22 Ways to Get More Real Followers On Instagram

To be successful on Instagram you need to have a reliable strategy.

Posting random photos whenever you feel like it will not increase the number of your followers.

Yeah in some cases you can get a lot of followers just because one of your posts goes viral but usually, it requires a lot of work.

Most people fail in building a large following on Instagram because they give up too early.

The goal of this post is to outline steps that can be taken to increase the number of followers on Instagram.

Instagram algorithm changes every year.

That’s why it is crucial to have a consistent strategy that you can follow no matter what new changes Instagram implements.

The key is to create engaging posts that get a lot of views, likes, and comments.

The first step is to decide why do you really want to have more followers on Instagram?

Why People Want More Instagram Followers?

1. Social Status

The more followers you get, the more popular you become.

If you have thousands of followers, people might start to recognize you on the streets and might even start asking you to take a photo with them.

2. Source of income

It is much easier to start making money on Instagram if you have a large number of followers.

If you have a few hundred thousand followers, brands will start to contact you to see if you are interested in some type of partnership where you will get paid to promote those brands.

3. Networking

If you have a large number of followers, it might be easier for you to land a job or at least find out about the available job opportunities.

Your followers might know someone who is making a hiring decision in the company you are applying to.

How Many Followers Do You Need to be Successful on Instagram?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need millions of followers on Instagram to be successful.

It is more about the engagement and not the number of people that follow you.

Instagram account with 1 million followers and 1% engagement is equivalent to an account with 100,000 followers and 10% engagement.

No point having a lot of followers that never interact with your content.

Focus on engagement instead of getting more followers.

Instagram changed its algorithm several times over the last few years and getting a million followers might be an unrealistic goal.

Getting 10,000 – 100,000 followers is a more reasonable number.

How to Get More Real Followers on Instagram?

1. Switch to Business Account

If you have a personal Instagram account, it is pretty easy to switch it to a Business version.

This will allow you to get access to all the analytics and metrics that you will need to analyze how successful is your Instagram strategy.

As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

2. Create and optimize your bio

After you create your Instagram account, the next step is to ensure that your account is not private.

There is nothing wrong with having a private Instagram account but if you want more followers you will need to open it to everybody.

It is also important to write something unique in your bio to intrigue people who might be visiting your profile.

You can write a short paragraph about yourself, your hobbies, and why people should follow you.

If you have a personal blog, add the link to your blog in your bio.

This will get you more visitors to your blog and also will allow your followers to get to know you better.

3. Create a consistent posting schedule

How often should you post on Instagram to gain more followers?

It is important that you post at least one image per day on Instagram if you are serious about getting more followers.

The optimal number of pictures that you should post will highly depend on your niche and audience.

The best way to find the perfect number is to experiment and see how many posts per day brings you the largest number of followers.

It is also important to keep in mind that quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to Instagram.

It is better to post one or two high-quality pictures instead of five lousy ones.

4. Find a niche for yourself

Choosing and sticking to a specific niche on Instagram will help you to gain more followers.

If your posts are all over the place, it might hard for you to keep your followers.

Some successful Instagramers go as far as using specific colors and styles for all the photos for consistency.

A few examples of popular Instagram niches: Travel, Fashion, Lifestyle, Fitness, and Business.

5. Post videos

Videos on Instagram usually get more comments and likes than photos.

6. Post IGTV videos

IGTV might not be as popular as YouTube but it is a great way to keep and attract new followers.

Because IGTV is not very popular yet there is less competition and it is easier to stand out with longer videos.

If you are already uploading videos to YouTube, just upload them to IGTV as well.

7. Create Instagram stories

Another way to drive more engagement on your Instagram page is to create Instagram stories.

To create a story on Instagram tap on your circled profile picture with a plus sign which is located on the top left.

After that you ready to share your first story.

Don’t forget to add related hashtags to your story to increase discoverability.

8. Comment on other people photos

Commenting on other people’s photos is one of the most effective ways to get more followers on Instagram.

Not only you will get more likes and comments on your own photos but you will also start building relationships with other Instagrammers.

This may result in you getting mentioned on other people’s posts or getting shootouts.

Genuine longer comments usually work better than the “Nice photo” type of comments.

9. Like other people photos

Liking other people’s photos might not be as effective as commenting but it takes less time.

The key is to like the photos that are similar to the content that you post.

10. Create your own branded hashtag on Instagram

One way to stand out on Instagram is to create your own hashtag and then use it whenever you post something.

It can be as simple as #yourusername.

Don’t forget to encourage your followers to use your hashtag.

