Earning more followers on Instagram can be tough. It’s even harder when you’re trying to build a network of organic, engaged followers.

Organic followers are the people who naturally choose to follow your social media pages, because they’re interested in you, or the content you share. In other words, these are the people you actually want to reach on social media.

Unfortunately, finding, connecting with, and attracting an audience of organic followers on Instagram is becoming increasingly difficult. There are around 200 million brands on Instagram right now, all battling for follow attention. The competition is so tough, some people even consider underhanded approaches to boost their chances of success.

Today, we’re going to be exploring how you can successfully get more followers on Instagram with organic growth methods – and why organic is still the best way to go.

Organic Vs. Fake Instagram Growth

As companies, brands, and influencers continue to strive for a top spot-on Instagram, countless strategies have emerged to help attract and convert followers. Unfortunately, some methods are less effective (and more dangerous), than others.

For instance, “Fake” Instagram growth refers to methods used to essentially buy new Instagram followers. There are various methods of purchasing growth opportunities, including paying for bots to follow your account, or using shady tactics like the follow/unfollow methods.

While fake Instagram growth may seem faster and more efficient than putting the work in to attract organic followers, it’s usually a waste of time and money. Fake followers, whether bots, spam accounts, or tricked users, aren’t interested in your brand, so they don’t deliver genuine engagement. You might have a high number of followers on your account – but you won’t be able to convert them.

Even worse, as Instagram continues to crack down on spamming and black-hat tactics, you risk getting your account banned completely.

Organic followers, on the other hand, breed genuine growth for your brand. When you attract authentic followers to your account, they interact with your posts, help to generate interest for your business, and even lead to revenue and profit, too.

Focusing on how to get real Instagram followers is the only way to ensure long-term growth.

Gain More Followers On Instagram Using Organic Growth Methods

So, how do you gain more followers on Instagram, the right way?

As mentioned above, it’s a lot more work, but the pay-off is much greater, too. The following tactics will set you on the right path.

1. Develop A Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags are one of the most valuable assets you have on Instagram.

More than just a way to describe what your content contains, hashtags help Instagram users to navigate the platform, and assist Instagram in presenting the right content to users. A good hashtag strategy improves your reach, ensures you connect with the right customers, and it can even generate engagement, too.

For a hashtag strategy to be effective, you’ll need plenty of unique hashtag combinations to share in each post. Don’t just use the same tags over and over. Use an Instagram hashtag generator to help optimize your captions, using:

·         Niche hashtags: Specific hashtags help you to connect with a targeted audience, while also improving your chances of being visible when people search on Instagram. Replace generic terms like #Dog, with long-form tags like #Daschunddog

·         Trending hashtags: Trending tags are the ones gaining the most attention at the moment. Having a couple of these in your posts, like #TBT or #ThrowbackThursday can help you attract a wider range of followers.

·         Branded hashtags: Branded hashtags are created by your brand, often using your slogan or company name. They help to generate attention for your company, but they’re also excellent for inspiring user-generated content, too.

2. Plan And Organize Your Content Ahead Of Time

To succeed on Instagram, you need to post relevant content at just the right time for your target audience. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. It’s tough to make sure you’re always online when your target audience is active so you can deliver a great post.

For instance, Sprout Social believes the best time to get engagement on Instagram is between 11am and 2pm CDT on a Tuesday. If this is true for your brand, you risk missing out on engagement every time you’re too busy to post. Creating a scheduling strategy can save you some serious headaches.

Using your Instagram analytics, pinpoint when your customers are most likely to be online, then use a scheduling tool to organize your content calendar accordingly, you can try tools like:

·         Sendible: You can use Sendible to schedule photos and videos to post straight to your Instagram profile, or you can schedule reminders with push notifications for carousel and Stories posts. There’s also the option to track all your queued posts in the calendar.

·         Tailwind: With Tailwind, you can schedule a range of different posts for Instagram, including image and video posts. There’s also an intelligent system to help you pinpoint the best times to publish your content, so you can optimize over time.

