How to gain followers on Instagram without buying them

Instagram is deemed as one of the fastest-growing social media apps. What once started as a fun app for kids has now gained firm ground regarding content marketing, audience building, and social networking. It has become a vital tool for influencers as well as businesses and brands. It has over 200 million active users every month, sharing around 60 million photos and about 1.6 billion likes each day. Thus, Instagram is now a cornerstone for many brands to create a social media presence, grow their conversions, and build an engaging audience. It also helps to drive profitable customers towards their landing pages.

Suppose you notice that your Instagram account isn’t growing as much as you want it. In that case, you should consider sharpening your strategies to gain real followers on Instagram. The more followers you have, the more chances you will have to engage with your followers and make sure they stay content. But having a large audience isn’t the only thing you need. You must have a substantial audience base who would engage with your content. Nowadays, buying instagram followers doesn’t work as Instagram

has updated its policies. They remove accounts with fake followers. Thus, this is enough reason why only real people who engage and care for your brand are precious.

Ways to get real followers on Instagram

Instagram policies remove content that uses bought followers because of their low interactions and generally low-quality accounts. Many followers on any brand’s or influencer’s accounts mean nothing unless they make purchases and advocate your brand or products to others. Having

real followers are essential as they would also visit your landing pages. You can build an organic audience by following the tips given below.

  • Optimizing your Instagram account: 

Before you even think about gaining followers for your Instagram account, what you have to do is optimize your account completely. It would be best to consider your brand’s Instagram bio to be the homepage of your account. Suppose you don’t have a bio or give captions to the pictures you post or have a proper username and profile image. In that case, people won’t even understand what the account is all about. It might seem pretty obvious, but your username, profile picture, and bio are the foundation stones of your brand’s identity. You can put in a link to your website on your Instagram bio too. Keep in mind to give a simple username that is easy to search. It should be close or the same as the brand name. You can also use the same username that your brand has on other social media apps.

  • Experiment with the type of content you post-.

When you have posted on Instagram for quite a while, yet you still haven’t seen any growth in your account, it is time to make a difference in the things you are doing currently. Whether it is changing the type of captions, you are putting in your pictures or changing the type of content on your account, and you should experiment and do what works best for your brand. You can even refer to various analyses and find out what people are engaging with references. You should explore other brands on Instagram and take a few pointers from what they are doing. What you want is content and a tone that your audience likes best, and go with that!

  • Avoid all fake followers- 

Having real, legitimate followers and having counterfeit followers or bots on your Instagram account creates a vast difference. It could seem like a great shortcut to success to buy Instagram followers, but the advantages are only short-lived. Fake followers would end up deceiving new followers and would ultimately lower the credibility of your account. You should build trust and a good relationship with your audience so that you have good follower retention. Fake followers aren’t real customers and aren’t of any value, monetary or otherwise, to your brand/ business. Moreover, real followers would like, share and comment on your posts, which unmannered fake followers wouldn’t.

  • Have a consistent calendar for posting– 

You cannot possibly do anything worse than post at irregular times when trying to gain IG followers. Posting at haphazard, random times wouldn’t boost your account in any way. If you have a good follower count from the start, try not to make your audience forget why they followed your account at all. It would be best if you made a schedule of your posting times. It would be best if you kept your flow consistent but not post too many times a day, as this could result in spam. You can do your research on what are the best times to post and post accordingly. You should also like different posts, comment on them and engage with different types of accounts regularly. It is one of the critical ways for you to get noticed. It would be best if you had an acceptable level of interaction happening with other accounts.

  • Showcase your account everywhere- 

People won’t find your account unless you start promoting it everywhere. You should ensure fully that your website is linked to your Instagram bio and your other social media handles. The excellent way to get your brand discovered is by making it visible and creating awareness. When you try to gain more followers, you must ensure that people know where they would find you. You could try adding social media buttons right on your brand’s website and blog if you have one. It would help in promoting your brand on all networks, including Instagram.

  • Get brand advocates or partners to post your content- 

As you learn how to gain followers on Instagram, you must know how influential your audience is. When you build your follower count organically, the number of interested buyers and customers for your products will increase too. To gain more followers, you have to engage with users and be visible. It is incredibly vital to be present for your brand as well as for others. You could try to sponsor user-generated content that would make your brand appear in user’s feeds. Holding contests on Instagram would also help get your brand out to more users and, thus, to a more significant number of customers. Such campaigns would help you build proof that your followers engage well with your content and repost it. It would also enable them to make UGC of their own.

  • Post when and what the audience wants– 

Though this is tough to do, it is always smart to know what type of content your audience would like more. You must have found that some types of content do a lot better than other types, which is why testing the content is so crucial. Things like picture captions, types of content, story filters, or post times are the details that make a huge difference in your engagement. You must always be aware of the newest trends on Instagram and keep up with them through your content. You could also use tools for Instagram analysis. Through these, you would analyze, track, and benchmark content across many brands on Instagram. You shouldn’t copy what other brands in your niche are doing; keeping an eye on the types of content they post and the times they post would give you a good insight into how to get more engagement.

conclusion

It is a significant milestone for every brand or influencer to get 10K followers. It is the first tier to achieve that gives you the confidence to become a successful influencer in your niche. But influencer marketing is viral these days, which tempts influencers into buying followers. They expect to have a reasonable retention rate of followers who would engage with their content. Yet, in most cases, especially when it is a business niche, buying instagram likes and followers would lead to low-quality followers or bots to follow your account.

Consequently, you would see followers reducing in large numbers, fewer people engaging with your content, and destructive reach. These are why you should never take shortcuts by buying followers and instead work towards gaining followers organically. Real followers build your reach as they would engage a lot more with your account. They would share your content. Thus, you would have many opportunities to nurture or convert qualified leads who would be genuinely interested in your products and your brand. Lastly, you must always make sure that whatever you are doing is making your audience happy. This way, you would see results in the growth of your brand. Instagram is an ever-growing social media platform right now and an essential tool for marketing. Keeping in mind the tips given above would help you gain followers and boost your reach.

About rj frometa

Head Honcho, Editor in Chief and writer here on VENTS. I don't like walking on the beach, but I love playing the guitar and geeking out about music. I am also a movie maniac and 6 hours sleeper.

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