Instagram is a powerful social media platform with more than 1 billion monthly active users. It is an excellent platform for promoting your brand or business as there are almost 4 million business accounts so far on Instagram and increasing. One of the major problems many brands face is how to get first 1000 followers on Instagram?
There is no hidden hack or trick you can do right now that can give you 1000 followers. But all it requires is a creative social media strategy with consistent execution. In this blog, we will walk you through a solid social media marketing plan that can get you first 1000 followers on Instagram!
Gain 1000 Followers On Instagram
Instagram over the recent years has come far from its humble roots and has seen massive growth and development in its user base, features, algorithms, and much more.
Today, Instagram is the 7th most visited website in the world with projected revenue of 14 billion USD.
It is now a robust business platform with almost 25 million business accounts helping them create an effective marketing channel where likes and followings get converted into a tangible ROI.
Some of the Instagram accounts that went viral in no time include Netflix, Nike with their outstanding social media strategy and managed to maintain their followers’ interest. Gaining followers on Instagram is an entire process and what I suggest is using organic ways. Here are some ways to help you get followers and make the most of opportunities to grow your Instagram account.
1. Focus on Instagram SEO For Maximum Reach.
People use Instagram to discover the content and people they love. Their discovery begins with an Instagram search and this is where you can be visible to them.
Instagram uses a set of signals to rank Instagram posts and accounts whenever someone searches for something they are interested in.
The most important “signal” Instagram uses to rank search results is the search term itself. Instagram accounts that have the same search term in their usernames, bios, captions, and hashtags are then shown to the searcher.
What this means for you: Research what your audience is searching for on Instagram. Include those keywords in your:
- Username
- Bio
- Captions
- Hashtags
But how do you research what your audience is searching for: There are plenty of online social media monitoring and social media audience research tools that can help you with that. Some of them are Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and more.
SEO is as important for Instagram as for any other platform because it allows you to reach your desired audience.
Each time a user types in a keyword-relevant to your niche, you have a better chance of showing up on his results page and driving quality traffic to your account.
2. Create Attention Worthy Content.
Now that you have optimized your username, bio, captions, and hashtags, the next step is to actually stand out from the crowd.
Millions of posts are being shared every day. How are you going to be different? Create content that attracts attention.
Instagram is a visual platform, so your content should be visually appealing to make the person take a pause and move over to your profile.
How do you create extraordinary content: The first step in creating extraordinary content for Instagram is to know your audience. Research about what kind of posts they interact with, what kind of posts they like, and comment the most.
Once you know your audience, it’s time to develop an idea for your post. Bring your own flavor to the posts by using your own life experiences or coming up with something completely new.
Be bold and experiment a lot: You can try something around animation, be it boomerang or mini videos. If you want to do it professionally, try cinemagraphs – a gif (image with some moving element).
Resonate with your audience: Tell stories, ideas, and quotes that your audience can relate to. For example; if your audience includes Gen – Z audience, share trending memes, creatives, fun videos, etc. Use social media audience research tools to figure out what your audience is upto on social media and serve content accordingly.
Make it your own: You can reach out to some professional photographers or graphic designers who can do the work for you and help you create quality posts and give that Instagram feed of yours a captivating aesthetic that becomes synonymous with your brand.
3. Use Relevant Tagging.
Try not to lose the opportunity you can get from tagging your post. If done right, tagging posts will only positively affect your Instagram account.
It will help improve the visibility of the posts and get a wider reach and more followers interested in your product and brand.
Tagging other accounts on your posts started out as a way to identify the users related to that particular post be it an individual or brand thus increasing engagement.
Yeah, but who do I tag in my posts?
- Tag profiles relevant to your niche and avoids spam-like behavior.
- Tag employees, clients, brand ambassadors to help increase the engagement on the post.
- Clicked that photo in a restaurant? Tag that restaurant.
- Clicked a selfie with a celebrity? Tag him!
4. Hashtags Rule Instagram.
The hashtag is one of Instagram’s important signals to help people discover content.
