Aug 12, 2019

6 min read

Easy ways to grow your Instagram Followers for FREE

Here’s how to grow your Instagram organically.

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks with an estimated 1 billion users. Many of these users are small business owners like you and they are using Instagram to help create profitable opportunities for their business.

The challenge is to get new followers because there are so many people using the platform and thus you’ll have to stand out from your competition. Your competition consists of hardcore entrepreneurs as well as regular folks sharing their stories through the network.

Before we get into growing your Instagram followers let’s first see why it is so helpful.

What are the benefits of using Instagram to grow your followers and business?

More online visibility

Because so many people are using Instagram, with the right moves there’s a great chance your content will be found by viewers. With a good strategy in place, you could work on targeting your audience through your Instagram network.

No business size limitations

The great thing about Instagram is that you don’t have to own a large business to use the platform. Instagram is perfectly suited to solo-entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized business owners.

Potential to make sales using the platform

To grow your Instagram followers mean that you will have better chances of generating money. Instagram allows businesses to generate money through their “shoppable posts”.

This is a feature that will link the visitor back to the company’s online store where their products are available for purchase.

Instagram stories “fleshing-out” emotions

Many viewers prefer dealing with a real person.

Through Instagram stories, you can give your audience a sneak peek into your daily life. This helps your business become more “human” in their eyes and helps build trust with your audience. Stories help to appeal to the emotional side of your market and create credibility for your brand.

Better trust and relationships

If being able to share your stories is not enough to connect on an emotional level, then being able to engage is also an option. You can reply to comments and receive likes for your photos uploaded.

Safety in numbers

Since Instagram is also available on mobile devices there is little to no way of stopping the viewers from finding your content.

Users often praise Instagram for its aesthetics and mechanics compared to networks such as Facebook.

Importance of hashtags

Hashtags are an important feature of the Instagram app as they essentially work as keywords related to the content posted on the network. Use them to your advantage and get your business some more views and follows.

How to grow your Instagram followers without spending money

You can grow your audience through Instagram in a few simple ways. You need your profile to stand out, look great, and be something that your followers want to see.

We have these simple ways that you can use to help you make it happen without spending much, in fact, you can do this for free.

1. Create a smashing profile

You need a profile that people would want to have a look at.

Be clear about the messages you send through your profile. For example, does your audience know that you’re selling fashion jewellery?

Did you add a profile picture that represents your business?

This could be the business logo too. Remember that as part of promoting your brand, you need to make sure that you are consistent with how you advertise your brand.

2. Have a gallery that wows

You may not give this much thought but people care about the photo quality posted online. Are your pictures eye-catching and of high quality?

One of the best ways to grow your Instagram is by having a visually appealing account.

To make a good impression on your viewers you need to have great looking photos that people want to look at. After all, Instagram is about sharing stories mostly in the form of pictures.

3. Post at your optimum times

When posting content for marketing purposes, it’s much better to post during prime or peak hours.

When you post during the right times that means that your content has more chances of being seen. In other words, you can grow your Instagram followers because they’ll see your posts in peak times when it’s “harder to miss”.

If you have a business account, you can check the “Insights” section to learn which times are best for people to see your posts.

4. Consistent posting

To make sure that your content stands a better chance of being seen by your potential followers, you need to post consistently.

You can’t post one post and then go radio silent for three weeks. Your followers will quickly move on. Stay consistent with your posting to get the best results from Instagram.

When posting, you need to know that quality content matters as well.

5. Promote more engagement

When you post content, you need to continue “nurturing” the posted content to make sure that people engage.

Engagement will continue to “nourish” the content and further grow it and in this way draw more followers.

6. Geotagging is the real deal

When it comes to narrowing down your search beyond search engine optimisation, you’ll hear the word “geotag”. What is Geotagging? To geotag a place means that you want to add some site references to the content that you post. This is also the same as “location tagging”.

This could help people to find your business location and it could attract followers within a specific area. By geotagging locations, you help people discover whether or not a place is local, within distance, or far away.

7. Make those hashtags work for you

Instagram uses hashtags as a means of creating keywords that link back to the post. However, you can continue promoting your content using hashtags on an offline basis by adding them to your brochures, or printed advertisements.

The more people see the keyword tags, the more they’ll become familiar with the hashtags related to your business or the post. This will help increase followers and content viewers.

8. Engage with popular posts

To stand out from your competition a smart trick is to take the challenge to your competitors.

Start getting active and converse with others in popular posts. The chances of people finding your comments increase when you’re actively involved in trending posts. This will create exposure for your brand and may increase your followers.

9. Let your bio URL work it’s magic for you

To grow your followers on Instagram, you have to do what it takes to increase those followers and that includes getting creative.

Use this valuable piece of real estate to direct people to your latest lead magnet or blog post.

10. CTA paving the way

There is no denying that CTAs (call to actions) is simply a must for almost everything that you post online. You need to add those to make sure that your audience starts engaging and visiting your website.

Loyal followers may become loyal customers, but the key is to keep it real and maintain that special bond.

CTAs not only prompt action it also forms part of the “greater engagement”.

11. Like and support others (share the love)

Just like commenting on other Instagram user’s posts, you also want to go ahead and share the love with some likes. Similar to comments, likes are also great for the organic growth of your content.

The takeaway on how to grow your Instagram followers

Instagram is just one of many digital marketing tools you can leverage to grow your business.

The platform is easy to use and even if you had no idea of how it works, you could consider hiring marketing experts to help you.

Instagram has so many tools to help you reach your ideal audience. If you can engage and reach your target audience it will show your potential followers that you a real person. Along with being “real”, it will also show that you care about helping them to solve their problems.

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Originally published at https://blog.bigdomino.co.za on August 12, 2019.