12. MORE THAN 7 TIPS TO GET MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS
Hello Monday! A new week has started and after sharing with you some free photo editing apps and how to get to know your audience thanks to the new Instagram tool, it's now time to reveal some tips & tricks on how to get more followers. No need to buy or cheat! Just follow these tools and you'll see what a difference it will make.
TIP #1. Invest in good Instagram Pictures: Instagram is the application and profile where it's all about the pictures. If they aren't from a good quality or having wrong filters it can completely break the image of your business and your personal brand. Therefor it's important to know how to edit and shoot your pictures.
VSCO, Snapseed and PIXLR for example are 3free editing applications that will help you to edit them correctly. In our previous post we explained them in more detail. Read it here!
TIP #2. Make sure your feed stands out: The first thing people will look at are your pictures, or said otherwise: your feed! The first nine posts are the ones that define your brand or image as not everyone will take the time to scroll down until they find a good picture. No! Make sure every picture you post is significant and fitting together with the other content that's already online. By building up a strong and clean feed you will attract more followers.
You can use VSCO or UNUM to build up your feed and to get a preview of how your content will ook like before posting.
TIP #3. Post at the right time: Instagram has their own analytics tool where you can get to know a lot more about your followers like the hours they're active and where they're from. But also the gender, age group,... These informations (only when you have a business profile!) can help you to post at the right moments.
How to use the tool? Click on the 'statistics chart' right on top of your Instagram profile, it's next to your user name. Once you've tapped on the icon you'll see a page with your personal analytics. If you go to 'See more' about your followers you'll discover their active hours and location information as well.
Use this to post your content! Uploading pictures on the most active hours of the day will increase your reach and the potential to get noticed by new followers.
TIP #4. Host Instagram Contests: There's no easier way to grow your followers than by doing an (international) Instagram contest. We're sure you've seen 'Loop contests' passing by before and that's how some got so many followers in a couple of days.
How to host a contest? You don't need special steps to create one. Just make sure the products you're giving away are attractive and that enough people will participate. Let them tag friends, get some head sponsors that will share it on their profile as well with a mention to yours and you're in! As easy as that... But don't do it too often and be realistic that some new followers will unfollow once the contest is finished.
TIP #5. Use the right hashtags: there's no better way to get people to your feed by using the right hashtags. However there are different theories on how using them. It's important to know that not any kind of hashtag will work. Use those that match your community and content but which are also active and have an engaged rate. The maximum to use in 30, so get 15 specific to your content and 15 with an engaged audience.
There are free applications that you can use to create the best hashtags: 'Focal Mark' and 'Display Purposes' are two of them.
TIP #6. Talk to your audience with Stories: The Instagram tool 'Stories' is the perfect way to give your business some personality. And the better they are, the more chance you get to be in the top list of recommended stories. Speak to a specific audience, interact with your followers through the tool and tag your location as well so people can check out the stories by location. You can also use hashtags in it which will be shown into the top rate as well.
TIP #7. Share on all Social Media platforms: There's no such thing as 'Sharing is caring!'. Make sure people see your content in different ways. If you use Facebook, Twitter or other Social Media apps, you can share your Instagram content on it as well to attract more people. And if your business website has a great audience you can direct them to your Instagram page as well. But you can also do the opposite. Send your Instagram followers to your website by sharing the link in your biography or on stories. Double win!
TIP #8. Get to know your posts Insights: Last but not least! Know your content. What performs well and what doesn't? Which pictures are having the most success and what should you post more often to keep the audience attracted? All kind of things you need to know if you want to build a strong profile and feed.
To know these informations you can simply look into your posts insights (just underneath the picture you'll get the link to it). You'll see the reach, engagement and saved bookmarks.
