As one of the most popular social media networks in the world, Instagram is a crucial component of any digital marketing strategy.

Building an engaged community of followers on Instagram can go a long way in increasing awareness for your brand, establishing trust with consumers, and ultimately, boosting your bottom line.

But garnering followers on Instagram is easier said than done. And no – buying followers isn’t a great idea.

If you’re looking to gain more Instagram followers, but don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, we’ll uncover 24 strategies to significantly increase your Instagram following by leveraging the right tools, tactics, and trends for maximum impact.

1. Develop A Dynamic Content Strategy And Editorial Calendar

We usually focus on ideas, delivery, and optimization when we create great content.

Sharing content on a brand’s Instagram account should be no different.

Building a community of engaged followers on Instagram is almost impossible without a dedicated content strategy.

This will help you understand what your goals are, who your audience is, what topics your posts will cover, and much more – which will then allow you to build a robust calendar of content.

It’s important to take time to brainstorm engaging content ideas that align with seasonal moments, cultural holidays, and tentpole events for your business or industry, as well as your overall traffic and company goals.

Having a library of ideas and a tentative schedule will keep you ahead of the game, so you don’t find yourself scrambling for what to post.

Your strategy should be flexible and responsible, allowing you to adapt to trends and audience feedback while still maintaining a consistent posting schedule.

Depending on your business and audience, it’s ideal for you to post at least several times a week.

So, make an Instagram content plan and stick to it.

Read more: How To Create A Social Media Content Plan

2. Define Your Target Audience

As we mentioned above, it’s important to understand your audience when creating content for Instagram.

You want to get more Instagram followers? Great. Who are those people, and how do you plan to reach them?

Spend some time thinking about the types of people you want to engage and then research how they use the platform.

This will help you exponentially when creating your content – and will increase the likelihood of successfully boosting your followers.

Read more: What Is A Target Audience And How Do You Find It

3. Prioritize High-Quality Content

While Instagram has undergone plenty of changes and evolutions over the years – and continues to do so – it remains, at its heart, a platform focused on visual content.

For brands, success on Instagram relies on capturing peoples’ attention – and the best way to do so is through high-quality, thumb-stopping visuals.

Remember that you only have a few seconds at best to pique someone’s curiosity in the Explore tab or on their feed.

Focus on posting high-quality content. This includes:

• High-resolution, well-composed images, videos, and Reels.
• Crisp audio that is easy for audiences to understand.
• Accessible and legible text (in terms of sizing and color contrast).
• Content that fits within Instagram’s recommended dimensions.
• And more.

Avoid pixelation or cropping issues in your content; your brand should not be sharing images or videos that are blurry or have part of the content cut off.

This isn’t to say your content needs to be at the standard of National Geographic; it should just be of a high enough quality to compete on Instagram.

It’s not about spending lots of money or getting professional photographers, but making authentic and engaging content.

Low-quality content will not drive engagement and might even cost you followers.

Read more: 7 Reasons Why Content Needs Amazing Images, Videos & Visuals

4. Create Instagram Reels And Video Content

Screenshot from about.instagram.com, February 2024

By now, we’re all aware: Social media users love video content.

The explosion of TikTok in recent years, as well as the continued dominance of YouTube, has proven the power that video wields in the social media space – and Instagram is no different.

The company has focused its attention on building out Instagram Reels, its competitor to TikTok – and thus, it often gives preference to Reels content when serving new content to users. By creating your own Reels, you’ll not just capture the attention of users, but appeal to Instagram’s algorithm.

Utilizing Instagram Reels and other videos on Instagram can significantly boost your impressions and engagement and, ultimately, attract new followers.

Just make sure your videos are interesting, concise, tell a compelling story, and that they are visually optimized for the platform and its dimensions.

Here’s an example reel on Instagram.

Read more: How To Use Instagram Reels: A Step-By-Step Guide

5. Embrace Instagram’s Latest Features

On that note, do your best to stay on top of Instagram’s evolving features.

