How to Get More Followers on Instagram

Instagram, recently purchased by Facebook, is a great platform for businesses to showcase their products, recruit future employees and generate new business.

Unless you’re famous, it can be difficult to gain a huge following on Instagram. 

Growing your following takes time and attention daily.

Here are some great tips for you to use gain more followers.

Optimize your profile

Your profile on Instagram tells potential followers who you are, what you do and gives them a good reason to follow you.

How do you create a good profile? Start by making your username the name of your business. It should be recognizable and easily searchable.  Make sure your profile is public, otherwise people won’t be able to find you. Next, use a profile picture that is used on your other social media platforms for continuity in branding.

Fill in all the information about your business. Tell your followers who you are, what you do and be friendly and personable. You can include a link to your website’s ‘About’ page in case someone wants to read more about your business.

Lastly, enable notifications so you can see when people share or comment on your photos.

Get some mad photo skills

Post quality matters on Instagram. Bad photos are big no-nos on Instagram. No, you don’t have to take a photography course, but you should get familiar with some great photo apps so your images look good.

There are some great free photo and photo editing apps available for your phone. I love and use the following:

• VSCO Cam 
• Live Collage 
• Foodie
• Splice
• Hyperlapse

When to post

Create your editorial calendar for this social media platform and start posting. The best times to post on Instagram are Mondays and Thursdays at any time except between 3:00-4:00 p.m.

Use relevant hashtags

If you use relevant hashtags, your posts will get exposure to a wider audience that just your followers.

Use hashtags smartly and sparingly. Limit the number of hashtags to three.

Research relevant hashtags in your industry to find the ones you should be using.

Be social

Interact with your followers and with other users on Instagram. To make Instagram work for you, follow others in your industry. Once they see that you’re following them, they might follow you back.

As you gain followers, respond to their comments. Follow them back and engage with their posts.

Run a contest

A great way to expand your reach while increasing engagement is to publish a post promoting a contest. Ask people to follow you or comment on the photo to be entered into the contest.

Make it easy for them to follow you

Add a button to your website’s home page that links to your Instagram account. All your social media platforms should have similar buttons on your website.

Promote your Instagram account on your other social media accounts.

Start creating your Instagram account. Use these tips to get started and create that huge following you want for your business!

6 Instagram Best Practices

Have you tried Instagram yet? If you products or services are image-based, having a presence on Instagram is a great idea.

Instagram has more than 400 million members and consumers are open to following businesses on Instagram.

If your small business is looking to get started with or step up its Instagram efforts, here are six best practices for you to incorporate.

Use a recognizable icon

Branding is key to your business identity. While it can be fun to get creative with different icons on social media, stick to your logo for your icon on Instagram and any of your social media platforms.

Fill the bio space thoughtfully

Instagram gives every user a small space for a bio. Use this space sensibly. Provide a short description of your brand and add a link back to your website. Instagram posts do not allow for link sharing but the bio space does support it. When you post to the news feed, you can include a ‘link in the bio’ caption to encourage followers to take action.

Use hashtags and emojis

In other social media platforms, you need to limit the amount of hashtags and emojis you use, but on Instagram, you can be a bit more liberal in their use.  Since Instagram is a mobile platform, hashtags can help your followers discover content easily and emojis are displayed correctly.

Posts with no hashtags tend to generate less engagement and posts with four or more hashtags can be seen as spammy. The sweet spot for the number of hashtags to use is two per post.

How do you look?

Instagram is strictly a visual social network, so looks matter… a lot. Be creative with your images and you will increase your follows.

Make is social

Remember Instagram is a social media platform so be social with your followers. Engage in conversations and foster those relationships.

It’s not all about you

Do more than just promote your products. Your followers want to get to know you. Yes, you want to post pictures of your products but be sure to switch it up and post about other things. Examples of other posts can be highlighting your employees and pictures of events you are holding or attending.

7 Tips on What to Post on Instagram

Instagram isn't just for individuals anymore. Many smart companies have noticed that it's a powerful social network they need to have some sort of presence on.

Instagram is all about the visual content. Photos, videos, illustrations, and GIFs are a significant way for businesses, both large and small, to communicate their message. Also, Instagram is a great way to humanize your brand, recruit employees, showcase your products and engage your customers.

Here are some great ways to use Instagram to share your brand message:

Behind-the-scenes pictures at work

Instagram is a great way for you to humanize your company. Give your followers a look at what goes on behind the scenes is one way to do that. Sharing the faces behind the brand gives your followers a chance to get to know the awesome people you have working for you!

Sharing behind the scenes pictures is also a good way to show followers what it's like to work for your company, which is great if you’re looking to grow.

Share quotes that speak to you

Quotes are a great opportunity to share the types of things your brand stands for. Quotes can also help lift and lighten the day for your followers.

Timely news and happenings

Is something fun happening in the world today? Is it National Pet Day or National Siblings Day? Join in on the fun and post something entertaining.

Promote your products

Instagram really isn't the place for posting about your products all the time. But that doesn’t mean you can't use it to showcase products every once in a while. Keep in mind, that your product post content should be fun and captivating.

Compelling videos

Video has been ‘hot’ in the world of social media for the past few years. For the past few years, most of the social media world has been moving toward emphasizing video. On Instagram, you have the ability to upload videos that are up to 60 seconds long.

By default, every Instagram video will start playing without sound -- after which viewers can choose whether or not to turn the sound on. Because of this, you'll either need to upload videos that don't need sound to be well understood, or you'll need to entice people to turn the sound in the first second or two.

Use Hyperlapse videos

If you want your video to stand out from the crowd, try creating a Hyperlapse video. Hyperlapse is a free Instagram app that condenses videos into brief, moving, hyper-speed videos. The videos end up looking pretty cool thanks to built-in stabilization technology that lets you film these time lapse videos without having to keep your hands still.

Run contests

Contests are one of the best ways to expand your reach and engage your community on Instagram. Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram doesn't make it easy to capture leads and information from your followers, but a contest or giveaway is one way to get that information.

In your caption, include instructions on what action you want your followers to take. Explain the contest and guide them to a link in your bio.

Using Instagram to Promote Your Small Business

One of the great things about social media is that it allows businesses to communicate with their target audience on a platform where they always are. Instagram is one of the platforms that a small business can use to reach their target market.

Instagram is a popular photo-sharing app that businesses can use to increase awareness of a specific campaign or to boost sales.

Let Pictures Tell a Story

The key to using Instagram is creating the proper balance between pictures that are interesting and fun with photos that are somewhat hard-sell. Check out what other successful Instagram users are doing and try to copy (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!) what they are doing to create this balance.

Populate Your Account

To start on Instagram, you can cross post content to Facebook or ride on popular and trending hashtags. Once you have a good number of followers, you can become more assertive in your ways to increase your followers, such as holding a promotion.

Follow Back

When you follow some of your followers, you are telling them that you give importance to what they have to say. This will build attraction to your brand and it also give you’re the opportunity to repost, or “regram” a post from them that might be related to your business or industry. You might even come across photos of your products with good reviews in the caption.

Use Hastags

Take time to create hashtags that your small business can own and use these hashtags to connect with your followers. You can build the story of your content around a specific hashtag and track posts about your business.

Create a Different Offer

Don’t let your Instagram content mirror what you are posting to your other social media accounts. There should be added value to following your business for each social media platform.

Instagram can tell the story of your business in photos. Post behind-the-scene stories and let your customers get to know you and your business.