It is usually exciting when you’re just starting out on Instagram, but soon enough you’re left imagining how many free Instagram followers you can get. The truth is that getting the first 100,000 people to follow you is usually the hardest part. This is because Instagram users don’t know who you are or what your brand stands for yet. You’ll need to prove to the community that you’re a successful influencer or brand.
It may first seem like a difficult task, but it is not impossible. Below are tips that can help you get 100,000 free Instagram followers as a beginner, influencer, or business in a few months.
Best Marketing Strategies for Beginners and Influencers
Join Engagement Groups On Instagram
When I started out as an Instagram influencer, one of the ways I increased my following fast was by joining engagement groups.
The idea of joining big engagement groups on Instagram can be daunting but in reality, you’ll be able to easily get your target audience to follow you if you just stick to your niche. There are various engagement groups on the platform, such as fashion, beauty, travel and many more.
In this kind of groups, you’ll be able to get likes and followers from users who have shared interests. However, if you really want to get attention, try to return the favor by following the fan pages of users who join the group. Using this strategy, I got about 2,000 new people to follow me within a few weeks.
This might not boost your sales immediately but it will give your Instagram page credibility at the early stages so people won’t be seeing only 38 on your follower count. This is a sort of short-term strategy to help you get followers during your first couple of weeks using Instagram.
Repost Good Contents By Others
When I was first trying to build the Instagram account for my store, the posting strategy I employed is mainly reposting great contents by other Instagram users. To pull this off without getting flagged by the platform, you must use your description to credit the actual poster every time.
I used to take screenshots when I started out and then add the photos on my page. It was the Repost app that truly helped my Instagram page take off. The app allows users to repost video contents on Instagram.
Although it is good to post unique content, there are some benefits associated with reposting other users’ content, one of these is that it is generally easier and quicker to repost content.
In order to know the right items to repost, check the numbers and engagement the original post received.
I am very active on Instagram so I usually search for hashtags I generated and used regularly to locate posts that are performing very well and weren’t posted by any other fan page but by individual users. I’d then check out the pictures and videos to find out the ones that got the biggest reaction from me. If I feel a great urge to share a post by another user, I repost it using my page immediately.
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Use Buzzfeed To Promote Your Instagram Account
In order to boost your follower growth on Instagram, you’ll need to get a platform where you’ll be able to reach a massive audience. Buzzfeed is one of the best platforms that embed posts on Instagram into their content.
There is a community section on Buzzfeed where users can share their content on their various platforms. However, you need to go by their rules so as to be visible as well as build trust.
If you feel Buzzfeed is not the right platform for your niche, don’t stress. Another great tool is HARO, where you’ll be emailed 3 times each day with requests from actual reporters looking to get expert quotes and content for their stories. Many of them allow social links and a website link. This means you can achieve two things at once; getting a quick link to Instagram account as well as your store.
Tell Customers To Share Their Pictures
A great way to get followers when you’re starting out on Instagram is by asking customers to share pictures on your feed, helping you get the much needed social proof.
When I didn’t have a customer, what I did was connect with influencers in my niche who had less than 10,000 Instagram followers. This may seem like a low figure but influencers with a few followers are usually looking to capitalize on their accounts and they’ll be more than willing to pose with the products you’re selling at a much lesser rate.
To make them more co-operative, you can sweeten the deal by offering an affiliate arrangement where they’ll receive a commission from each sale you record on customers that used their referral link.
For the sales you’ve already scored, contact the customers and offer a cash incentive or free gift for taking quality pictures of the item they bought. It is not advisable to offer incentives for a long time, but this short-term strategy can really help you when you’re still building your brand.
When photos of customers start to appear on your Instagram page and other potential buyers see them, they’ll likely tag you in their posts naturally when you deliver their products. It is advisable to comment on the post, share or repost the content and then follow them; this will earn you a follow back.
Hook People In With a Consistent Style
This may sound unrealistic but it is actually a great way to increase your following on Instagram. Many users don’t follow people because of the content they post but because of the anticipation for new posts.
If you have a wildlife fan page and you post videos and pictures of cute wild animals every day without fail, people who keep seeing the post will eventually realize that you do it consistently. They will start to follow you, expecting that there will always be similar kind of content on your account.
Keeping a consistent theme or style should not be just for branding, it should also be your way of using your account to create an expectation that your potential and ideal followers can always count on.
If you can be that consistent with every post, your Instagram follower growth will be faster over time.
Host Giveaways
If your audience on Instagram is small and you host giveaways, you’ll be able to acquire more followers. This was one of the strategies that paid off when I was starting out on Instagram. If you use your website to host giveaways and you instruct people to follow your page on Instagram as well as other social network platforms, you’ll be able to reach a much bigger audience.
If the size of your audience is small, another option is to post your giveaway through certain giveaway groups on Facebook or giveaway blogs.
What I did when I began working in marketing is to connect with giveaway blogs. I used to send them some products for free and in exchange, I’ll get a good review post.
A lot of them were satisfied with only the free product, but there were others that actually demanded payment, you might have to choose what works best for you. The product review post they’d do would be filled with photos as well as their experience using the product. Later on, their audience would contest to win your product with a clause that you’d actually send the lucky customer the product.
