Followers: How to find them & keep them around.
Whether you’re just launching your Instagram or have been in the game for a while—one question always seems to surface. How do I get more followers? Whether you’re trying to hit your first 1K or 100K, there’s more than one method to drawing the right kind of attention to your page.
But something that’s even more important than the number of followers you have, is the quality of followers you have. If you’ve got a roster of 50,000 followers who are the wrong demographic for your content, that’s 50,000 people who don’t want to engage with your posts. Gaining a group of followers in a similar industry or with similar interests is a key part of growing your gram. These are the followers who stick around and want to feel like part of your journey. And we can help you find those genuine, well-targeted followers.
Put these tips to work:
1. Create a branded hashtag, then go the extra mile with it.
Whether you identify as a business, influencer, musician, service, you get the idea—it’s important to put your hashtag out there. Add it to your IG bio and posts, but don’t stop there. Add it to your business card, website, LinkedIn, recipes, and any piece of content you put your hands on. This will help more like-minded people find you and follow you.
2. Up your caption game and make it relevant to the audience you’re speaking to.
If your followers are a witty group of millennial fashionistas, make your captions short, punchy, and on-trend. If your audience is primarily 35+ professionals trying to increase their business revenue, fill your captions with meaningful tips they can put to use immediately. Know who you’re speaking to and work your words accordingly.
3. Take a little tour around Instagram and do some hardcore research.
You know all of those influencers who’ve reached the levels of success you want? What are they doing to capture people’s attention? Notice how many times per week they post, whether or not they’re posting candid content, how often they upload to their stories, how soon they respond to post comments. It’s also interesting to look at their older posts to see the earlier methods they used while they were still in the beginning stages of growth. Do some snooping, write down your findings, and take the time to think about if any of the methods you found could be customized for your content. This isn’t a game of copying, but rather studying different methods and making them your own.
4. Follow and unfollow.
Then follow and unfollow some more. Instagram is like real life. We meet people that have similar interests as us, we see the potential for a connection or friendship, and then it’s up to us to follow up with that person to see if the initial interaction leads to something more. When you find an IG account with similar aesthetics and goals as yours, follow it. Maybe even like a few posts, leave comments and DM them what you like about their content. But don’t stop there. Follow up and notice if the person has followed you back or engaged with you. If they haven’t, it’s up to you if you want to continue engaging with their posts or unfollow and try this method with someone else. This will help keep your “following” number down, and you won’t get stuck interacting with profiles that don’t interact back.
5. Create sharable content.
The more your content circulates on IG, the more likely you are to get followers that are into the same stuff as you. If you’re a fashion, beauty or fitness influencer, tag brands that you’re a huge fan of. If that brand shares your photo as a post or story, people will see your handle and you’ll likely gain a few followers from it, depending on the following of the brand.
6. If you want to gain authentic followers, make sure you’re putting out the same vibe.
The things that make you or your business special are the exact things that will make others want to see your journey. Instagram can be good at tricking us into thinking that we need to be cookie-cutter and just like everyone else, but you have to stay true to you. Show some emotion, speak from your heart, and take the time to genuinely engage with the people who send you DMs and comments. Put yourself out there and similar accounts will naturally start to take notice.
7. Make your followers feel involved and part of your life.
Post questions and polls, ask them for recommendations, and don’t be afraid to start a conversation. Viewing your followers as friends rather than just accounts will help you break away from subconsciously filtering and holding back your true self in posts and captions.
The larger your audience grows, the more opportunities you’ll have to collaborate, score brand deals, and create revenue from your social media. Sure, it takes some work to get there, but if you’re persistent the followers will show up and stay awhile.
Written by Brittany Barker
Brittany is a senior copywriter, with a passion for helping all kinds of brands find their voice. When she’s not writing, she’s probably styling outfits, playing with her film cameras or talking to her cats. See what she’s up to @glowiboibrit