How To Get More Followers on Instagram in 2023 – One of the questions I get asked the most: Jordi, how can I get followers on Instagram?
I always say that the first thing is to have quality content and know what audience you are addressing. Then you can implement these strategies to hack Instagram and have more followers.
Table of Contents
How To Get More Followers on Instagram in 2023
Set a goal
Grab a pencil and paper (or turn on your computer if you’re more of a geek) and make a list of the goals you want to achieve. Why do you want an Instagram account?
Maybe you want to be there, because everyone around you has Instagram, but then this article is not for you. You can keep uploading the same photos you upload to Facebook. You will get that, be without more.
Many say they want to be influencers, but influencers of what? Look at a sector in which you feel comfortable and specialize.
If you’re a brand, you want customers, and to do that, you have to do it right. If you do it right the followers will come alone. That said, write down the answers to these questions in a list before beginning:
- Why do I want to open an Instagram account?
Do you want to earn money with your Instagram account? Do you want to have an account of your brand for your Instagram clients?
- Who do you want to be on Instagram?
The king or queen of… cookies, creative nails, horror books, Barbies, Playmobil, unboxing, squats…
- What kind of photos will I upload? Which not?
Are you always going to be in the photos? Aren’t you ever going out? Sometimes? Is your company going to humanize the brand? Are you never going out without a shirt? Aren’t you going to post photos with relatives?…
- Who am I going to follow? Who does not?
Am I going to follow everyone who follows me? Am I only going to follow people from my sector? I’m not going to follow anyone? Am I only going to follow my employees? Do I follow my competition?…
- Who do you want to follow you? Who does not?
If you are a bookstore you will want to be followed by book lovers; if you are a gym, people who like sports. Who is your target audience?
If you have any questions or want me to review your answers, leave me a comment at the end of the article.
Optimize your Instagram profile
Your Instagram profile must fall in love to get more followers. For this you must have an optimized and complete profile.
In your profile image you must appear with your smiling face in the foreground or the logo if you are a company. You could also put a group photo of all employees in the company as a profile picture.
Then write your real name to convey clarity and confidence. Confusing names scare more than they attract.
In your username you can now play with nicknames. The bad thing is that many are already taken. Lots of people take usernames and don’t use them. That should be penalized by Instagram.
In the URL it is the place to write your web page domain or some site that you want them to see. For example, the page of a product or service and change the URL regularly.
And finally, your biography should say what you are going to offer to those followers that you want to get. It’s okay to talk about yourself, but think that you should attract them to follow you when they get to your profile. Using emojis is welcome to be more creative.
Attract with your content
Your photos, videos or infographics must attract the attention of users so that they become followers.
What content does your target audience want to see? Ask them directly with Instagram Stories polls or see what works for your competition.
The photos must be original , taken or created by you or your team in the case of a company. Stock photos are highly viewed and viral ones denote little creativity.
Location: Specify the location on your Instagram posts. Thus, all those who search for photos in that area will be able to know your account and become followers.
Location is also required in Instagram Stories. Users searching for stories from a location will be able to see your content.
Tags: tag brands and professionals in your sector so they know you. But as long as they have to do with photography and they can see it as something positive.
An example would be sharing a photo of a book you are reading and tagging the author and publisher. Another example is labeling the brands of clothing you are wearing in the photo. Do not tag if they are not related to the content.
Catch with the content description
The text of the content catches you or separates you from the user who comes to your photo or video. You can talk to a copywriter to help you with the captions for your Instagram photos.
The first 2 lines are what your followers see in the feed, so you should catch on the first few words.
Remember that the character limit in the Instagram description is 2200. It’s almost a blog post, about 500 words or so.
Be careful, do not write to the limit thinking that this will attract your followers more and increase the time spent on your content. If what you say is good, it’s a great idea; but if you write for the sake of writing they will get bored and leave.
Get more followers with hashtags
Instagram has a limit of 30 hashtags per post . These hashtags grow your audience and if you have good content they will convert to more followers.
Although many say that 30 hashtags is detrimental to your reach, the social network itself has denied it. Instagram’s new algorithm doesn’t penalize those who use 30 hashtags or bless those who use four or five.
Choose well which hashtags to use on Instagram . Write some related to what is seen in the content, others from your sector, others with the followers you want to attract and some of the best hashtags for Instagram .
Where do I put the hashtags: in the description or in comments? Those that are natural put them in the text itself and, the rest, write them in the first comment to leave the description cleaner.https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQpxcbhP8UA
Create a Posting calendar
Organization is key to achieving goals. If you want to get more followers on Instagram, you should have a calendar of the content that you are going to publish.
The calendar should include sticky posts, ephemeral stories, and live videos.
Posting one photo or video a day attracts more followers to your Instagram. While I’m more of a 48 hour poster, I notice more new followers when I post every day. Test and analyze.
In Instagram stories you can be more constant. Several a day doesn’t look bad, you can even post a long video that will self-divide into 15-second stories. The limit of stories per day is 100, that is, 25 minutes of Instagram Stories.
And the live videos? We don’t take them into account, but a live video attracts more followers. The direct ones come out first in the stories, so all your followers will see you.
You can do a live alone or by talking to another partner to reach your audience. Try different times to see which one gets you the most interactions.
The Instagram of the Prado Museum in Madrid makes a live video every morning explaining a work of art from its museum. A daily live video about your brand will attract more followers.
Follow References
Once you know what you want to be on Instagram, see what the competition in your sector is doing. Are you a fashion brand? See what the fashion brands that succeed on Instagram are doing. Are you a graphic designer? See what other graphic designers are doing. Is it a personal profile? Think about what you want to work on and compare yourself with other accounts in your sector.
Spend a few minutes a day looking at referral accounts that inspire you. If you do this habitually, in the end you will be one of them and others will be inspired by you.
Interact
Do not be passive in the application, be very active and give to receive: give likes, comment on posts and say thanks for the comments that are written to you. It is appreciated when someone you follow replies to your comment, even if it is a simple emoji. On the contrary, not responding is seen as something cold that, over time, causes your followers to detach themselves from you and unfollow you.
You can also search for hashtags in your industry and interact with accounts that are close to your goal. Follow accounts that you find attractive, even if they don’t follow you back. I do not recommend the famous trick of following many accounts so that they follow you and then unfollow them. Provide inactive followers who are not going to like or even comment. Better quality than quantity.
These 9 tips are for those who want to be instagramers: be in the application, enjoy it and, why not, be successful in it.
If you just want to be because your friends are, upload the photos you want. It doesn’t matter.
But if you really want to succeed with your Instagram account, take it seriously, download this infographic, print it and paste it in a visible place to motivate yourself every day. In a few months, tell me about your experience with these tips.