10 Easy Steps To Get More Instagram Followers
Instagram has so many users now that your content is more than likely to be lost in a sea of posts and stories. But, it’s totally possible to get more Instagram followers in 2018 with these 10 easy steps.
That said, there are “easier” ways of getting followers (like buying them… here’s an awkward example we’d like to show you before proceeding) — but you really shouldn’t buy them, no matter how tempting a number may be. Keep in mind that it’s not only about the quantity of followers, but it’s absolutely about the quality of them!
The whole purpose of picking up more followers for your ‘gram is to increase engagement. Bots or farmed accounts really aren’t the way to go to get more Instagram followers as they won’t interact with you.
With that out of the way, consider this your ultimate guide where we teach you how to get more followers on Instagram. The Upleap Team takes you through 10 actionable tips to growing your audience — the easy way.
1. Get More Instagram Followers With A Stylized Profile
Our team crunched data of over 50,000 Instagram profiles over the past few years. One of the common denominators between all of these profiles that had more that got Instagram followers faster? A tastefully designed, stylized profile.
When we recommend Upleap clients ways to grow their Instagram, a consistent, stylized profile is always our number one advice.
The relationship between getting more people following you and having a prettier follower is incredibly logical. Break it down into this bite size scenario:
You’re browsing Instagram’s explore feed and come across a beautiful photo of a beach in Bali. You like the Instagram post so much that you do two things.
First, you like the Instagram post to show your appreciation for their content. The second action you take is checking out the profile that made the post.
As soon as you check out the profile, you’re taken aback by a bunch of other posts that share similarities with the original picture that you liked.
In fact, the style is so consistent that you really like what the Instagrammer has to offer. After reading their Instagram bio and scrolling down to check out their profile more completely, you’re then faced with two more options.
You can leave their profile, or you start following them so you can see the next post they publish.
Tip: It’s statistically proven that you can get more followers by having a visually consistent Instagram profile. — Upleap
Here’s an overview about stylizing your profile that attracts more followers on Instagram:
- Pick a coherent color palette for your Instagram
- The type of content you publish should be thematic
- Complement your profile with a short, explanatory bio description
- Visually illustrate your bio description through your Instagram posts
- Use Instagram highlights to your advantage
2. Pick A Color Palette That Helps Grow Your Instagram
As soon as a user hits your profile they’re confronted with a few things: your posts, your highlights, your profile picture, and your bio description.
First, you need to get your posts right by choosing a color palette that resonates with your target audience. Put another way, making your posts visually appealing really matters!
Have a look at this snapshot of this Instagram Profile:
The colors are super vibrant, and thematically the palette makes sense - this is a travel account from an Upleap user named Jonas aka @thefreedomcomplex. Jonas started his Instagram journey only 4 months ago and is fast on his way to 10,000 followers on Instagram.
Most of his engagement on Insta comes from other globetrotters all across the world that appreciate warm, sunny pictures.
3. Make Your Content Thematic To Grow Your Instagram Followers
Needless to say, the blend of beige sand, blue sea and blue sky really resonate well with Jonas’ target audience.
A lot of his Instagram followers are those with itchy feet, which is exactly what his profile posts promote.
The example above illustrates how you can make content on your profile thematic. This also makes your future posts relevant to whoever follows you, meaning less people will unfollow you in the long run!
Creating a consistent theme makes two characteristics of successful Instagram accounts. Firstly, followers already know what to expect and will continue to enjoy your content. They initially followed you because your content illustrates what you’re all about.
Secondly, a consistent theme means future followers know what to expect! Remember, they most likely discovered your profile because they liked one of your posts.
Tip: Align your profile’s theme according to a niche on Instagram. Doing this with targeted hashtags improves the amount of followers you pick up in the long run.
4. Free Instagram Followers When You Give Context
Simply put, I’m referring to your bio description. While there isn’t a direct connection between getting more people to follow you and having a well-written bio, it’s important you let your prospective followers know who you actually are.
