UNITED STATES—Instagram is one of the largest and most frequented social media platforms today. It can seem daunting because it can feel like everyone is Instagram famous whilst you’re struggling to gain a decent following on the app. There are over a billion Instagram users in 2021 which makes Instagram the ideal place to grow your business, however it is also intimidating to start up an account and gain followers because it is incredibly competitive.

Being new to social media, whether it be as a business or a personal account, it can be tough to get started. Here are some helpful tips and tricks to help you grow your following.

Engagement is Important

It is important to engage with your followers and their posts on Instagram as people are more likely to follow and recommend you to others if you interact. Joining engagement groups is one of the best, easiest and fastest ways to gain followers on Instagram.

Whilst it may be tempting to join the biggest engagement groups, it is best to stick to your niche and gain followers from there. It would be a good idea  to use a growth service however, if you struggling to get followers for Instagram, such as Growthoid. When coming across fan pages and other accounts of a similar sort, give a few of them a follow. By doing this you encourage more people to follow you in the hopes that they might get a follow from you back.

This is the same for commenting and liking other people’s posts. The more you like and comment, the more likely people are going to follow you because people love the engagement.

Make Sure You Optimize Your Account

In order to optimize your account there are a few things that need to be done. It is important to make sure that your bio is short, but relevant.  This gives people an idea of what your page is all about in an instant. If you have a website, it is a good idea to link the website in your bio as well as it gives people an easy way to head to your website and it creates a connection between your account and your website.

Your username should be easy to search and contain the least amount of ‘special characters’ as possible as this makes your username much easier to find during a search on instagram. Your username should link closely with your business and be as similar to your other usernames on different social media platforms as possible. This allows people to recognise your username over multiple apps.

Make Use of Hashtags

When posting, it is vital to make use of hashtags that are relevant to your account and to that specific post, as this is the best way to grow your Instagram account. A hashtag allows the post to be searched and will be shown to many more people than if you were to post without. An excellent way to bring attention to your page is to make use of a branded hashtag. This means you create a hashtag that includes the company name or some sort of company-specific initiative.

This creates the opportunity for other people to use this hashtag as well whilst simultaneously making it much easier for people to search for your posts and account. These branded hashtags should be cross-promoted by advertising your business with the hashtag. Print the hashtag on receipts or use the hashtag in offline media and advertising as well as online advertising.

By doing this you ensure that people see this hashtag whether they’re online or offline and widens your audience.

Consistency is Key

Once you’ve gained a bit of a following, it is important to maintain those followers by having a consistent posting schedule. It is ideal to post a few times a day, but avoid over-posting as this can look like spam which may cause people to unfollow you.

You can ensure you post at the best time for your specific following and area by doing some research on your specified statistics that Instagram provides for your account. It would be best to post at your most ideal times as according to Instagram’s research, this is when your account has the most people interacting with it. A simple way to keep your posts in order is to schedule posts. Instagram has a feature where it allows you to schedule posts in advance. This ensures a regular schedule and an almost guaranteed increase in your Instagram following.