I got a lot of new free Instagram followers using this strategy.
Best Marketing Strategies for Businesses
Create a business account
Even if you have an Instagram profile in your name, to use Instagram for business, you must first create a business account. You can also switch your current profile to a business account by clicking on ‘Switch to Business Profile’. This would allow your followers to get in touch with you by clicking on your contact button on your Instagram page.
The business account will enable you to publish ads on Instagram without the need of using the advertising tools of Facebook. You can gather data about the reach of your posts and impressions by using Instagram analytics tools.
Read also: Why Social Media Won’t Die Any Time Soon
Post product teasers
The beauty of Instagram is that it allows you to post product teasers that gently urge buyers to buy your products. Instagram is an excellent place for advertising, but you must know how to talk about your product without talking about it loudly. Be careful to create ads that have a laid-back air about them and are not at all pushy and can tease users with special offers and discounts. Teasing the audience about products they are interested in will have higher chances of generating leads and conversions.
Create sponsored ads
It is nothing new that Instagram is the right place for advertising, but the best part is that you can set and ad budget and control your expenses of advertising. By using the carousel feature, you can showcase just a single sponsored ad or several ads, thereby getting the opportunity to target your audience in innovative ways. To expand their reach, brands can now promote their photos to specific individuals within the audience. The content that you use for sponsored ads must be engaging and appealing to the audience demographics that you target. For more engagement, you can run several posts for different segments of the audience simultaneously.
Read also: The One-Two Punch: Print and Social Media Marketing
Use Instagram stories
Instagram stories are highly effective in generating leads. Instagram stories are different from Instagram posts in that it is in the form of a slideshow. The feature is very similar to Snapchat Stories and is live for only 24 hours. However, you can re-use the story by saving it on your device. Instagram stories do not appear in the newsfeed, but instead, there is a small area for it above the news feed. On clicking on your photo, the story appears in a separate window that pops up.
Stories appear at the top of follower timelines that users look at daily; the stories garner high attention. Stories are excellent for capturing behind-the-scenes photos which even if not of very high quality can deliver the results. Moreover, stories need not align with brand aesthetics which makes it easier to create content.
Collaborate with influencers
You will find plenty of influencers on Instagram who have a massive fan following and with whom you can forge relationships and partner with for promoting your brand. It is a great way to reach out to potential customers on Instagram. Buyers are more and more relying on the feedback of influencers whom they trust and base their purchasing decisions on it.
If you can connect and partner with the right influencer, you can take your brand in front of a new audience that would be ready to accept it based on the recommendations of the influencers. Identify a few influencers that have an audience in your niche and relevant to your products or services.
Read also: Social Media Marketing: Different Styles, Different Goals
Create a branded interactive hashtag
For instant brand engagement, you must create interactive brand hashtags, which opens the gates for acquiring user-generated photos and posts. It is an easy way to maintain a steady stream of content without much hard work as customers can use the hashtags to post their content.
It also allows you to look for catchy images that you can post on your page. Creating the company or brand hashtag is a way to open the doors of free advertising. For example, Coca Cola has demonstrated this successfully through their hashtag #ShareACoke.
When and how much to post on Instagram is a crucial decision because over-doing can backfire. To sustain the interest of the audience, you must post regularly so that they see your brand in their news feed.
Post only during the peak hours of the day when your followers are online. Lastly, measure the campaign performance by tracking the right metrics so that you derive the encouragement from doing better.
Read also: Video Marketing On A Shoe String Budget: Your Guide To Free Social Media Videos
Conclusion
At the start, it is always difficult to try to figure out a way to get your ideal customers to follow you on Instagram. Once you’ve gotten your first 10,000 free Instagram followers, you’ll still need to continuously use most of the strategies mentioned above to keep your follower base growing to 100k or more.
If you are in two minds about using Instagram for marketing, then you should derive inspiration from the fact that a third of the most-viewed stories on Instagram are business stories. This makes it clear why Instagram is the most preferred social media platform for marketers.
Although Instagram retains the basic characteristics of a photo-sharing platform, it has evolved into a powerful platform that businesses can use for brand promotion and marketing. Over the years, Instagram has grown immensely and keeps broadening its horizons to include more users who can use the platform innovatively.
Of more than a billion Instagram users, 71% are under the age of 35 years, which makes the platform most lucrative for marketers. As the days of baby boomers are over, the audience demographics of marketers now include a good percentage of the young population who take to Instagram.
Therefore, it becomes a necessity for businesses to be on Instagram today to generate more followers and high engagement that reflect in likes and views. Besides garnering likes organically, you can also buy Instagram views and likes to boost engagement and demonstrate your influence on the platform. Just as likes reflect the number of times, someone views photos and posts, views represent the number of times people see a video.
Marketers can connect with many influencers on Instagram, which is a big motivation to create an influential brand provided there is a right plan. You must stay relevant to current followers and even rope in new ones by posting the correct type of content. To know how you can launch a successful marketing campaign on Instagram, this article should be of much help.
Read also: How Social Media is Shifting From Marketing to Targeted Digital Advertising
