Social Media Marketing plays an important role in today’s business world. Instagram, a photo-based social media network, showed an incredible growth in users in only three years.
It boasts 150 million monthly active users, according to Mashable, and 15x the engagement of Facebook, according to Research Firm L2.
Therefore, it’s important you take advantage of this powerful Social Media Network to reach customers and achieve marketing success. After creating your Instagram account, you will wonder how to get more followers. I will show you 8 ways to get 1,000 followers in just one week, as I did for my social media project at NYU.
1. Clear Brand Positioning
First, plan out your brand positioning: identify your target market, create your brand identity, and confirm your brand tone. Then, decide what type of content you should post in order to reinforce your brand positioning. For example, consider my project, deemed “LMAO Cartoon”. My brand positioning involves helping people relieve stress, take in positive energy, feel happiness, and have fun! I implement these objectives by posting content including humorous cartoons, clips, and videos.
2. Post Images That People Can Connect with
Instagram is unique because of its photo-based platform. Therefore, a personal image is important as it attracts your audience’s attention. Regarding my project, I posted a picture of a listless minion holding a cup of coffee; the caption reads: “Monday! Who needs coffee?” I got replies along the lines of “exactly how I look before coffee”. In this post, I connected with people who were tired on Monday and needed coffee.
3. Use Relative and Popular Hashtags
You have a clear brand positioning and you post pictures that people connect with. But no one likes your pictures — why? You’re missing a powerful weapon: hashtags. Without hashtags, your images remain unsearchable and bear no chance of reaching your target customers. To gain your audience, use as many relative, popular hashtags as possible. One option available to you is hashtag research sites, like Ritetag and hashtagify.
4. Call to Action
Call to action is a useful way to gain followers, however it fails if you do nothing more than ask your audience to act. Offer benefits when using call to action, like “follow me and I will follow you back.” This attracts followers when placed in your Instagram profile or after individual posts.
5. Asking Questions
To achieve likes and increase engagement, ask a question. This method is a good way to understand your customers’ needs, enabling you to make further progress on fulfilling their desires. For example, when posting a picture with “Hi, guys! Halloween is around the corner. Which cartoon character do you wanna be?” I received many comments as well as tags from followers; when followers tag their friends on your posts, your audience grows.
6. Follow Potential Customers
In the world of Instagram, it is necessary to seek out audiences. When someone likes a photo but fails to follow you, take the initiative and follow them. They have already expressed interest in your post, and have therefore portrayed themselves as a potential customer. Another method of generating followers is to follow the followers of your competitors who advertise similar products or services. As these followers already convey interest in your services, they can be labelled as potential followers and potential customers.
7. Tracking Measurement
Measure your Instagram performance by using tools such as Simply Measured. This tool highlights your most engaging post, most engaging filter, and top hashtags. Based on the results of the measurement report, you will have a comprehensive understanding of your Instagram performance and a guideline of what content to post in the future.
8. Timing is Crucial
Instagram is a feed-based platform. That means if you post something at an inopportune time, your post will instantly be covered by others. Therefore, it is crucial that you choose an appropriate time to publish your photos. The measurement tool is great for this method, as it mentions the top time for engagement.
Have you ever tried to get Instagram followers? What do you think is the most effective way to do so ? Share your thoughts on a note here or recommend/share this article to help more businesses get more Instagram followers. Thank You! ☺