Basically, your bio description is your “raison-d’être”, explaining why your Instagram exists and what your content is all about. A few actionable tips to getting your bio description right:
- Tell them where you’re from
- Describe what your account is about
- Keep it short and to the point
- Don’t overload it with emojis(!)
- Attach a call to action if necessary
- Don’t make it more than three lines
The last two bullet points are my main picks for writing a great bio description.
Tip: If you have a blog, or you’re selling something, always make sure you mention that they can visit your bio link.
Whether you’re a personal blogger or you’re a business — call to actions work, and Instagram can be a massive traffic driver to your website.
Secondly, it’s important you don’t make your call to action longer than three lines. You need to pay attention to the length of your bio description. Your posts need to remain above the fold for users to browse your content!
Here’s a visual example of what we advise against doing for your bio description:
Jonas pushes his content below the fold — meaning anybody who lands on his Instagram profile can’t actually see his posts!
5. Get More Instagram Followers With Highlights: Give Your Profile More Personality
Self-made influencer Diipa Khosla, aka @diipakhosla supercharges her Instagram profile with profile highlights.
Notice how she labels all the best parts to her profile in highlights format.
Diipa keeps her profile organized so you can get to know her better before following her:
The steps I’ve gone through with you so far help you get followers faster and for free.
Overall, the examples illustrate four things: Jonas maintains a common theme (sun, sand, beach). Secondly, his profile boasts a coherent color palette (blue, beige, white). Diipa has an aptly described bio description. She uses Instagram highlights to bookmark her journey for new profile visitors!
If you want to get more followers faster, you can always get your Instagram managed by professionals.
Upleap helps grow your account organically with a dedicated, human manager. Check us out if you’d like to get your free trial!
6. Get More Instagram Followers By Using Stories
Optimizing your post and stories is really important when you’re looking to grow your followers on Instagram. But most of us simply don’t bother, or don’t even know how to make good use of Instagram’s stories feature.
To break it down, there are a few components of stories that you should keep in mind.
Instagram Needs To Sort Your Stories
Why should you use hashtags in your stories? It helps Instagram identify what your story is about, and you are rewarded for helping them.
Hashtags will always help grow your reach on Instagram, because hashtags are seen as semantics by Instagram’s algorithm. Put another way, Instagram uses hashtags as content identifiers.
Tip: By tagging your Instagram stories with hashtags, you have a higher chance of ending up on the explore page.
Instagram Needs To Know Where Your Stories Take Place
Similarly, Instagram wants to know where your stories occur. Tagging your stories by their location helps Instagram distribute your content to local users.
Tagging your location directly on your story helps Instagram sort your content further. By tagging your location you:
- Let Instagram know where your stories take place
- Signal to Instagram that your content is readily consumable
- Signal to Instagram that you’re able to be featured when somebody searches for content from that location.
- Identify yourself as a person of interest for that location
You’ll see that by tagging your stories with a location, you will get more story views. Subsequently, you’ll be able to pick up followers more quickly if you’re a regular in the area.
Keep in mind that much like anything you do on Instagram, your content needs to be compelling enough to attract Instagrammers to follow your account.
Instagram stories tagged by location work great for local businesses, especially in smaller towns and cities.
Stories tip: keep your content hyperlocal to attract audiences in the area!
7. Optimize Your Posts To Get More Instagram Followers
Post optimization is a great way of snowballing your Instagram to new heights.
When I talk about optimizing your posts, I’m referring to the following steps:
Tagging Your Posts By Location
This is a simple and effective way of appearing on the explore page of Instagram according to where you make your post.
The logic is the same as tagging your location in your Instagram stories. Add a location to your Instagram post achieves the following:
- You make your content discoverable by Instagram
- Signals are sent to Instagram that your post is able to appear on the explore tab
- Other Instagram users can now know you’re in the area
Let’s talk numbers: The suggestion sounds simple, but about 40% of Instagram posts we analyzed didn’t have a location attached!
Encourage Engagement And Action
Never underestimate a person’s willingness to share! Humans are social beings. That doesn’t change just because we’re on Instagram.
