Have you ever wondered why is it that someone with only a few hundred followers has hundreds of likes while you, despite having thousands of followers, only get two likes on a post that you upload?
Well, how to get more real Instagram followers 2023 is something a lot of users constantly ponder over! It’s not like something is wrong with the algorithm, or people don’t like you. If a flood of thoughts is wriggling through your mind, this blog will unlock some real answers for you.
Instagram has become the most popular social media platform in the last couple of years and has been growing at 6.2% faster than the previous year. Brands, bloggers, and influencers vouch for it.
Started as a photo-sharing app, and now Instagram has been undergoing rapid growth. It has evolved into social media platform for businesses. You can buy products or sell for your business via Instagram and earn money.
With the rapid changes going on with the platform, users have to adapt to new changes and be on point with their content to engage with followers and ultimately grow their follower count. But do these vanity metrics really get business? Yes, if those followers are real.
So if you’re a business that wants to grow the Instagram store rapidly, focus on getting real Instagram followers. This way, you know that you’re selling to real people. This blog looks at different ways you can use to grow your Instagram followers, including how to make the most of your hashtags and how to find keywords that will ultimately help you grow your number of followers.
But unless and until you know what the problem is in growing followers, how can you even proceed? Let’s address that first.
The Problem: Growing Your Instagram Account Is a Lot Harder Than It Used To Be
Instagram has become the most popular social media app for businesses, celebrities, and individuals alike. You can share beautiful photos, reels, and videos with your followers, engage with them, create new fans and even drive sales to your business or blog.
But there’s a problem: people are now using bots to automatically follow and unfollow people on Instagram. It’s not a secret that there are bots that are capable of doing this on a large scale. So if you’re a small business or an individual blogger, getting a large following on Instagram may be a struggle. You may have a great product or blog, but if you don’t have a large following, you’re not going to be successful.
Another problem is that more and more people are on Instagram than before. In 2021, Instagram was the 4th most popular social media site with more than 1 billion users.
Apart from this, the new Instagram algorithm changed. Instagram itself does not support stale and outdated content and ranks last for attracting new followers. It has diversified its content bucket from just being an image platform to being a short video platform like TikTok.
But it does not mean you can’t get real Instagram followers.
Are you thinking, how?
To answer this question, we scoured the internet as well as spoke to the high follower account holders to understand what’s the trick to growing Instagram followers.
Tips to Grow Instagram Followers
Here are a few tips on how to get more real Instagram followers 2022
Know Your Audience
To get started, the first key step is research- Researching whom you wish to target via your Instagram profile.
But this would again require some trial and error.
Under the insights tab of your Instagram posts, you can view your audience demographic– their age, gender, location, etc. After you have noted this down– try to understand the type of posts they engage more on. It helps you in defining your audience and their likes and dislikes.
For example, after seeing that their audience reacts better to make-up tips and skincare routines, the popular make-up brand Bobbi Brown started posting more make-up tips reels in the mix of their posts about their products and brand collaborations.
Be Consistent in Posting
Now that you have researched your audience, it’s time to pen down your content calendar.
You must have heard consistency is key to success, and it certainly is on Instagram and other social media platforms.
But the content has to be curated, keeping your target audience in mind; otherwise, even if you post consistently, you won’t get real followers’ engagement on Instagram.
So, in my opinion, “Consistency + Relevancy = Real Instagram follower growth.”
Nonetheless, the more consistently you post, the more positive growth you will see on Instagram.
And in case you do not have time, you can always schedule your posts using social media automation and scheduling tools like Sprout Social.
New-age brands like Mama Earth, Okhai, and others, were able to improve their brand visibility and sales by consistently posting about their products, tips, and real-time stories on Instagram. Also, Mama Earth’s founder recently shared in an article how they optimized their digital ads and enhanced their performance marketing.
Use The Top Hashtags
Hashtags are considered to be dead!
But this is so not true.
Like most social media platforms, you can search for certain topics and posts using a hashtag on Instagram. The algorithm uses a search process that has a mix of the most popular and not-so-popular hashtags on your posts. This is the best way to get real Instagram followers when you are just getting started.
