Stephanie Donelson

I’ve talked with many bloggers who feel Instagram is their most challenging social media network and I can definitely understand the frustration. Like other social media channels, Instagram is a marathon and not a sprint and requires a lot of time and dedication to making this network work.

If you’re feeling stuck on how to grow your Instagram following and getting the right audience to follow your account and engage with your content, read up on these 14 tips.

I’ll cover everything from advertising to Stories to build up your following the right way.

14 tips for growing your Instagram following

1. Have a strategy

You don’t do email marketing by randomly sending out emails and hope something works. You have a plan in place, have templates, and have a rhyme and reason behind your emails. Approach your Instagram account the same way. You should have a plan of what content you’re sharing, what captions you want to use, and know why you’re posting to Instagram in the first place.

Nothing is worse for followers than the realization the brand they’re following doesn’t give a hoot about what they’re sharing and they’re just doing it to say they posted. Invest the time into creating quality content that works with the rest of your marketing channels. 

2.  Know your audience

For your content to perform well you’ll want to make sure your audience engages with it, and one way to ensure they do is to know them and understand what they look for on Instagram. Some questions to ask to better understand your audience include:

• How do they use Instagram?
• Why do they use Instagram?
• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What are their interests?
• How do they shop or find brands?
• What do they interact with on social media?
• What kind of content do they create?

By knowing who you’re marketing to and drawing in the right audience you can organically improve your following and improve engagement across your posts.

3. Use captions

One of my biggest pet peeves is people that post photos to Instagram without any caption or words explaining what the photo is about or why I should be interested in spending time on it. And just posting hashtags or emojis doesn’t count. 

Need help coming up with Instagram captions? Try these ideas:

• Share fun facts or behind-the-scenes information
• Share a personal story
• Use hashtag trends or challenges like the #icebucketchallenge 
• Ask people to help you caption your photo
• Ask people to comment on posts or tag friends
• Ask questions to entice comments or reactions
• Share inspirational quotes or motivational tips
• Use emojis to add another layer of emotion to your posts

4. Use hashtags

Hashtags help new audiences find your content and make your account more discoverable. Think of hashtags like SEO and treat them as an opportunity to optimize your posts. Use a variety of hashtags in your post, like:

• Branded hashtags: These are hashtags you create around your brand and promote and encourage your customers to use when sharing posts about your business
• General hashtags: These hashtags could include terms like #fashion, #travel, #fitness, #weddings, #nature
• Specific hashtags: These hashtags go a level deeper than general hashtags and are more specific to the post, these could be terms like #londongram, #dogsofinstagram, #nationalparks, #travelblogger
• Geographic hashtags: These hashtags are used to share location information like #coloradohikes, #californiawine, #floridavacation, #NYweddings, #VisitLondon, #caribbean

Try to keep your hashtag usage to less than 10 per post to not look spammy, though you can add up to 30 per post. Another way to avoid looking spammy is to not use hashtags such as #likeforlike or #followforfollow. It may get you a quick spike in engagement and followers but you can’t fake authentic followers and hashtags like these aren’t going to work for the long run. 

5. Share Stories

Sharing photos to the normal feed and your profile is still a great way to grow your following and get exposure for your account, but if you want to take it up a notch and reach more people, Stories is the way to go – especially when you’ve optimized your Story with hashtags, tags, and locations. 

Instagram Stories are similar to Snapchat where they disappear after 24 hours. Disappearing content is a great way to share real-time posts and get a jump on engagement as the content doesn’t have a long shelf life. Though you can turn a story into a highlight that stays on your profile. Another way to use Stories is to poll your audience, collaborate with other brands or influencers, or promote new website content or sales information. 

6. Engage

One of the most rewarding ways to grow your Instagram following is by engaging with the accounts you follow and your current followers. Give another post a like, comment on it, and reply to any comments on your own posts. People like to see other accounts that are engaged and active on the network – and that means engaged in the community, not just sharing their own posts and hoping that’s enough.

If you do go the comment route, do not spam people’s posts with the exact same copy and paste comment. It’s inauthentic and makes your account seem like it’s spam or a bot. Be real and read their caption or find something to compliment in their photo when you engage with others. 

7. Regram

Another option for engagement as well as encouraging user-generated content is to regram others’ posts – with permission of course. Regramming means you’re sharing another account’s content as your own and in your own feed. You should always give credit to the original creator when regramming content. 

8. Tag accounts

You can grow your reach and following by tagging other accounts in your posts. A word of caution on tagging though, do not be spammy about it. If the tagged accounts have nothing to do with your brand or content or aren’t collaborating with you, why are you including them? 

I won’t engage with other accounts that tag my travel blog on Instagram unless they’ve asked or we’re working together. Tagging can be beneficial but it quickly crosses the line into spam when used incorrectly and can hurt your reputation if you use it too often. 

9. Be consistent

If an account hasn’t posted for more than a few months, I’ll unfollow them and I know I’m not alone in this practice. If you want to keep your followers as well as grow your audience, then you need to post consistently. With some of my accounts I try to post twice a day, but many accounts can get away with posting two or three times per week. Find a cadence that works for your brand and your audience and stick with it.

Speaking of consistency, you should also focus on a consistent style or look to your posts. A lot of the big influencers have their own presets created or you can simply use the same filter or editing options so each post looks like it’s coming from the same account. 

10. Post at the right time

With Instagram business accounts you have access to insights that tell you what time your audience is checking their feed. It would make sense to post during these times! 

If you haven’t built up a big following yet, here are some general best times to post to Instagram:

• Post early morning as many check Instagram before work
• Wednesdays and Fridays around 11 a.m. are shown to have high engagement
• Avoid late night posts (after 11 p.m.)
• Save your best content for mid-week 

As you get more data about your followers you can start to tailor your posts around their schedule and get your content in front of them when they’re online. 

11. Cross-promote

Encourage people to check out your Instagram by including links on your website, in your emails, or even promoting it on other social media channels. If they are choosing to follow you on multiple social media networks be sure to deliver unique content on each platform or your followers will wonder why they bother checking different channels for the same things. 

12. Collaborate

Working with influencers or other brands can put your name in front of new people that already trust your partners, so why wouldn’t they feel they can trust you too? Collaborations can work a variety of ways, by having the influencer do an account takeover, sharing your exclusive content on their channel, or by both of you sharing related posts and encouraging followers visit both accounts. 

13. Run a contest

Hosting a contest or a giveaway is another fun way to gain new followers and can also be done through a collaboration. 

Getting entries for your Instagram contest can be easy and done through:

• Like/comment to enter
• Photo caption
• Tag a friend
• User-generated content with branded hashtag
• Scavenger hunt
• Link to website and entry form

Be sure to share the results of your contest with followers and congratulate the winner(s) and let followers know of any upcoming contests or promotions they may be interested in. 

14. Run ads

Finally, you can run ads on Instagram to reach different, targeted audiences. You can serve your ad to people by location, age, gender, interests, or even certain behaviors. With Instagram ads, you can also simultaneously run the ad on Facebook to drive up results and clicks. 

With ads, I suggest pushing your highest performing post or a post promoting a sale or other CTA. As long as you’re targeting the right people and your creative is eye-catching and informative, your ad should perform well.

What tactics do you use to grow your Instagram following? Tell me in the comments below or on Twitter!