Use Trending Hashtags: Using relevant hashtags on your post will help increase the visibility of your posts in the explore section, even to people who do not follow you, and eventually reach it to a wider audience who are interested in your niche.
Eg, if you are a digital marketing agency and you want your post to reach out to users interested in your niche, so you would use #digitalmarketing.
According to recent Instagram statistics, the average Instagram post contains as many as 10.7 hashtags (Hubspot, 2020).
Make your own hashtags: You can also use hashtags to start a campaign and build a strong community of your own. There are many iconic campaigns that started on Instagram and have left the world blown like #shotoniphone, #ShowUs, and many others.
But how you do know what hashtags to use: Whenever you are using a hashtag, always rely on research first. The hashtag you are using should be able to get you the highest engagement. Find hashtags that have maximum reach.
Below mentioned are some of the tools that can be used for researching the best Instagram hashtags:
5. Use Fun and Witty Captions.
Instagram captions are a great way to get engagement on your content.
Use captions that are:
- Creative & Fun
Include fun captions in your posts that bring engagement from your audience.
Swiggy & Zomato have always been creative when it comes to their social media strategy as their posts and captions have been witty, filled with humor with higher customer engagement
- Seek Action From Users.
They should have a strong call to action like inviting people to enter a contest, to tag their friends, involving jokes and memes that makes them more shareable.
- Tell Powerful Stories That Matter.
Captions should have the power to connect with people and light their interests. The more time people spend on reading your captions, the higher will be the probability of the post ranking high with the Instagram algorithm.
The best Instagram captions are the ones that have the power to give voice to the visual content and are engaging and shareable. They should be not only something that you would want to post but also something that others would want to post.
Writing captivating and unique captions would make your followers share your content thus widening your reach.
Nowadays lengthy captions are doing wonders as they have a story-telling feel to them which eventually drive more visitors to see your post.
6. Post Consistently.
Writing engaging captions is not enough to keep your audience motivated. Remember that your followers need regular and alluring content to keep them interested in following your account and sharing your content.
If you do not want things to turn upside down for you, then it’s essential to set a regular posting schedule and keep your account updated all the time.
You can start by understanding your target audience – which time zone they are in, what festivals they celebrate and more so that you can keep up, share content and connect with them at the right time.
Setting up a content calendar and smartly strategizing the content for various Instagram features will help facilitate this task.
7. Use Data For Growth.
Instagram insights are a great way to understand the behavior of your followers.
The insights section provides a lot of data about the usage of Instagram by different countries, demographics, and other insights that are helpful for marketers.
This information can make their marketing strategy more effective by knowing where to target their marketing efforts or what content to create.
Not just this, you can get loads of information about your followers from Instagram Insights. Data about the number of followers you’ve gained or lost, their location, the time they are most active, and a lot more.
All of this can help you get information about your audience, improve your content strategy and achieve the target of getting 1000 followers on Instagram.
8. Promote your Instagram account.
Don’t you think we end up following a lot of accounts because of their sponsored posts? I am sure the majority will agree.
Promotions are the initial boosters for your Instagram account. They help you reach people of your interest with your creative, engaging, and following worthy content.
This is the power of promoting your account through Instagram promotions and ads and will help you reach out to a wider audience and eventually gain 1000 followers on Instagram.
According to recent Statista, 50% of users on Instagram get interested in a brand when they see ads for it.
There are many other ways to promote your account, including sharing your profile link on other social media accounts, via emails or by making your followers share your account on their stories.
Running a campaign or engaging in competitions and giveaways is a great way to develop the audience’s interest in your account. There are many such accounts on Instagram that gained popularity through such activities.
Whatever way you choose to promote your account, the most important thing to keep in mind is to:
✔never compromise with quality,
✔never copy ideas,
✔and use a strong brand voice.
All this helps in building trust and authenticity among your audience.
Hopefully, this article would have been a helpful guide for getting your first 1000 followers on Instagram. With a little bit of work and some creativity, you can grow your account to that size in no time at all. As someone rightly stated, ‘To lose patience is to lose battle‘; don’t get hopeless if this process takes a while.