Whoever thought or said Instagram was a fun app is doing a double-take now. Instagram surpassed its image as a fun app a long time back. This mega social media platform boosts around 1 billion monthly active users and almost 500 million daily users. Also, every user on Instagram checks their feed at least seven times a day which is big for a brand.
By now, most of the brands are on Instagram as they understand the reach and power of this platform. But having an account and posting content a few times a week is not enough to establish your brand. If you want more reach, engagement, referral traffic, and so on for your landing page, you need to put in extra efforts.
If after reading this, you feel like that your Instagram business account is not yielding better results than what you wanted, the first thing you need to do is increase your followers. Having organic followers on board is imperative for high engagement. Also, having good numbers of followers won’t do you any favour if the reach of your content is not high. So, don’t go after fake followers or buy fake followers as sooner or later, Instagram gets wind of it, and it can ruin your impression on the audience. Moreover, fake followers don’t have reach or engagement with the content making spending on money on it worthless.
So, how do you get organic followers and get high reach and engagement subsequently? With the following tips:
Table of Contents
1. Have a Dedicated Hashtag? Don’t Forget to Cross-promote It
Creating a branded hashtag is an impeccable idea, but not if you are not promoting it. If no one knows about your hashtag, how will people use it while sharing your content? So, the first thing you need to do is start promoting your dedicated hashtags across all mediums.
Also, I am not just talking about other social media. Go big by promoting it offline as well. If you have advertisements on TV or radio, use the hashtag there as well. Or use it on your business card, pamphlet, receipt, billboards, and any form of media that you use for promotion.
2. Work on Optimizing Your Account
The most vital step in the direction of getting more followers is optimizing your account. The homepage of your business account on Instagram is equal to the homepage of your website. It is where the magic happens, your home page and feed will inform the people about your business and will encourage them to click on the follow button.
Here are some things you can do to ensure you optimize your account well:
-
- Write a bio which is informative, appealing, and short
- Use a recent link, not the homepage. If you are selling a particular product, the link should lead to that.
- The username can be the name of your business or something short. For an established brand, using their business name is the best thing to do.
- Have a theme. For instance, you can either post in a square format, or a grid layout, or a black and white theme. It will give a consistent look to your account. You can use Canva as it has tons of templates and you can choose one to share your images giving it a uniform feel.
3. Go All Out With Your Caption
Never post an image or a video without a caption. Captions not only clarify what the image is exactly about, but it also helps the audience connect more deeply with the content. Whether you are posting an image or a video or a boomerang, making use of a caption can benefit you.
Keep these things in mind:
-
- Keep it short, or big depending upon the content, but do break it in paragraphs.
- It needs to be appealing and relevant.
- Use branded and popular hashtags.
- Make sure you use a CTA in your caption.
4. Make Use of Instagram Stories
IG stories are a genuinely appealing feature of Instagram with high engagement. As they last for only 24 hours, people look forward to them. Also, to make sure all your stories have a consistent feel, use Canva IG stories templates. You can also use the tool to edit the images for both stories and your feed.
In addition to this, Instagram has other features that make stories interesting, like asking questions, doing polls, stickers, and more. You can even add a swipe up link to them for your landing page if you have a certain number of followers.
IG stories give you a distinctive opportunity to share numerous types of content, like videos, BTS scenes, live sharing of events, and more. It is interactive too making it highly engaging with a higher chance of getting more followers.
5. Make Sure You Don’t Have Fake Followers
If you are thinking of buying fake followers, know that there are repercussions like:
-
- Deceives organic followers: Due to fake followers, you get 10k subscribers or more. But it doesn’t guarantee likes or engagement and provides an inactive feed. When a new follower sees that, it will look like you are deceiving them.
- No buzz or fake buzz: Fake followers will comment and interact for a while. But these bots stop working after a while, taking away the buzz that you created initially. Also, Instagram will find it eventually and may even delete your account.
So, the best thing to do is to find organic followers as this tactic will only make you lose organic ones.
6. Be a Part of Popular Conversations
When you use branded and popular hashtags, you get comments from everyone who searches for content using that keyword. If you are getting comments or a conversation has begun on your content, make sure you are part of that conversation. Don’t be on the sides, reading the comments. Take active participation so that you come off as interactive, which helps create a community.
7. Be Smart About Your Content
Yes, you do need to promote your business, but not every time. Somedays posting about a popular topic or on a festive occasion is critical too. Also, try to find out what type of content your target audience wants. Use that information to curate the content so that you get more engagement.
Instagram can be a game-changer for your business. A lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses start their brand on IG these days, and later they start a full website and business because IG gave them that much popularity. So, make sure your product is the best and also that you portray it well on IG.