How To Increase Your Instagram Following

Instagram Influencers with strong followings are now, more than ever, starting to make a career from the Influence they have on people that are following them, through paid endorsements by brands and businesses that understand the true value in authentic influencer marketing.  

An Influencer with a strong Instagram following is someone who inspires, motivates, and provides knowledge on certain topics.  They are someone that people follow because they not only admire them, but trust their views and opinions.

In this article, I will provide a step by step guide on how to build your Instagram following, and become an ‘Instastar’ yourself!

Start Networking

Start following like-minded Influencers and engage with their content.  Choose Influencers that are of interest to you and have a strong Instagram following.  Start to like, comment, share and create a conversation with them on their posts.  What this does is gets more eyeballs on you since their followers are likely to see your profile on their posts.  This visibility will increase your following and allow you to become an influencer yourself.

Start Following

Follow profiles that inspire you.  These profiles don’t have to be Influencer profiles, they can be regular people that create awesome content!  These are the people that will likely follow you back, if they think you have awesome content too.  The easiest way to find really awesome content on Instagram is through the explore feature.  

Here, you can go through hundreds of profiles and start following those that are of interest to you.  Try this – when you post a new photo on Instagram, start following new Instagram profiles and engage with their content.  You will see that you will not only gain new followers, but you will also get a lot more engagement on your post.

Start Hashtagging #

Did you know that posts with at least one Instagram hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag?
Every picture you post on Instagram should include a captivating caption and hashtags.  The hashtags can be in the caption itself, but if you decide to do this, only include 2-3 hashtags.  If you’d like to include more (which I would recommend), include them in a comment.

By using hashtags, it allows your image to be more discoverable on Instagram for users that are searching for particular hashtags.  In order to be strategic about your hashtags, make sure that you pay attention to the number of posts from others using that hashtag.  If the number is low, it’s likely that that hashtag will not generate much more additional engagement on your post.

Also, when you type in a hashtag, other similar hashtags will appear.  This will give you a good idea of other hashtags to use on your post to reach an even larger audience.  

Using hashtags will not only increase engagement, but now that you’re more discoverable on Instagram, users will start exploring your profile and follow you if they enjoy other photos that you’ve posted!

Keep Creating AWESOME Content

Now that you know how to increase not only your following, but engagement as well, continue to create awesome content for your followers and better yet providing VALUE to them with every post! If you’re continuously posting content that keeps your followers inspired and engaged, they will not only continue to follow you, but recommend your profile to others.

Stay tuned for my next blog on How To Increase Your Instagram Engagement!  

‍