Right now, Instagram is more dynamic than ever, and the platform is continually introducing new features to enhance user engagement – and staying abreast of these can set you apart from the crowd.

Just like it pays to create Reels – as that’s a content format that the company is actively investing in – you will often find an increase in performance when you use the latest features and tools.

Keep an eye out for new functionalities such as enhanced or advanced Reels editing tools and options, new interactive stickers or features for Stories, new filters, and more.

Then, find fresh ways to adapt this to your target audience and content strategy – and get ready to welcome some new followers to the fold.

Read more: Instagram Adds New Ways To Create Content

6. Leverage Instagram Analytics For Deeper Insights

An Instagram Business account is free; it gives you access to insights and analytics that tell you more about how your content performs with your Instagram audiences.

Within Instagram insights, you can track things like the number of accounts you’ve reached and engaged, your follower growth over time, and detailed metrics on the engagement generated by your different pieces of content.

You can even see things like metrics for individual Instagram Stories slides.

This data can all be incredibly useful in gaining insights into your audience’s behavior and content preferences, as well as the formats, topics, and types of content that drive the highest performance for you.

Use this to optimize your content calendar and posting schedule – and maximize your chances of expanding the size of your community.

Read more: Social Media Analytics: A Guide To Get Started

7. Use Instagram Stories

Just like video has taken the social media world by storm over the past few years, so has ephemeral content.

After Snapchat burst onto the scene in 2011, ephemeral (or “disappearing”) content experienced a sudden surge of popularity – and it never really died down. In fact, it led to the creation of Instagram Stories, which are now an integral part of how people use Instagram.

For businesses, Instagram Stories offer a way to garner user attention and get your brands in front of your target audience.

Supercharge your Instagram Stories by making them interactive.

Leveraging features like polls, questions, quizzes, link stickers, and other interactive stickers in Stories can help you increase engagement and make your account more visible to a broader audience.

The more people who interact with your content, the more the algorithm will serve it to others, and so on.

Read more: How The Instagram Algorithm Works For Stories, Feed, Reels, And Explore

8. Focus On Instagram SEO For Discoverability

In the past few years, Instagram SEO has become its own standalone strategy.

Where once social media platforms focused almost exclusively on the “newsfeed” for content discovery, they have now evolved to promote discoverability, in alignment with shifting user behaviors.

Instagram SEO refers to the strategy of optimizing your content on Instagram to make it easier for users to discover you on the social platform.

This means including keywords in your relevant content areas so that you’re more visible in Instagram search.

Areas where Instagram SEO applies include:

• Bio: You should strive to include strong keywords, search terms, and hashtags here.
• Profile name and Handle: Choose a name that includes keywords people might search for when looking for a brand or product like yours.
• Alt text: These are text descriptions of visual content that help enhance accessibility and searchability on Instagram. From an SEO standpoint, it helps the platform “read” your visual content and potentially serve it to users who are searching.

Optimizing your profile and content for Instagram’s search function can help new users discover your account more easily, and boost your follower count.

Read more: The Best Time To Post On Instagram

9. Optimize Your Profile

On a similar note, you should optimize your profile so that users who do land on your account can quickly decide whether to follow you.

Your Instagram bio lets users discover who your brand is and whether they will follow you – so it typically features a description of your business (or tagline), a link to your website, any branded hashtags, and/or any calls-to-action (CTAs) you might want to include.

You might also want to include a link to a Linktree or something similar, which allows you to share multiple links to articles, webpages, etc., over time.

Let users know what you’re all about, but try not to sound desperate or come across as spammy.

Update this section as frequently as needed with new information.

Outside of your bio, you should focus on choosing a compelling and recognizable profile picture that will generate interest and excitement from users. If you’re not sure what to feature here, choose a high-resolution logo.

Here’s an example of an optimized logo.

