How to grow your Instagram account in 5 steps

Instagram is currently the second-largest social media platform in the world, after Facebook. In this post, you will learn how to grow your Instagram account.

Instagram has around 1.393 billion monthly active users as of the moment of writing this article. Here are 7 working ways on how to grow your Instagram account and increase your followers.

Best 5 ways to grow your Instagram account

Here are the best 5 ways to grow your Instagram account:

1. Optimize your Instagram bio

Before you start working on how to grow your Instagram account and increase your followers, you should make sure your bio is optimized. What do we mean by optimized?

If your Instagram account is a website, your Instagram profile will be the homepage. Just like how a website homepage is accessible from all other web pages, your Instagram profile is accessible from almost all places in your account.

If your Instagram has poor or no bio, image captions, a proper username or profile picture, how will other users know its purpose? And if they don’t know the purpose, why will they follow or engage with the account?

Most Instagram users are likely to see your Instagram bio even before they engage with your posts. A glance at your profile should give them a great idea of yourself, your career (this is optional), interests (very important), and your values.

To grow your Instagram account, your bio should contain the info below.

• Values you believe in
• Brief description of what you do
• An effective and badass Call-to-action
• Link to your business or personal website

Also, don’t forget to upload a picture that matches what you want to be known for.

2. Post creative content

By being creative, we don’t mean posts that are formal or professional every time. You should also post interesting and friendly stuff that your audience can relate to.

If your content is relatable to the daily life of your audience, they will enjoy your posts. But then, what’s in it for you? Here’s the thing.

When people enjoy your content, they won’t want to stop feeling that vibe. So aside from reacting and commenting on your Instagram posts, they will follow your Instagram account as well.

And before you know it, 2 becomes 5, 5 becomes 12, 12 becomes 23, 23 becomes 200 and so on. You will just wake up one morning and realize how much your Instagram account has grown so far.

What kind of content should I post on my Instagram account?

First of all, you should note this down. Instagram is all about graphics and visuals. This being said, the type of content you should post should include the following.

• Photo posts
• Video posts
• IGTV videos
• Instagram Stories

3. Know when to post, and when not to

There’s a time for everything. You should post on Instagram at strategic times. Avoid posting your content at random times.

One of the things you can do is to experiment each hour of the day, and each day of the week, to see what times and days your engagement is highest.

But what if your Instagram account is new and you have no audience to experiment with?

Everyone and their brother has researched the best time and days to post on Instagram. You should note that the answers are never the same, as what works for a friend may not necessarily work for you.

The most accurate way of knowing the best day and time to post on Instagram is to look at your account profile. You should think of these factors.

• The niche, category or industry your account is based on
• Is your account localized or general? If the former is the case, then what region do most of your audience reside in?
• What time is your audience most active?

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4. Use the right hashtags

Find hashtags that convert. Another important point on how to grow your Instagram account is the right use of hashtags.

Hashtags are very beneficial in many ways. We’ll mention some of them.

1. Hashtags help to group posts that are centred around a certain subject.

2. Hashtags help you reach an audience that isn’t following you at that moment.

Now, it’s not only about using hashtags but using them the right way. For instance, assume you want to post content related to a Football match.

You can’t use “#soccer” because the hashtag is too broad. There are oceans of posts already linked to it, so what’s the chance that yours will get noticed?

Instead, use more specific hashtags. If you want to create content about a subject or recent occurrence, you should find and use trending hashtags that are very related to it.

Instagram allows users to use up to 30 hashtags per post. However, social media experts recommend using no more than 9 in each post.

5. Collaborate with influencers

You should build connections with influencers on Instagram, and convince them to post and share your content. 

This can be done in two ways.

1. Reach out to influencers and popular people that dominate your industry. It can also be anyone who has a massive number of followers.

Convince (or pay) them to feature you on their page. If they agree, it will be very great news, as you will be reaching all of their fans at the same time.

2. Reach out to an Instagram influencer and convince them to try out your products, and then prompt them to post their experience.

Also, get them to tag your Instagram account in their posts. You can also give them promo codes and discount offers.

Whenever influencers feature on Instagram, they will be redirecting some of their followers to your Instagram profile or website.

From there, you can engage them and grow your Instagram account, while also building your follower base.

Conclusion

There are other tips and ways to grow your Instagram account and get more customers. However, these five are something to start with.

Avoid buying fake followers, as it will only add to the numbers, and you won’t get any real engagement from them. And remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

Anything organic takes time. But if you want quicker results and you’re willing to pay for it, there are still a few alternatives like Instagram advertising and paid promotions.