to follow you, or at the very least, scroll down further to check out your content.

6- USE HASHTAGS TO GET MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS

Hashtags might seem like something only annoying teenagers use, but trust us, that´s not the case. They are a way for viewers to navigate easily to topics they´re interested in. Attaching #hashtags to your image, therefore, enables your content to be found more easily by those who don´t already follow you.

First, research the most popular Instagram hashtags in your niche, and then compile them.

Instagram hashtag-finding tips

-check out what the top-trending hashtags are with Tags for Likes. Use Hashtags, TagFire and Grama to find hashtags relevant to your niche.

-copy the hashtags that the top influencers in your niche are using. Use this as a way to not only generate more exposure and gain more instagram followers, but as a way to get on the radars of other influencers.

-round up about 30 that include a mix of high-performing and low-performing hashtags. Use around 10 hashtags that have over a million posts, then another 10 hashtags that only have 10k to 50k posts, with another 10 anywhere in between

-find out what the hashtag of the day is and use it.

-create multiple sets of hashtags to maximize exposure. Don´t just settle for one set of hashtags, create around three different sets of 30 hashtags each. Regularly rotate them so that your posts reach a variety of people relevant to your niche. Save them in a notes file so all you need to do is copy and paste them, and not have to worry about writing each one out every single time

7- NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK: THE POWER OF SHOUTOUTS

It´s not all about pretty pictures and keywords. To thrive on Instagram, you´re going to have to reach out and interact with some real, live humans. Networking can work wonders, not only IRL, but also in the social media sphere. 

Use shoutouts to get more instagram followers

When it comes to growing a huge following on Instagram, you´re going to have to get used to the idea of collaboration over competition.

This is where the incredibly powerful concept of S4S comes into play. For newcomers, S4S stands for “share for share”. If you´re looking to land a million followers on Instagram, or even tens of thousands, you need to get used to the idea of sharing other people´s content.

The basics of S4S are quite simple. You ask another influencer in your niche if they would like to share your content, and in return you will share theirs.

This way you´ll be able to expose each other´s brands to each other´s audiences, some of whom likely have never even heard of you before. The best part is that if you choose who you do S4S with carefully, you´ll probably find someone with an audience who you know will like your content too.

These types of transactions are unique to Instagram and absolutely invaluable for anyone who wants to cultivate a huge following. But remember that you should always look to be providing a mutual exchange of value.

Here´s the next secret on how to maximize your S4S potential: join a shoutout group.

A shoutout group is basically an informal group of Instagrammers who have come together in order to support each other by doing S4S for one another. So instead of having to constantly find someone new to do S4S with every single time, you´ll instead have a dedicated group of people who you can reliably depend upon to exchange shares.

Most groups and Instagrammers in general, use Kik as the primary source of communication. But there is also Slack, GroupMe and even regular Facebook Groups.

8- WORKING WITH INFLUENCERS TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS

9- BONUS INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS GROWTH HACKS

-giveaways

-instagram Ads

-viral images

-geolocation targeting

-fan pages

-social sharing

-like for like groups

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itscamilitaok/