Read more: 5 Excellent Brand Instagram Bios To Inspire Your Own

10. Experiment With Collaborative Posts

Another feature launched on Instagram recently is the collaborative post, which can be an excellent tool for garnering new followers.

Collaborative posts – or “Instagram Collabs” – allow two or more accounts to co-author content. One Instagram creator can post a piece of content, whether image or video, and invite another account as a collaborator.

Once that person accepts the invite, the post will be automatically shared with both accounts’ followers and show up on their profile, which essentially doubles the visibility of the post.

In this way, it’s a clever strategy to partner with other brands or individual influencers whose followings align with your target audience.

By sharing a collaborative post with them, you’ll get your brand in front of those followers, and hopefully convince them to follow you as well.

Here’s an example of a collaborative post.

Read more: How To Collaborate With Local Influencers To Drive Global B2B Content Marketing Success

11. Utilize Influencer Partnerships Strategically

Speaking of influencers – it’s always worth considering influencer partnerships as part of your strategy to generate new followers.

Partnering with influencers is a popular tactic for a reason; it can be an effective way to gain visibility, tap into their established trust and loyalty, and reach new people.

While influencer partnerships aren’t new to Instagram, there has been a noted shift towards “micro-influencers” – smaller influencers with highly engaged communities – over macro-influencers with massive, but less active, audiences.

This is great news for brands, as it means they don’t necessarily need to have huge budgets in order to work with influencers.

Focus on finding the right influencers for you, whose values, messaging, and audience align with yours – and then put together creative partnerships to be successful on Instagram.

Read more: 4 Ways To Find The Best Instagram Influencers For Your Business

12. Use Instagram Shopping (If Applicable)

Screenshot from business.instagram.com, February 2024

Instagram Shopping, the platform’s ecommerce offering, is useful not just for driving sales but also for attracting new followers interested in your brand and products.

With Instagram Shopping, businesses can set up a digital storefront of sorts, and enable users to shop your brand’s photos and videos right in the platform.

If you’re a business with products that can easily be sold direct to consumers, this could be a great option for you.

And there’s plenty of potential here, given that nearly half of people say they use Instagram to shop weekly.

Once your Instagram Shop is set up, you can have plenty of options to customize it by adding new items, creating collections, and more. You also have the ability to tag products in your posts so that people can learn more and make purchases.

To get started with Instagram Shopping, head to Commerce Manager and follow the steps.

Here’s an example of utilizing Instagram Shopping.

Read more: How To Sell On Instagram: 11 Tips & Social Commerce Examples

13. Use Tagging To Gain More Exposure

Tagging, in all its forms, is a great way to expand your reach on Instagram and drive new followers.

Below are a few ways you can use tagging strategically to broaden your exposure.

Tag People Or Brands In Your Posts

You can tag other brands or individuals in your content where it makes sense to drive engagement in a few ways.

Firstly, you might benefit from the authority or trust your audience has in said brand or individual if they are already familiar with them.

Additionally, whoever you tag might go out of their way to engage with that content, which could lead to a boost by the algorithm.

And lastly, tagging relevant accounts means you show up in their tagged feed.

Let’s say you own a fitness studio, and you take a group shot after a fitness class and tag every person in the photo. That post will then populate in the “Tagged” feeds of every person tagged – meaning their followers have the opportunity to see the post and discover your studio.

Use Location Tags To Reach Local Audiences

Another way to be discovered by users who aren’t already following you is to geotag your content.

You could use your actual physical location, so people can find you and see what you’re all about.

Alternatively, try using your city or a nearby (relevant) landmark that gets many searches. When people are searching for that nearby location, they can now come across your content.

If your content is doing exceptionally well, it can even be featured at the top of the search.

Tags improve searchability, as people are looking at locations for things to do and what’s going on in the area

This is also true for events. If you have a presence at a big event or simply want to reach people interested in that event, try geotagging your post with that location.

