Marketing on Instagram is all about earning lots of followers. If you can build your page to over 1 million followers, you can make quite a good living on Instagram. If you think that level of popularity is out of your reach, think again. By spending no more than 30 to 60 minutes on Instagram 5 or so days a week there are people generating 5-figure-a-month revenue. When you first get started, you’re going to want to check into Instagram every single day. Once you develop a considerable following, you don’t have to put it near as much time to see your marketing efforts pay off.
The magic number for followers when you’re first starting out is 10K. Getting your first 10,000 followers is no cakewalk, but growth after that point really begins to take on a life of its own. Depending on how dedicated you are, you could gain 10,000 followers in your first 30 days on Instagram.
Growing Followers by Interacting with Others
Let’s go back to the example we used earlier, where you have a business selling truck accessories. In order to gain your first followers, find another page on Instagram that posts truck photos. You want to find one with over a million followers in your niche if that is possible. In a perfect world, you want to wait until that page posts a brand-new photo. This is because when you see people liking that photo and commenting on it, you know they are currently online.
As long as you find photos that have been posted within the last hour, you have a good chance of catching Instagram users that are still online. Now you can start following, clicking through to these users’ profiles, and leaving meaningful comments on them (no generic comments or spam!)
Some marketing experts will tell you to follow as many people as you can on Instagram each day to gain new followers (as a small percentage will decide to follow you back). This can work, but very slowly and isn’t really the best way to get an engaged following. Instead, take a look at individual profiles and follow those you’d be more likely to actually like and interact with.
Doing things the right way does take work, but it’s worth it. Instagram is, after all, a social network, so it’s important to be social, respect the rules and avoid spamming. Thankfully there are others methods you can use, too, like hashtags.
Hashtagging
Another way to make sure you are hanging around with the people you eventually want to do business with is to use the hashtag. In the Instagram search engine, look for #trucks, or #cupcakes or #monkeys, anything that is relative to your page. You will be shown the most recent photos that also have that same hashtag. Start with ones that have been posted in the last few seconds or minutes, and click on the images. Find out those users that liked those photos, and interact with them in a genuine way.
More powerful, though, is to actually use these hashtags when you post new content. This is another way of hopefully getting access to Instagram users that are still on the site, but do not follow you so would not have seen your posts otherwise. By the way, one Instagram study showed that adding at least one hashtag to all of your posts will create 12.6 % more engagement on average.
It takes time to find the best hashtags to use. Some ideas include:
- Looking at the hashtags your competitors regularly use,
- Experimenting with different hashtags and analyzing your results,
- Downloading an app for hashtag ideas (like TagOMatic)
To Bot or Not to Bot, that is The Question
There are some really big Instagram account holders who openly talk about using software to gain followers. These are referred to as “bots” in Internet parlance. These software suites automatically like photos, make comments and follow users, and they work tirelessly every minute of every hour of every day.
Instagram doesn’t want you using bots, and they may ban your account if they find out you are doing so. But there’s another reason why you shouldn’t use them: they won’t give you engaged followers. It’ll all be automatic, and people who follow you are very, very unlikely to actually care about what you post. And if they don’t care, you’re not going to see great results. It’s not worth the risk.
Growing Your Account by Buying “ShoutOuts”
Have you ever listened to any talk radio? Users call in on a number of topics including sports and politics, and they will sometimes give a “shout out” to a friend or family member while on the radio. They say something like, “I would like to give a shout out to my friend Bob.” You can also do this on Instagram. You pay other users to put the word out about your page.
Make sure you have a few followers and a lot of great pictures and content before you do this. It makes your page more attractive to people who discover your account using this method. To purchase a shoutout, start looking for other accounts in the same niche as yours. You want account holders that have a lot more followers than you do. Most big accounts will have plenty of contact information. Instant message them or shoot them an email, and just ask them how much a shoutout is going to cost.
Since this is a supply and demand transaction, and also because some people are just on Instagram to have a good time, prices vary wildly. Look around until you get a nice price that fits your budget. You may also find shout outs for sale on eBay, and you can purchase them for as cheap as $6 on Fiverr.com.
Find your most popular, most commented on, most liked photo and use that one for the shout out. Add a simple caption like this:
“Found this awesome monster truck picture on @TruckPostsDaily, check them out.”
That caption is what the shoutout seller will post when they display your photo on their page. As you can imagine, getting a really good piece of content on someone’s page with over 1 million followers could give you hundreds or even thousands of your own followers overnight. Just make sure to use a simple and informative caption, add a hashtag, and keep it short.
Other Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following
The importance of hashtags for people to find your content was mentioned earlier. You can also use the following techniques to further improve the engagement you have with your audience, while increasing your following.
- Geotagging allows you to tag where you are when a photo or video was shot. Used in conjunction with an Instagram Story (more on this feature later), a geotag offers a lot of possibilities for a local business.
- Host a contest. Award a prize for whoever comes up with the best caption for one of your photos, and use apps like Heyo, WishPond and AgoraPulse to run your contest.
- Survey Monkey is just one survey managing website that lets you ask your Instagram followers exactly what is on their mind.
- Spend some time commenting on content similar to yours. Provide real value and in-depth comments, and not just “nice pic”.
- Liking photos and following others is the best way to get yourself followed on Instagram.
- Post regularly. If you can, post content on a set schedule. This trains your audience when you are going to be online, which drives engagement.
- Stay consistent to your page theme. This is not like Facebook, where your personal page may cover several different topics. Only include photos, hashtags, captions and videos relevant to your page topic.
- Respond to the comments you receive on your content, and reach out to other page owners who are posting content similar to yours. Social media networks are all about socializing.
- Tell your followers what to do. Ask them to like your photo if they enjoy it, and ask for comments as well.
- Link your Instagram account to your other social networks.
