3 Steps to Grow Your Instagram Following

Instagram is definitely not for everybody but if you sell any kind of physical product or human-centric service, chances are Instagram is for you.

The beauty of Instagram really lies within its simplicity, there is no algorithm that limits what you see like there is on Facebook, and there are no replies and subtweets like there are on Twitter. There is just a photo and a caption.

Since every post is essential the same medium, it is a little more difficult to stand out. If you follow these three easy tricks you are on your way to building a solid, recognizable brand on Instagram.

1. Take interesting and exciting photos

Since every post on Instagram is essentially the same format, the key is to make your content a little different and more exciting. This doesn’t mean you have to be the world’s best photographer (obviously that doesn’t hurt), it just means you have to think outside the box.

For example if you are putting your coffee shop on Instagram, you probably wouldn’t want to do a photo of a cappuccino against a wooden table. That has been done so many times before.

Maybe you instead take a close up shot of the espresso as it drips from the machine, or take a 5 second video of the barista handing you that cup. These shots aren’t any harder to take, but they will set you apart from everyone else and give people a reason to follow you.

Your goal should be to give people pictures that they can’t find anywhere else.

2. Always use #Hashtags

This is super important! On Facebook, if someone likes, comments or shares your photo then all their friends see it. That’s not true on Instagram, there are very ways for a person to actually see your posts unless they are already following you.

The best way to get your account out there is via hashtags. Sprinkling a few relavant hashtags on your photo will make it available to a much wider audience.

Of course there is a list of the most used hashtags (here) which recommends things like #life and #love but with over a billion posts between them, chances are nobody’s going to notice you, unless you are already Selena Gomez. This is the part of instagram that takes the most thought and creativity.

Back to the coffee shop analogy, for that photo you were going to post earlier you could use #coffee ( 52 Million Posts) and #coffeeshop (2.8 Million Posts) or you could get a little creative with smaller hashtags like #artisancoffee (23,000 Posts) or #pourovercoffee (31,000 Posts).

The initial instinct is to break into that market with 52 Million posts. Using smaller more niche hashtags will allow you to get the attention that will allow you to compete in those bigger pools.

3. Spread the Love

Hashtags are a great passive way to get started building your brand. As soon as you post, the hashtags do the rest of the work.

You can’t stop there if you really want to build a brand on Instagram. You have to be actively engaged. Browse through some of the hashtags you used, or other relevant tags and like other people’s posts in your niche.

Everybody likes getting a little bit of love, so if you spread the love, chances are you get some love back. Liking and commenting on someone’s photo means that that person is going to see your name twice in their notifications and will probably head over to your account to see what it’s all about.

As long as you have creative and unique photos this person just became a follower.