You can use up to 30 hashtags in every post, and when nobody knows about you, the only way you can attract new followers and let Instagram know what your account is about is through hashtags.
After your account has gained momentum, you can switch to 3-4 popular or custom hashtags. For example, Terribly Tiny Tales, a popular microblogging app and page, first used the tactics of using popular hashtags and, once they gained momentum, switched to using custom and popular hashtags.
Follow People in Your Niche and Engage with Them
A good way to get more real Instagram followers is to follow people in your niche and engage with them. Businesses start an Instagram account and then just post pictures to their own account and hope that they get followers.
This is a terrible method of getting followers. Instead, you should follow people who might be interested in your content. You can find these people by searching for hashtags relevant to your content.
The social media strategy of Disney and Marvel is really smart. They frequently ask their niche audience what they want to watch and release extra movie and series clips on their Instagram page, and they even engage with their followers.
Collaborate and Remix
Instagram collabs are a thing now. You would have seen a lot of brands collaborate with celebrity influencers and vloggers. This helps both parties as brands get to reach a wider audience than they cannot reach organically. On the other hand, the creators get paid for the same.
You must have seen the now not-so-new remix option on your Instagram feed and seen a lot of Instagram influencers remixing others’ posts and even collaborating with other influencers to improve their followers count.
But this technique is now used by popular brands as well. Again taking the example of the same Disney, Forbes published an article on how Disney is harnessing the power of influencers.
Coca-cola collaborates with small and big Instagram influencers to promote their page on their page. They also created a hashtag #originalserviert as a part of their German marketing strategy.
One of the best examples of this is HP and Elle Magazine collaboration. The tech giant collaborated with the leading fashion magazine to create a sustainable fashion magazine, which they showcased on Instagram.
Giveaways and Instagram Challenges
One of the ways to get more real Instagram followers is to offer something valuable in exchange for them. This can be free shipping, freebies, or discounts. When you offer something valuable in exchange, people are happy to follow you, and social media services will see your followers, which means they will give you access to all their users.
Organizing a giveaway, social media contest, or even a small Instagram challenge that you promote on your social media accounts is an easy way to promote your business and get more Instagram followers.
Sephora organizes giveaway competitions regularly every year to keep its followers engaged, and Shrimps recently organized a photo challenge for its audience base to showcase #StayAtHomeShrimps images.
Use Instagram Reels and Stories
Instagram Reels and Stories are a very new feature to Instagram, released just last year. And they’re also one of the most underutilized. Even though they are very easy to use, just like regular Instagram posts, they are often forgotten about or overlooked by brands in their initial and later stages.
But with Instagram moving to a micro-video platform, it is a feature you can use to get lots of real followers on Instagram.
Hubspot, a popular B2B company, is also leveraging reels and creating shot videos about tips and challenges for their followers.
You can even leverage stories to get visibility. You must have noticed that even the brands that you don’t follow get on the story feed section of your Instagram dashboard.
Experiment with Different Content Types
When it comes to Instagram, change is the only constant. Like Facebook, this photo-sharing mobile app is constantly changing. However, unlike Facebook, Instagram isn’t exactly a social network. It’s more like a community, where photos and videos are the tokens. It’s not about the number of friends you have, but the number of likes your photos get. And the only way to get more likes is to use different content.
For example, if you’re a travel blogger, you need to deliver the travel inspiration in a way that captures the audience’s attention. And if you’re a fashion blogger, you need to share beautiful photos and reels of outfits that your audience will want to wear. Similarly while experimenting with different content types and using Instagram analytics, it’s easier to understand how followers are increasing using a particular content type. Once you do that you can easily double down on that content type.
Parting Words
To sum up, consistency and engagement are the keys to getting Instagram followers. Whether you would like to get more followers or you’re looking for new ways to attract followers, these tips will help you become a more influential Instagram user. With so many methods to get more real Instagram followers at your disposal, you should be able to find a few that work best for your personal preference.