How to Get Followers on Instagram: From 0 to 10k Followers
#1. Get Instagram Followers by Joining Instagram Engagement Groups
Are you just starting to learn how to get followers on Instagram? This tactic is best for beginners. Some Instagram newbies have seen their Instagram followers increase fast. What did they do differently? They joined engagement groups.
While it can be tempting to join the biggest Instagram engagement groups, the truth is you’ll get a more targeted list of Instagram followers by sticking to your niche. You can find engagement groups for travel, beauty, fashion and more.
In these groups, you can get followers and likes from people who have shared interests. But if you’re serious about getting the attention, you should also return the favor by following fan pages for people who join the group.
I’ve had friends get 2,000 new followers in only a couple weeks using this strategy.
While it might not help with immediate sales, it helps you gain credibility early on so your Instagram page doesn’t show that you only have 38 followers. This is more of a short-term strategy for your first few weeks on Instagram, not a long-term one for getting Instagram followers.
You can learn other amazing Instagram tricks like this in our free Instagram course.
#2. Repost Others’ Content to Gain More Instagram Followers
When I was starting out with social media marketing and building my store’s Instagram account, my entire posting strategy revolved around reposting other people’s content. The only way to do this without getting flagged is to credit the original poster in your description, every time. Instagram has now updated their policy and you’re required to ask for permission before reposting.
When I first started, I’d take screenshots and add the pictures to my Instagram. What really helped my page take off was the Repost app. It allowed me to start reposting video content on Instagram. One of the biggest home runs I had was when I re-posted a video that amassed 52,862 views, got 1264 comments and 9,147 likes. At the time, I didn’t even have 10,000 followers so this was a big freaking deal.
Why’d I repost other people’s content instead of posting my own?
Because I knew that it was easier to repost content. Plus, my visual and video content would never be as good as someone else’s. Hey, at least I’m honest about it!
How did I know what to repost? I’d look at the numbers.
Hashtags are a great way to get new followers. I was pretty active on Instagram so I’d browse the list of hashtags I came up with and used daily to find the top performing posts that weren’t posted by other fan pages (so not my competitors) but by individual people. I’d then watch the videos and look at the pictures to see which ones I had the biggest reactions to. If I felt the urge to share someone else’s post, I knew I had to repost it onto my page. So if you’re just learning how to get followers on Instagram, this high-impact strategy is simple enough for a beginner.
#3. Get Promoted on Buzzfeed to Grow Your Instagram Followers
To get that Instagram followers boost, you need to find a way to tap into a massive audience. And no one embeds Instagram posts into their content as much as Buzzfeed.
A Buzzfeed staff member wrote an article about how she grew her personal brand as an Instagram influencer. She currently has almost 6,000 followers but the article she wrote on the platform might’ve helped. Buzzfeed does have a Community section where anyone can post their own content onto their platform, though you’ll need to follow their guidelines to build trust and to get visibility.
Is Buzzfeed not right for your niche? That’s cool. You can also use a tool called HARO where you get emails three times a day filled with requests from reporters who are looking to get content and expert quotes for their stories. Most allow a website link and social links. So you can hit two birds with one stone by getting a link to your store and Instagram account.
When you’re just starting out, getting followers on Instagram will be a lot easier with customer photos in your feed. Why? It can help increase social proof.
If you’ve never had a customer before, reach out to influencers in your niche with under 5,000 followers. I know the number seems low but influencers with few followers on Instagram want to monetize their accounts and will be willing to take pictures with your products at a much lower rate. You can also offer them an affiliate deal where they’ll get a commission for every sale they score with their customer referral link.
If you’ve already had a couple of sales, reach out to customers and offer a free gift or cash incentive for taking quality images with the product they purchased. Offering incentives isn’t going to be your long-term strategy but for the short-term, while you try to build your brand, this can help you grow.
As more customers start seeing customer photos on your Instagram, they’ll naturally start tagging you in posts when they receive their products. If you comment on their post, repost the content and follow them you’ll likely get them to follow back. Though some will follow you after tagging you in their post on their own.
#5. Gain Instagram Followers by Having a Consistent Style
I know this sounds like one of those ‘blah, blah, blah’ ways to gain followers on Instagram. But it isn’t. Here’s why: people don’t follow you because of the content you’ve posted but because of what they think the future content you’ll post will be like.
Say you have a corgi fan page, every day you post cute corgi pictures and videos without fail. If Instagram users keep seeing your posts eventually they’ll realize that you always post the cutest corgi content. So they follow you with the expectation that your account will always be more of the same type of content.
Having a consistent style or theme is more than just a branding play, it’s about creating an expectation for your Instagram account that your followers or potential followers can count on. They want to see more of the same type of content, every day.
If you can deliver that consistency with every post, you’ll grow your followers on Instagram at a faster rate over time.
Many experts will tell you to only use 5 or 11 hashtags or some other arbitrary numbers. But when I was building my store’s Instagram account, I ignored their advice and ran wild with it.
I’d copy and paste a list of hashtags from my phone onto my app. Then, I’d sometimes switch it up to try different hashtags but eventually, I knew which ones usually worked best. Usually, I’d go as close to or right to the max number of hashtags possible. 30. That’s the magic number.
