Instagram has over 1.3 billion active users which have made it one of the largest social media platforms today. However, to grow Instagram followers organically can be pretty challenging especially if you are just starting out. But with the right strategy, it can be very beneficial to your business through referring traffic to your website to sell your products and services.

So you’re probably wondering how to grow your followers organically and steadily? I don’t mean buying followers or using bots, Instagram has a very unique mechanism to know if you are using any of those apps, and before you know it, your page has been banned and deactivated permanently. In this guide, I am going to share with you how exactly I was able to grow Instagram pages from zero to hundreds of thousands of real, active, and engaged followers. 

Optimize your bio

Switching your page to a creator or professional account can unlock many powerful tools for your business. This will give you access to analytics that lets you know more insights about your audience, posts, engagement, and more. You will also be able to monetize your account and partner with other brands. 

Once you’ve switched to a creator or professional account, make sure that the description in your bio includes important keywords related to the products or services that you offer. This will allow you to become more discoverable and appear in search queries on the platform. For example, if you are in the facilitation business I suggest adding the word to your handle or adding it as a hashtag on your profile. 

Your handle must also be unique but still easy to remember and search on Instagram. Imagine having a handle that people can’t remember, they won’t be able to tag you or search you because people couldn’t remember your name or worst how to spell it. Make sure to use a handle that is user-friendly.

By optimizing your profile, you’ll be able to create a strong impression about your brand which helps build trust. When people trust your brand it can help increase your Instagram followers and they can eventually turn into buying customers. 

Content is King

This is the topmost important strategy in increasing your Instagram followers organically. Finding the right content can be a trial and error. It is important to create a customer persona so you know the demographic of your target audience. Knowing what they are interested in, which pages they follow, and what content they like to post or engage with will allow you to curate the content that your audience can resonate with. Remember you are trying to capture their attention so you must create content tailor-fit to their interests. 

Checking the big pages in your niche is also a way to know how to strategize your own content. See what works for them, and which content gets the most likes, comments, or shares. Try to recreate the content and add your own branding to it. See which works and then post more of that. 

It is also important to Interact with other pages in the same niche. You can’t grow your account if you do it alone. Instagram likes engagement and when your page has more engagement, the more Instagram will show your content to more people.  So what you want to achieve is to get more likes, comments, and follows, profile views, save to collection and tags count as engagement too. 

How do you achieve this? Simple, interact with other pages. Here’s what you need to do, create a list of pages (big and small accounts) in your niche. Follow their pages, turn on the notification so you’ll get notified when these pages post content and make sure to be the first ones to like and comment. 

Make sure your comment is genuine and not just a simple ‘love this!’ type of comment. So if somebody posted a picture of food with a recipe, try something like “OMG I love sweet potatoes! I’m going to try this recipe tonight! Thanks for the tip!” 

Or if someone posted a nice OOTD, try a comment like, “This dress looks good on you babe!” 

Once they notice that you are a frequent commenter on their page, they will actually do the same. And when their followers notice you, there is a chance that they will follow you too. 

Consistency is the key here. In case you are not aware yet, that technique is known within the Instagram community as an ‘engagement group’. Take a look at one of the influencers you follow, the people commenting on the page are mostly the same pages. They support each other by liking and commenting on each other’s posts. 

Your goal is to become part of this group within your niche. 

Use the right hashtags.

Hashtag is one of the most powerful Instagram features that can really boost engagement on your page. The key here is to use the right hashtags related to your brand and used or followed by your target audience.

Take a look at the hashtags I use for one of my pages. 

This post alone gained more than 10k likes and over 700 comments.

I used hashtags that are directly related to my niche and the content I post about. The trick here is to use hashtags that people usually search for when they are looking for something. 

If you are in the fashion niche, use hashtags related to your content. I highly suggest creating one hashtag that’s yours alone that is going to be part of your 30 HTs. 

For example, in the photo below, the page is about healthy recipes and her handle is @choosing_balance, you will notice that she uses the HT #choosingbalance in almost all of her posts. 

The rest of the 29 HTs is related to your content and choose them according to user volume. 

Here’s how you choose the right HTs for your page. Go to your computer (or grab a pen and paper) and open a notepad, excel, or word whichever you are comfortable using. 

Write down the list of keywords you can think of that describes what you and the content you post about. For example, if you post about travels, you probably would add to your list #travel, #happytravel #gotoplaces, etc. Once you’ve listed all you can think of, go to Instagram and then type the HTs you listed in the search field. 

For example, #travel has over 500M users and when you click on it, it will show you hashtags related to travel. Add to your list the hashtags that are related to your contents/page and don’t forget to include the number of users for each HT.

Do this process until you have listed 40-50 hashtags. Once you have completed the list, do the process of elimination, and check the hashtags and the number of users. The rule is to use HTs that are active with more than 500k users. 

If your page is just starting out with less than 10k followers I suggest not using HTs with too many users. Imagine a 1500 followers account using a hashtag with 10M users you will likely not make it to the top 6 posts. So the tip is to use a combination of big and small users’ HTs. 

In case to this point you are still wondering what ‘users’ I was talking about here, check out the photo below.

Users are the people actively using the hashtag. In this example, #travel has more than 500 million users.

Know the numbers

To grow your Instagram followers takes a lot of hard work and you will see how effective your efforts are through the Instagram insights section. To view this, on your IG app, go to your profile then go to insights. 

Here you will see the overview of activities on your page. Impressions on your posts and stories, reach, interactions, profile visits, the days and time on which you have better engagements, and audience information. 

This section will tell you the best day and time to post, where your followers are located, and their age, and gender. It will give you an idea of when to post and which posts have better engagement so you can do more of that for your audience. 

Also read 5 Strategies on How Use Social Media to Drive traffic to your Website

PRO tip: Don’t aim for likes alone, comments have a bigger impact on your engagement. So the more people comment on your post, the better. 

Check Instagram Influencers

Influencers gained thousands of followers because they know what their audience wants. They reply to comments and DMs, post relatable content, and do all of these during the users’ most active time. 

Check out food bloggers posting tacos every Tuesday, if you are a food blogger you definitely should join the taco bandwagon on Tuesdays. 

For fashion bloggers, take a look at what the influencers in your niche are posting and think of how you can make your own version of it. Notice how the influencer composed the caption and the photo they use. 

It’s important to study your niche so you can create an effective strategy for your own brand. 

Plan your Instagram content

Once you have a clear idea of who your target audience is, the best time and day to post, and the content they love, it’s time to plan ahead. Create your calendar of when to post which type of content. 

Sometimes it’s better to start with an idea than a photo and then think of what to caption it. So start with an idea, write a microblog and then take a photo. For others, capture a photo and then create a story out of it.

When planning your posts, you can automate the process of posting by using scheduling apps like Hootsuite or Buffer. 

It’s also highly suggested to know the holidays and celebrations in your niche. For example, in the food niche, there is International Burger Day, International Pizza day, even Meatball day, and more. Be part of the conversation, plan your post

Be consistent with your Instagram content

Consistency is the key. If you are really serious to grow your Instagram followers, you have to be consistent in doing the tips I laid out in this article. 

Many bloggers were able to monetize their pages and also receive gifts from brands to promote on their pages. 

Do thorough research on your audience, plan your content, engage with other users, and be consistent. Once you get the traction, Instagram will start to show your page to as many users giving you a wider reach. This will result in better engagement and more followers. 

The tips I shared in this article are the same exact strategies I used to grow my Instagram followers from zero to over 100k in just a little over a year.