Instagram users love tagging their friends, family, and significant others. Why not use this to your advantage? Caption your posts with encouragement: Ask people to tag their besties in your post, or even better: ask them to give it a like.
Tip: If you’re a business and promoting something (that’s time sensitive), add a call to action in your caption. Call to actions in your caption increase clickthrough rates on your bio by up to 220%.
8. Get Insta Followers With Targeted Hashtags
Hashtags are no secret when it comes to optimizing your posts. They’re still really powerful and can help you get more Instagram followers. But we don’t advise stuffing your posts with unrelated hashtags.
In fact, adding too many hashtags in the hopes you’ll pick up more followers may get you shadow banned. Yep — adding tags like #instadaily or #likeforlike or #follow4follow can flag your account as spam.
When that happens, Instagram’s algorithm de-prioritizes your posts. Many times, this means your posts can’t be found on Instagram by anyone except your followers.
You don’t want that.
Instead, choose 5 to 10 hashtags that are really relevant to your niche or post. A basic example would be making a post of your pug dog.
You should be selecting hashtags related to pugs, like this example:
Looking at the selected hashtags, only #bark seems the least relevant. The rest appeal to pug-lovers, and are hashtags you’d typically use to describe your pug to other pug-lovers.
This is just one example, and I’m sure you have ideas of describing your selfies, your product, or your niche.
Tip: Using the right hashtags can get you on both the Explore tab and Top Posts. Power users of Instagram in 2018 follow hashtags too. This means selecting the right hashtag can help you get more followers faster than ever!
9. Follow and Triple Like Strategy To Get More Followers on Instagram
This one is pretty boring. But the strategy pays homage to the true OG Instagrammers out there. The Follow & Triple Like (F3L) strategy is something we’ve been using for over 5 years.
F3L is simple and helps you grow your Instagram followers:
- Identify a user that engages with or uses a hashtag.
- Follow their profile
- Like three of their posts in quick succession
The F3L strategy guarantees that people will notice your profile. If they like your content, they’ll follow you back.
There are variations of this strategy that are less aggressive. You don’t have to follow a user to get them to notice your Instagram profile. You can just like their posts in quick succession.
Chances are you’ve had a few random people follow your Instagram and like your posts. If you didn’t follow them back, this is a poor example of the F3L strategy.
It also highlights how important it is that you choose the right users with the right hashtags. Remember, F3L is hypertargeted and you shouldn’t be following random people.
Alternative: At Upleap, we use a variation of the F3L strategy. When we engage with a profile that looks really relevant to one of our users, we triple like! More often than not, our user picks up dozens of followers a day.
10. Partner Up and Go Live on Instagram
Instagram is a visual platform, but it’s not all about pictures and stories. Without sounding too romantic: Instagram is about curating friendships, sharing, and showing others “slice of life” moments.
Instagram Live is becoming more popular, and it’s a great way of being featured in the “Top Live” section in your Instagram app.
Some of the people listed in the Top Live Videos section don’t even have more than a hundred visitors!
Going live has its benefits:
- Get noticed more by Instagram users outside your social network
- Engage with Instagram users outside of your followers/following
- Engage with your existing fanbase
- Showcase your personality to get more followers!
Tip: You can co-host and go live with another friend on Instagram. An example is in the pic above. This lets you share your social networks (and grow each other’s accounts at the same time!).
BONUS: Get More Instagram Followers With Upleap
Upleap helps you grow your Instagram organically with a dedicated account manager.
What this means is your account manager (a real person) identifies ideal followers for you, and then engages with them to grow your followers.
Your new followers are identified in three ways by your account manager. First, your account manager checks out where they’re located. Then, he/she looks at the types of Instagram accounts they follow. Lastly, your account manager investigates the types of hashtags they engage with.
It’s really simple to set up (it takes about 2 minutes) and you can sign up for a free trial through this link.
Thanks so much for reading and don’t be afraid to share, comment, and critique!