Truth is, you add all those hashtags in the first comment. And as your page engagement grows, no one will ever see the first comment because they’re too busy tagging their friend in your post.
Sure, when you’re starting out people might see it. But if the goal is to increase visibility, the easiest way to do it is to add more hashtags. As you gain followers, your posts will rank higher for those hashtag keywords giving you even more visibility.
If your hashtags are niche specific, you’ll increase your likelihood of being found by a relevant audience which will help you grow your followers on Instagram as well. So avoid generic hashtags like #love or #picoftheday if you’re selling fashion, for example.
#7. Use Your Instagram Posts in Blog Posts to Build Followers
If you have your own personal or business blog, you can embed your Instagram pictures into your blog posts.
Like this 👇 – Don’t forget to follow Oberlo on Instagram while you’re at it.
Say you have a fashion blog, you might write a blog post about styling tips. You can choose posts from Instagram where you show pictures of your layered outfits or a trendy outfit look. You’d then go onto the Instagram website on your desktop, go to your page, click the post, click the ‘…’ icon and click Embed. Then you copy that link into your blog post’s code section.
Over time, more people will be visiting your blog and will be more likely to check out your Instagram account too.
I know that this is more of a long-term game. Especially if you’re not getting traffic today. But adding your Instagram posts right from the beginning gives you a higher chance of visibility when six months from now you really start seeing massive returns.
#8. Follow People Who Like Competing Instagram Pages
To get that Instagram followers increase you need to find people who follow brands. Who are your biggest competitors on Instagram? Write them down. Then, browse their posts to see who’s commenting on their posts. Follow them and engage with them.
Keep in mind that when choosing competitors on Instagram it’s better to go for the smaller brands. Why? Because if you were selling makeup brushes and trying to get people who comment on Sephora, there’s a good chance that they’re not the right audience despite being in a similar niche. Bigger brands tend to have more customer loyalty.
However, if you have a competitor who has 100,000 fans on their page, they may not have a loyalty to that brand.
When commenting on posts of those you follow, don’t scare them off with a sales pitch or the same comment for every person you message. If they ask a question on their post, give them an answer. Look at the types of comments others are giving and use that as a guideline for what you can comment too.
As you keep engaging and following people, you’ll start to amass a strong following of your own.
#9. Work With Influencers – How to Get Followers on Instagram
Another way to increase Instagram followers is by getting an influencer shoutout or having an influencer do an account takeover.
If an influencer has a loyal following, they can give you a shoutout that’ll result in new followers for your account and possibly a few sales.
Be sure to write up a contract that prohibits the influencer from sending fake traffic. We once worked with an influencer who gave us a shoutout and we got 2,000 fake followers on our account. It was obvious she used a bot. When you get a sudden rush of fake follower on your account you risk getting your account banned.
If you’re looking for a more effective approach to get new followers, ask the influencer you work with to do an account takeover on your Instagram Stories. That way, people will have to follow your page to view the story. You’ll need to get him or her to let their audience know a few days in advance.
#10. Host Giveaways to Build Your Instagram Followers
If you host giveaways on Instagram and have a small audience, you might be able to get more followers. But if you host giveaways on your website and include an option to follow you on Instagram and other social networks, you’ll have a much bigger reach.
If your audience size is small you can post your giveaway in certain giveaway facebook groups or on giveaway blogs.
When I first started working in marketing, I’d reach out to giveaway blogs. I’d send them some free products in exchange for a review post. Most agreed to it for the free product though some did ask for payment as well. They’d do a product review post filled with pictures and their experiences with the product. At the end, their audience would enter to win the product under the condition that you send that customer the product. We’d get hundreds of new followers on all our social accounts. This is a great way to get new followers if you don’t have an audience. But it might not be as targeted than if you were to host a giveaway on a relevant niche blog.
If you’re just starting out, giveaways can help you get more followers on Instagram. However, if you do them too often, you might not get the right type of audience you want. If your goal is to get sales, giveaways won’t necessarily help you get more of them. Though you can try this giveaway hack to get more sales. But if you’re only looking to get Instagram followers fast, this strategy can work quite well.
#11. Grow Your Following by Partnering With Another Brand
If you’re just learning how to get followers on Instagram, a tricked I learned while working on my case study was to take my own product photos. Instead of reposting other people’s content, other brands reposted one of my photos crediting me. Since the brand has nearly 300k followers I ended up getting a few new Instagram followers from their audience. I didn’t have to do any upfront work aside from taking my own photos. I didn’t even have to reach out to get new followers on Instagram. They reached out to me. And they weren’t the only brand to do so.
#12. Use Instagram Analytics Tools to Gain More Instagram Followers
Instagram analytics can give information to you about your following, but there are many free tools in the marketplace that can give you more interesting information. Things like engagement rate, new followers, Instagram unfollowers, and inactive accounts can give you insight that will shape how you get more followers on Instagram. The best Instagram analytics tools in the market right now include:
- Sprout Social
- Iconosquare
- Keyhole
- Curalate
- Socialbakers
All these Instagram analytics tools provide valid and highly informative information that can help you better understand your audience. This data can also highlight the right content that leads to increasing Instagram followers, which should lead to more sales for your online business.