With over 200 million users, Instagram is one of the most popular photo-sharing apps on the planet. It lets people share photos with their friends and family in a quick, simple way. In other words, it’s a great place to showcase your brand, brand your business, and grow your base of followers. The more followers you have on Instagram the better though.

Not only do more followers increase your credibility and trustworthiness as an account holder but they also increase the likelihood that other people will follow you back. This means they’ll see any future posts you make and be more inclined to check them out themselves. But getting followers isn’t easy if you don’t know what you’re doing (which is why we wrote this blog post).

There are a lot of tricks out there that promise to get you hundreds or even thousands of new followers very fast — but those services often charge extortionate amounts for their ‘services’ which means most people won’t use them anyway. So how do you get more free Instagram followers on Instagram without spending loads of money? Let me show you how…

What Does It Mean To Have More Instagram Followers?

Why would anyone want to follow your account? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Some people get followers to see what new photos you’ve been posting, others call it vanity metrics — like the fact that you have an account or that you have a certain amount of followers. But for most people, the main reason for wanting to get more followers on Instagram is to increase exposure.

More exposure means that you have a higher likelihood of being seen by other people who are interested in what you have to offer. This is important because even if someone does like your photos and follows your account, they’ll only see the posts you manually choose to show them. For example, let’s say your target market is young parents. If you have 10,000 followers, chances are most of those 10,000 followers are young parents too. Now, let’s say you have 20,000 followers.

Now that’s a lot of followers — but chances are, most of them are people who have no relationship with young parents at all. So, more followers will help you reach out to more people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer and that means you’ll have a higher likelihood of converting them into paying customers.

Tips For Getting More Instagram Followers

Now that you know how important it is to get more followers on Instagram, here are some handy tips to follow.

  • Engage With Your Fans – The best way to get more Instagram followers is to engage with your current followers. As simple as that sounds — and it should be obvious — a surprising number of business owners and Instagrammers don’t engage with their fans on Instagram. For example, most people don’t comment on photos, they don’t like or share other people’s comments, they don’t like or comment on their photos — and they don’t follow back. So the first thing you need to do is make sure you’re doing all those things. It’s almost like you need to turn yourself into a fan for a while so you can start interacting with the other person in the way they like and want to be interacted with.
  • Respond To People – Responding to people and answering their questions is one surefire way to show your human side, build that trust and connection with your followers, and get them excited about your brand and what you stand for. If you have a question that you want to know the answer to, try posting the question and tagging someone with the question. Chances are, they’ll respond. And even if they don’t, you might just get some inspiration and advice from other Instagrammers that you didn’t even know were in the same boat as you.
  • Engage With Your Followers – Use the built-in Instagram tools to encourage followers to interact with you. Instagram’s “Explore” tab is full of beautiful images and videos curated by other Instagrammers. By clicking on those images and videos, you can engage with your followers and encourage them to stay and watch for more content from you.
  • Share Other People’s Posts – One of the easiest ways to get more Instagram followers is to share other people’s posts. This creates a nice, positive cycle where you get more exposure and more followers while they get to share their content with even more people. You can manage what posts you want to share in the Instagram “Posts” section, but one thing to remember is that you can’t stop sharing other people’s posts without deleting the post from your account.

Focus On Building Your Brand

This is a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t follow this advice. Most people who are just getting started on Instagram are just trying to get as many followers as possible. They’re focused on the numbers and not the quality of those followers.

The problem with that is that following the numbers and increasing your followers is the opposite of what Instagram wants you to do. Instead, you need to build a loyal following that is engaged and excited about what you have to offer.

And the best way to do that is to start posting photos and videos of your products and services. You don’t have to post every day.

Posting too often will cause you to lose followers because they won’t be able to see what you’re posting. Instead, choose posts that showcase your products and services without being in the photos or videos. This will help you build your brand and keep your followers engaged with your account.

Utilize Influencers and Stock Images

These tools are easy to use and will give you an instant boost in the number of Instagram followers you have. Finding the right influencers is a bit of a challenge, but once you do, you can use them to get a lot more followers on your account. The first thing you’re going to want to do is to find the right people.

You can do this by scouring the internet for popular Instagrammers who have a style that matches your brand. Once you find the right people, you need to follow them and see what content they’re posting.

Once you have three or four people, you can start sending them direct messages asking if they would like to be featured on your account. Some will say “yes” while others will say “no” based on what you’re posting and how you’re posting it.

Use Hashtags and Geographic Tagging

If you want to make sure that people find your posts and follow you, you need to use hashtags and geographic tags. Hashtags help people find posts that have been tagged with certain words, phrases, or sentences.

For example, if your brand is “Instagramming While Pregnant”, you may want to use the hashtag “IGWP”. Depending on what type of content you’re posting, use a relevant tag. You can also use a combination of tags if it helps you get your content found.

Keep in mind that Instagram does not allow you to use the same tags multiple times. You can only use tags once per post.

Use ‘Story’ Feature

Many Instagrammers don’t know about the ‘Story’ feature. This is a way to post multiple photos or videos at the same time and show them to your fans.

You can post photos or videos from your smartphone, desktop, or smartwatch. The great thing about using the ‘Story’ feature is that it lets fans see your posts in order.

This means they can watch Stories without scrolling through their phone and tapping every few seconds. When you use the ‘Story’ feature, you can set your post to expire after 24 hours or you can decide to let your followers watch your posts at their own pace.

Conclusion

Getting more followers on Instagram isn’t easy. It can be time-consuming, and you need to know what you’re doing. But the good news is that with these tips and tricks, you can easily get more Instagram followers. All you have to do is follow them and engage with them.