Content creation is just at its peak, and everyone is trying their luck to go viral.
Brutal Truth: Fate favours a few, but strategy serves the sincere.
There is no universally claimed trick or tactic for raising Instagram followers.
However, you need to understand the algorithm and how it works to make mindful decisions. It is like reverse engineering, i.e., finding how people with a huge follower base are working, understanding their approach, and implementing it.
If you are tired of implementing multiple strategies, read my 11 secrets of how to get more followers on Instagram.
11 Best Ways To Gain Instagram Followers
Strategy wins over hit and error when it comes to gaining Instagram followers. If you are struggling to grow your Instagram follower count, these 11 hacks will help you reach those magical numbers.
Note: The pace at which the follower count will rise differs from niche to niche.
- Content Is King: There are 2 ways to gain Instagram followers:
- One of your videos goes viral, and you become an overnight star.
- Consistently post valuable content that helps the user in one or the other form.
The chances of 1st possibility are rare, but if you keep providing good-quality content that helps or entertains viewers, then it will gradually elevate your follower count.
- Post At The Right Time and Frequency: This is a psychological hack. As Instagram is a social media platform, people just use it for entertainment, like while traveling, before going to bed, during their lunch, etc., so these time periods provide a high-traffic window.
Here, Neil Patel has shared such timings that you can consider to share your post.
Here is the best time to post on social media.
— Neil Patel (@neilpatel) November 25, 2024
It varies per platform and with certain ones they prefer if you post multiple times a day.
But in general don’t force it, the most important thing (and you won’t see this in the chart) is content quality.
Check out the data. pic.twitter.com/XmRtiyFdid - Share A Mix of Content Types: Amber Figlow has suggested considering these content types on Instagram:
- Feed Posts: Single images or graphics (ideally in portrait format)
- Carousels: Multi-slide posts (2 to 20 slides)
- Reels: Video content that acts as a top-of-funnel discovery tool
- Stories: Informal and behind-the-scenes content
- Lives: Real-time video broadcasts used to build deep connections
She also suggested not to keep publishing monotonous post types on your account. Share a mix of these types.
- Be Consistent: Posting content consistently on your account will help your
Hootsuite has suggested posting 3-5 times a week to keep the pace consistent.
The accounts that post content in a burst and then leave the account dormant for weeks are overlooked by the Instagram algorithm.
- Raise Engagement With Your Audience: Just posting content won’t serve your purpose. Make sure you keep a connection with your audience.
For this, you can consider:
- Replying to the comments
- Go live and interact with people
- Add intriguing CTAs.
Neil Patel has suggested interacting only with the right audience. Listen to what he says.
- Grasp the Vogue: There is always a trend that grabs people’s attention, be it any hashtags, trending memes, emojis, etc
Like the kiki challenge, the Gunganam style, or the iPhone hashtags after its new model is released. Try to get in on such trends.
See the ice bucket challenge by Henry Cavill.
- Use Trending Audios: Although there is no concrete evidence or authoritative backing from Instagram that posts with trending audios work wonders, many reputed firms have inferred that doing so provides better results.
Adobe has clearly backed this fact by saying:
“Trending audio is a huge and often overlooked aspect of social media content that can massively improve the overall success and reach of your posts.”
- Collaborate with Others in Your Niche: Collaboration is what can increase your reach from the current audience base to followers of other content creators in your niche.
Here is an example of how Mr Beast collaborated with Carry Minati on Instagram.
- Your BIO is your Visiting Card: when someone watches your content and enjoys it, their next step is exploring your bio.
If that matches what the user is expecting, congratulations, you cracked the code.
Some must-follow directions are:
- Make your username related to your niche
- Use a punchy tagline
- Put your own picture to increase authenticity.
- Start with Hooking Text: The famous 3-Second Rule works on Instagram. This rule says that if the first 3 seconds of your reel hook the viewers, then they will watch it till the end.
The content in these 3 seconds must be
- Start with any fact
- Use phrases like “you won’t believe”, “I was doing it wrong my whole life”, “my life changed after”
- Show an intriguing image at the beginning
- Run an unnatural clip at the start, like senior citizens exercising to lose weight, as a hook to attract audiences seeking fitness suggestions.
- Share User-Generated Content (UGC): UGC content is something that is prepared by users and the general public for marketing purposes rather than the brand.
For this, you can try clips of:
- Customer review
- Unboxing video
- Any testimonial
Vadim Strizheus has also suggested in his X post about using UGC content to enhance your reach.
Also Read: Build a Social Topical Map From Search Data: A Practical Workflow
Go the Extra Mile To Gain Instagram Followers
In addition to the above valuable points, you can implement some other ethical tactics that will help you grow on Instagram.
Here are 4 lesser-known hacks for you.
- Post Scheduling: You can use Instagram’s built-in scheduler for it.
Step 1: Tap on the 3 horizontal lines on your Instagram app.
Step 2: Then tap on “Schedule Content”.
Step 3: Now go to “Schedule Now”.
You can also use third-party services such as Hootsuite or Buffer to do the same thing. However, their trial version has several restrictions. You end up buying the subscription to use all other features.
- Repurpose Content: You can repurpose your content into multiple forms, like extracting reels out of a podcast, making Instagram content from blogs, or posting infographics about something on a microblogging site:
Here is our full guide to AI Content Repurposing to learn how you can use a single piece of content for multiple purposes.
- Use AI: Instagram has proactively announced that creators must label their content with an AI tag if AI has been used in making such content.
“Creators who proactively add the AI-generated profile label will not see a change to their profile’s reach.”
You can use AI in many other ways besides making visual content.
- Claude: Script Writing
- Google NotebookLM: to understand the video summary and make infographics
- ChatGPT: to make infographics and photos
- Higgsfield: for AI-generated videos
- Share the Post: Beginners can share the content as much as possible through WhatsApp messages or status, SMS, or on other social media handles.
Alex Olim has also inferred the same fact in his post.
“WhatsApp forwards. Text messages. DMs outside the app. That’s the signal Instagram uses to decide if you’re worth pushing.”
What to Refrain From?
Besides the steps to gain followers fast, you need to understand what not to do to achieve such goals.
- Avoid Buying Followers: When you buy Instagram followers, they send a bulk of followers to your account, most of which are dormant or robotic accounts. Instagram algorithm detects such a sudden spike in the follower count and might also penalize the account.
This has also been discussed on Reddit, and almost everyone has suggested refraining from such steps to avoid unexpected repercussions.
- Using Copied or Low-Quality Content: Using copied content, low-quality content, cluttered photos, or posting censored content might backfire.
You can follow some best practices provided by Instagram itself and keep them as the foundational parameters for creating your content.
Concluding Remarks
Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms for business and has become an entertainment source for the masses. These above-mentioned secrets and strategies to gain Instagram followers will help you in raising your reach and sustaining your audience base.
Make sure you have patience and prudence during your journey.
Next Read: Instagram Reels Product Tagging: How to Use It Smartly?
Leave a Comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *