This deep guide is perfect for anyone who is looking for the best strategies in and after 2021 to increase the number of your free Instagram followers, likes, comments, or improve your engagement rate. There will be something for you no matter you are a 5-year experienced Instagrammer or this is the first time you hear about it. Let’s dive right in.
1. Think About Your Audience and the Platform First
Instagram now is not only a tool for you to share photos, but also a platform to connect content creators and their audience. Compared to the creators, Instagram cares more about its users, so you should also always think about your audience first.
Why? Instagram needs you to help it keep users, even attract more users to earn more. After all, Instagram is a branch of Facebook, owned by Mark Zuckerberg. If every Instagrammer publishes boring content on Instagram, users will leave the platform. Why should they use the platform if they can’t find something interesting or valuable? Losing users, Instagram will lose profit.
According to OBERLO, Instagram now has over 1 billion monthly users around the world, and 71% of them are under 35. Instagram, as a platform, helps 80% of users decide to buy a product or service. Helping Instagram earns more, you will help yourself.
Therefore, you should always think about your audience and Instagram first, not yourself first or your product first, no matter you just want to be popular as an individual or want to convert for your product or service. Find out what your audience and the platform need and meet their requirements. That’s the way how it works when you want to get something from a platform, the same logic for other platforms including Youtube, Podcast, Pinterest, or Google.
2. Make Sure People Can Easily Find Your Account and Posts
An Instagrammer also needs an SEOer’s skill called keywords research. To be simple, you need to find out what your audience will type into the search box when they search for something related to your account or your posts, then collect these keywords and include them naturally in your profile or the description part of your post. If you want to know more about keyword research, read Moz’s keywords research tutorial. Even though it’s for SEO, it also makes sense for Instagram marketing.
Another important thing you must do to give your post the opportunity to display when someone searches your targeted keywords is to add the appropriate Hashtags whenever you want to publish a new one. You can regard Hashtags as categories of an e-commerce site. Your audience may find your post if you use the right Hashtags. There are a lot of Hashtags guides on the Internet, feel free to check any one of them. For example, Later.com has a complete guide for Instagram Hashtags in 2021.
3. Continuously Post Shareable Useful Information, Not Your Daily Life
Showing your followers what you have experienced during the day is the biggest mistake a lot of people have made. You may argue that social media platform exists for people to show everything in their lives. Yes, that’s right, but that’s for common people, or for superstars.
If you want to build your own brand on Instagram, you can’t do that. Nobody cares what you will have for lunch, who you will hang out with this weekend, or where your next sightseeing will be. They follow you for what they want, maybe how to sing in the right way, how to lose weight quickly, the commonly used hotkeys of Adobe Photoshop, or how to get 1k followers on Instagram in 5 minutes like this post.
The informative content is very popular among all types of posts. Share your subscribers a guide, a tip, skill, or whatever everything you can share to make them loyal to your account. If they find a solution in your post, they can share your post with their friends. Thus, you will get more Instagram followers free of charge.
The last important thing you need to keep in your mind in this section is that never stop publishing content. You will begin to lose followers if you stop posting. Your audience will think you are not focusing on your niche, and your tips may be outdated. At the same time, Instagram may think you are becoming inactive.
Once the number of your followers drops, the platform might reduce the authority of your account. Your profile stands no chance to show when someone searches for something related to your niche. Even Vanessa Lau, a famous social media expert, has lost a lot of followers because of the blank period. You can check this Youtube video to know what happened to her Instagram account after she stopped posting on Instagram for 30 days.
4. Engage With Your Followers
The engagement rate plays an important role in the Instagram algorithm. Like I mentioned at the beginning, Instagram cares about its users, so you need to give your followers a response by discussing further with them a topic, or answering their questions.
But you shall start the conversation first, which means always put call-to-action content in the right place of your post. Ask your followers to like your post, or leave a comment, or tell you what they think, then you get the opportunity to engage with them. And the earlier you reply to them, the better.
Talking to your followers can not only improve your account ranking but also help you to know more about your audience. You get more content creating ideas from your followers. And you can adjust your content strategy if you find your fans are not very happy with some of your posts, so always engage with your followers early.
5. Use Instagram Reels
There is no denying that short videos are becoming more and more popular. Inspired by TikTok, Instagram Reels is now attracting people’s attention. Several years ago, people told you that you shall make full use of Instagram Stories for your business when it’s new. And now it’s the best time for you to try videos. You have fewer competitors because Instagram Reels is new. The earlier, the better.
Compared with texts and photos, videos can contain more information intuitively. And it’s easier for ordinary people to show themselves, so more people will join Instagram, which means you get a new opportunity to get more Instagram followers. Wait no longer to get started with Instagram Reels. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
6. Instagram Followers Apps
A guide for increasing Instagram followers will not be complete without talking about the Instagram followers apps. Where there is the need to boost Instagram account, there is a tool for increasing followers or likes.
There are a lot of arguments when it comes to an Instagram auto tool. Someone thinks these tools can save your time. Others say it’s against Instagram terms. Tons of people who tried this kind of service always complain that they only get fake followers or likes.
However, as of 2021, an Instagram followers app like GetInsta, an Instagram auto liker without login like Followers Gallery claims that they only drive real free followers to their users’ accounts. These applications are based on a coin system. You get coins when you follow other Instagrammers or like their posts. And the coins can be exchanged for followers and likes for your own account. That’s the way they make free possible, and how they make 100% real followers possible.
Using this kind of service or not, you still need to focus on the needs of your audience and keep publishing high-quality content.
Conclusion
Hope you can have a deep understanding of how to play with Instagram after reading this article. If you have got every point, action now. Do everything for your followers and the platform, then they will give you more followers in return. Best wishes!
© 2023 The Havok Journal
The Havok Journal welcomes re-posting of our original content as long as it is done in compliance with our Terms of Use.