·         Hootsuite: Hootsuite supports a range of scheduling features for brands on Instagram. You can upload and schedule hundreds of posts at once and create auto-scheduling strategies to keep your content calendar full, too.

Remember to keep a close eye on the analytics from your scheduling tool and the insights on your Instagram page so you can adapt your schedule if your customer’s behavior changes.

3. Create High-Quality Content

This may seem like an obvious suggestion, but the better your content is, the more likely people are to actually follow you on Instagram. Excellent, high-quality content attracts new followers, encourages people to share your photos and videos with others, and even promotes engagement.

There are a few things you’ll need to do to ensure you’re producing high-quality content for Instagram. Start by getting to know your target audience, researching their preferences, and learning what kind of content they like. You can even check out your competitors to see what their high-performing content is about.

Next, create content your audience can relate to. Emotional videos, photos and stories are more likely to capture your customer’s attention, particularly when combined with the right hashtags and descriptive captions. Finally, make sure your content looks great. Instagram is all about the aesthetics, so edit your images with tools like:

·         Snapseed: A simple and powerful app developed by Google, Snapseed is an easy tool for editing your photos. There are 26 built-in filters and tools, as well as a range of options to help you make your photos look as professional as possible.

·         Adobe Photoshop Express: For an app like Instagram where you’ll be loading pictures to the site from your smartphone, an app like Photoshop Express is a must-have. You’ll find all the essential tools here, like skin smoothing, red-eye removal, and cropping.

·         VSCO: One of the most popular editors for Instagram on the market, VSCO can easily transform your images. You can even use VSCO as a camera app, so you can instantly capture great-quality photos. Features include saturation, sharpness, and lighting adjustments, as well as basic filters

4. Engage With Your Followers Using User-Generated Content

Speaking of creating great content for more followers on Instagram, you don’t have to rely on your photography and video skills alone. Sometimes, the best content you can post will be that created by other people. User-generated content is an excellent way to engage with your audience, and make your brand look more trustworthy.

Every post you share from a happy customer interacting with your business makes you look more professional and credible in the eyes of future followers. Techniques used to generate UGC can also help you to attract more followers too. For instance, you can:

·         Run a competition: Run a contest where you ask your followers to @mention someone in the comments and share a photo of themselves using your product for a chance to win a prize. This simultaneously improves your brand reach and gives you user-generated content you can use to promote your brand.

·         Use a branded hashtag: As mentioned above, branded hashtags are great for getting people talking about your brand. Tell your customers to share any content featuring your products, people, or services with a branded hashtag to be in with a chance of being featured on your next campaign. Customers love getting shout-outs from their favourite brands.

·         Partner with influencers: If you can connect with an influencer in your industry, this is a great way to generate user-generated content. Ask the influencer to produce content featuring them using your products and services, and @mention you in the post. This generates positive attention towards your brand and gives you new content to share.

5. Optimize Your Captions

Finally, it’s common for brands hoping to attract more Instagram followers to forget about the importance of captions. We often look at Instagram as an entirely visual platform, so it’s easy to overlook the value of the text accompanying your photos and videos.

However, a good caption can have a number of benefits for your brand.

First, Instagram captions add context to the videos and images you share, so customers and viewers can understand exactly what they’re looking at. Secondly, they’re a chance to demonstrate your brand voice, which helps to build a human connection with your audience. Telling a story or sharing emotional information on Instagram makes your content more engaging. Just look at this example from Airbnb.

Captions are also where you’ll list your hashtags for visibility, and @mention other brands and people who can generate attention for your company. Remember, always include a CTA (Call to Action) in your captions to tell customers what to do after seeing your content.

Get More Followers On Instagram – Organically

Figuring out how to attract more followers on Instagram can be challenging, but it’s the best way to ensure your social media strategy is a success. Only with organic followers can you ensure you’re connecting to the people who have the power to make your business grow.

With the tips above, you can start safely, effectively, and quickly growing your Instagram following.