Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October of 2010 and was later purchased by Facebook in 2012. In the first two months following its launch Instagram had over 1 million users and as of 2016 it has 300 million monthly active users. This means that there is no time like the present to use this to your advantage to make money, draw attention to an important cause, or advertise yourself. But in order to even think about doing any of those things using Instagram you must first acquire a large following. It is best that you have a few thousand followers in order receive sponsorship on the photos you post. Here are five ways that you can increase your Instagram following.
1. Post Every Day
The most important tip to gaining more Instagram followers is to post a picture every day. Well-known brands post one to two pictures per day on average. Unlike Facebook, Instagram has almost no drop-off of engagement for accounts who choose to post more than 1.5 pictures per day.
Liz Carlson, a travel blogger who has more than 40,000 people following her account @YoungAdventuress, claims her success came from staying consistent on how often she posts. As of 2012, she posts as many as three pictures a day and rarely goes a day without posting at all.
It isn’t as simple as just posting three pictures every day. There are also optimal times to post your pictures. According to a study conducted by the Instagram scheduling service, Latergramme, the best times on average to post are 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST and the worst times to post are 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.
2. Use Hashtags and Use Them Well
Hashtags, although usually seen as just an opportunity to showcase your wit, are very important tools. Using a relevant hashtag can broaden your audience by allowing users who are interested in the kind of content you are posting to find you.
Unfortunately, it can be very easy to abuse a hashtag. Often people like to use the most popular hashtags or use a “copy and paste method “to post a large number of hashtags at once to generate a more likes or comments. This is likely to generate more spam accounts to follow you as opposed to real followers.
Also, make sure your hashtags are popular, yet relevant to the photo you are posting. A good example of this is how @manny_the_frenchie uses hashtags for this photo
No, #puppy may not necessarily be the hottest trending hashtag out there, but it is popular, relevant to the picture. People who are interested in following an account that features puppies can search #puppy (which is very general) and stumble across the account. There are currently 56,754,173 posts on Instagram that use #puppy.
3. Post The Right Pictures
Although you do want to post your pictures frequently, it is important not to post just any picture. Posting high quality and beautiful pictures is instrumental in creating a larger following on Instagram. Dave Bouskill and his wife, who’s account @PlanetD has close to 30,000 followers, credits their increase in followers to only posting beautiful pictures.
You can use the Instagram provided filters to assist in making your photo look better. According to Populagram, the top 10 filters on Instagram are.
- Normal (No Filter)
- Valencia
- Earlybird
- X-Pro II
- Amaro
- Rise
- Hudson
- Lo-Fi
- HeFe
- Sierra
4. Develop Your Own Style
Many of the most successful Instagram account users have created a style for their posts that is unique to who they are. How you choose to tell your story on YOUR platform can be what sets you apart from other competitor accounts and draw in your audience. An example of a successfully developed style is the one @MuradOsmann uses.
He uses the #FollowMeTo on all of his photos and he features his significant other taking him by the hand and leading him through his travels around the world.
It is important that you use your style to tell a story, but is just as important to stay true to your brand and be original. Thinking outside of the box is encouraged when developing your own style for your Instagram account. Make sure you are standing out from the crowd.
5. Engage With Your Current Followers
It important that when trying to obtain more (real) followers that you engage with them and show them that you are a real person that is taking/sharing real photos. It takes a lot of work to do this though. Carlson says that she spent a year working on improving the number of likes and comments she was getting on a picture and gaining more engagement from her audience:
“It was frustrating as hell,” Carlson said, “This is actually the hardest thing you can do on Instagram. It really is difficult to keep your engagement level the same over a long period of time, let alone increase it.”
Carlson suggests that using your caption to provoke thought, ask a question, or make a funny joke is a good way to engage with your followers. Also, posting pictures that appeal to people’s emotions.
Another thing to take into account is what days Instagram has more engagement. This infographic from Latergramme provides you with an idea of what days have the strongest user engagement.