Read more: 11 Tips For Promoting Your Local Business On Instagram

14. Link To Your Instagram From Your Website & Email

Make sure existing clients and customers find your Instagram by adding an icon to your social links or embedding Instagram content on your site.

You can also link to your brand’s Instagram account from your email signature.

Use a plugin to feed your latest Instagram posts directly to your website.

This can be a great way to promote your new account to people who regularly visit your site, building your following of clients.

Read more: 130 Social Sharing Sites That Boost SEO & Drive Traffic

15. Run Contests & Campaigns To Increase Brand Reach

Once you’ve started growing a follower base, you can hold contests and campaigns that can attract more users to your page.

Focus on contests that encourage user-generated content or at least interaction with your content.

For example, you can drive traffic to your website or sell your product by running an inspiring Instagram contest.

You can either ask users to like, comment, use a specific hashtag, or ask your followers to tag a friend.

When you ask users to tag a friend, it exposes your brand and page to more Instagram users online.

It is an effective way to increase your brand awareness and reach and a key hack to get more Instagram followers.

Read more: 10 Inspiring Examples of Instagram Contests That Caught Our Attention

16. Keep An Eye On Your Competitors

Another best practice for how to get followers on Instagram is to look at what your competitors are doing and learn from it.

Researching their accounts might reveal hashtags you didn’t think of, influencers you have yet to reach out to, or other strategies that can inform your own.

Also, note which of their posts are performing the best – that can serve as another clue as to what can work on your account.

Regularly analyze your competitors’ strategies to identify effective tactics and trends. Adapt these insights to your unique style and audience.

Read more: SEO Competitive Analysis: The Definitive Guide

17. Pay Attention To Trends

Screenshot from about.instagram.com, February 2024

As with any other social media platform, it pays to pay attention to what’s trending on Instagram.

From content formats to trending topics and even the most popular audio tracks, you should stay on top of what users are engaging with the most and see if there are ways to adapt it for your own content.

For example, is there a particular meme format that’s taking Instagram by storm right now? Are you seeing the same photo of Taylor Swift adapted for different jokes or brands?

Think about whether it makes sense for you to jump into the conversation and perhaps reach people that are already part of it.

Similarly, engage with content in your Explore tab to see what’s performing well. Are there specific types of Reels that seem to be very popular? Or a type of creator that you’re seeing more of?

Staying on top of this will help guide you in the right direction to make your content pop.

Read more: 12 Social Media Experts Offer Their Predictions For 2024

18. Engage Authentically Across The Platform

If you want people to engage with you and your content, start by doing so yourself.

Make an effort to authentically engage with your community. This includes following, liking, and commenting on the content of your followers and others, but it’s more than that.

You should be focusing on having genuine interactions with people, not just clicking “like” and moving on.

Strategically engage with users who might be interested in your brand. This could be potential customers, brand allies, current followers, or even people who are posting similar content and using the same hashtags as you.

The more you engage, the more you’ll show up in other people’s feeds and get noticed.

Plus, it shows you’re an authentic, real account who believes in reciprocity!

Read more: How To Create Engaging Social Media Content: 12 Tips To Drive Results

19. Prioritize Accessibility

Accessibility is a non-negotiable when it comes to Instagram content – and ensuring your content is accessible could mean the difference between someone following you, or just continuing on with their day.

To make your content accessible, focus on ensuring that all text is legible (even on a mobile phone screen), that you’re considering color contrast, and that you provide captions for any video or audio content.

Try to steer away from packing a ton of text into an image post. Not only will it be hard to read on a small screen – especially for those with vision challenges – but it can also just be a visual eyesore.

Use text sparingly and strategically in your images to add context or highlight key points. Everything else you need to say can go in the caption!

Read more: Social Media Image Size Guide For All Platforms

20. Employ Subtle Branding

Nobody wants to open up Instagram and be confronted with a bunch of brand logos and not much else.

Stamping your logo on your Instagram posts can disrupt your content and your users’ experience – and doesn’t always provide much incentive to follow you.