11. Write descriptive captions

Questions work great when it comes to captions.

They usually result in higher engagement and more comments and likes.

Another thing that many successful Instagramers do is to write a short story about the post. In most cases, 100 words are more than enough.

12. Use call to action in your Instagram posts

Tell your followers what you want them to do: tag their friends, like or comment on your photos.

You can also tell your followers to follow the link in your bio to see more information about your post.

This is probably one of the best ways to get more visitors to your blog from Instagram.

13. Promote your Instagram on other social networks

If you have an online presence on other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat, add the link to your Instagram there and ask people to follow you.

14. Use the right hashtags

Hashtags are extremely important on Instagram.

People use hashtags to find your posts and you need to ensure that you include all the right hashtags if you want to reach a large number of people.

A few examples of the most popular hashtags on Instagram: #happy, #instagood, #love, #tbt, #me, #selfie, #beautiful, #photooftheday, #fun, #cute.

You can also create and use your own branded hashtag as per Tip #10 to showcase your product.

If you create a custom Instagram hashtag, don’t forget to add it to your bio.

You can also ask your followers to use your hashtag when running giveaways or contests.

Choose the hashtags that represent your post.

The combination of popular and niche-specific hashtags usually works the best.

How many hashtags should you use?

You can use a maximum of 30 hashtags per post but that’s a little too much and can make your post look a little spammy.

In most cases, 10-15 hashtags are ideal.

How to hide your hashtags on Instagram?

Even though having many hashtags is great, you probably noticed that posts with more than 5 hashtags look a little spammy so what can you do?

Experienced Instagrammers usually get rid of this problem by adding 5 dots with each dot on a separate row after the caption and before the hashtags.

This way all the hashtags get pushed down and your followers won’t see them.

You can also add all your hashtags as a comment but this will delay your posts from showing up in search.

15. Use Geotags

Always tag the location where your photo was taken. This gives people another way to find your content.

16. Start following more people

Another easy way to get more followers on Instagram is to start following more people.

In my experience about 10% of people usually follow back.

You will get a higher follow back ratio from people whose following/followers ratio is close or more than one.

People with a lower number of followers are more likely to follow you back compared to users with more than 10,000 followers.

17. Try to get featured by bigger accounts

This is one of the fastest ways to grow your Instagram account.

If a big account in your niche with 100,000 followers features your post (share your posts), you will instantly get more followers.

To get featured on Instagram you usually need to tag bigger accounts and if they like your photo they will reshare it and tag you so that people can visit your account and follow it if they like what they see.

18. Create a consistent posting schedule

Gaining a lot of followers on Instagram takes time.

Yes going viral might help you to become famous fast but it doesn’t happen often so instead focus on long-term strategy.

Decide on your posting schedule and stick to it.

You can also look into services like Later or Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance.

This might help to be consistent and save time.

19. Instagram follow-unfollow method

As we discussed in tip #16 following more people will help you to gain more followers.

However, the max number of people that you can follow on Instagram is 7500.

What some users do to avoid this limit is to follow people and then unfollow them a few days later.

If you are serious about building a loyal following on Instagram, this method should only be used to unfollow the people who are not following you back.

If you start unfollowing people who followed you, it might cause damage to your brand.

No one likes to be tricked.

There are also limits on the number of accounts that you can follow and unfollow per hour on Instagram.

This limit seems to be different for every account so to be safe don’t follow and unfollow more than 50 people per hour.

20. Try Instagram Ads

If you have some money to spend, using Instagram ads is another way to quickly grow your following.

21. Try Instagram Shootouts

Basically, you are paying someone with a lot of followers to feature one of your photos and tag you.

If you don’t want to spend any money, you can reach out to accounts in the same niche with a similar number of followers and see if the owner is interested in the shootout for the shootout.

You will feature his posts and he will feature yours in return.

22. Create Instagram Giveaways

Conducting giveaways is a great way to get more followers.

The giveaways can be as simple as asking people to follow your account and comment by tagging one of their friends to enter the contest.

Cheats and Shortcuts for Getting More Followers on Instagram

Besides the legit strategies to grow Instagram accounts, there are some cheats that people use such as buying followers & likes or using bots that will comment, like, follow and unfollow accounts on Instagram.

These cheats can work and help you get more followers but sooner or later the accounts that use these blackhat methods get banned.

Instagram algorithms are becoming smarter and it is getting more challenging to use automation and bots on Instagram so don’t take any shortcuts and focus on the methods that we discussed if you want to be successful in the long term.

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