While it’s totally okay (and often recommended) to include your branding or logo on a post, be thoughtful about how you do it and how often.

Always lean towards subtle branding. Rather than overt logos, opt for branded colors, themes, or background elements to create brand recognition.

The more you can make your content feel authentic and organic, the more likely it is that people will want to follow you –  as they won’t be worried about having their experience disrupted.

Read more: Social Media Branding: How To Get It Right

21. Use The Right Hashtags To Capture New Audiences

Using hashtags on Instagram will get you in front of new audiences searching for the type of content you’re posting, whether they’re following you or not.

If you have a local business, make sure to include local hashtags, as well.

Take the time to research hashtags and find the best ones for your particular content, as well as those that get the most traction.

You can manually search hashtags within Instagram and see how many posts have been made around that word.

Hashtagify.me is also an excellent tool for finding hashtags that are getting a lot of attention. You can type in your primary hashtag, which will show you its reach, related hashtags and their reach, all the hashtags related to those, and so on.

Bear in mind that you want to use popular hashtags, but you should also consider how much competition you’ll have for any given post.

How Many Hashtags Should I Add To An Instagram Post?

While you can add as many as 30 hashtags to a post, that can quickly look spammy.

According to the Instagram Creators account, you should stick to between three and five hashtags.

Where Should I Add The Hashtags On An Instagram Post?

Add your hashtags within the caption of your post, or in your Instagram Story.

Some users prefer to add single periods separated by line breaks after their caption and then add hashtags, so they’re somewhat buried.

Whatever you choose to do is fine, but keep it consistent across posts so you have a streamlined, professional look.

Read more: 10 Best Social Media Interaction Posts

22. Create A Branded Hashtag For Your Events

And while we’re on the topic, try creating a branded hashtag for your next event.

It will give your brand exposure, curate a unique stream of all the content from your event, and allow others to connect and engage with your brand and other people at the event.

Leading up to the event, you can use your branded hashtag to promote the event, and after that, you can use it to post follow-up content.

Read more: Adapting Your Digital Marketing Strategy To Local Events And Seasons

23. Use Instagram Ads To Get In Front Of Your Audience

If you really want to increase your follower count, consider devoting ad spend to running Instagram ads.

With Instagram ads, you can turn any of your existing Instagram content into paid ads easily. Beyond that, you can target your ads to specific audiences so the right people see them and track ad performance.

With various ad formats available, you’re able to tailor your ads to meet your marketing goals – whether that’s driving website traffic, generating brand awareness, or, of course, boosting followers – and reach new audiences.

Instagram ads are managed within Ads Manager. To get started, you’ll need a Facebook Business Page, which will give you automatic access to an Ads Manager account.

Then, you can begin creating Instagram ads directly in the Ads Manager platform.

Read more: 7 Tips for Creating Eye-Catching Instagram Ads

24. Get Your Account Verified

Getting verified on Instagram (or any other social media platform) is a great way to boost engagement.

The little blue tick gives your brand credibility, trust, and authenticity. While only some will qualify for Instagram verification, it’s worth submitting a request.

Getting verified is one more way to stand out from your competition and deliver a trust signal that your business is real.

To request verification, follow these steps:

• Tap the hamburger (three lines) in the top right corner of your profile.
• Tap Settings and privacy.
• Click on Account and then Request verification.
• Fill out the form, tap Submit, and then wait.

Read more: How To Identify Fake News From Real News Online

Final Takeaways

While there’s no surefire way to gain followers on Instagram (without buying them, which we don’t recommend), these tips are your best path forward.

By posting high-quality content, making use of the latest trends and features, and prioritizing the value you can provide to Instagram users, you will expand your reach, drive exposure for your brand, and entice new audiences to follow you.

Try leveraging as many of these tips as you can, and you’ll set yourself up for success on one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.

Good luck!

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Featured Image: SPF/Shutterstock