10 tips for growing your Instagram following
Want to hit your first 1,000 followers on Instagram? This is the secret formula to growing your Insta following without resorting to buying them or paying for advertising!
The rise of social media advertising means that bloggers now have more opportunities to make money from content they create.
Brands love seeing their products or services featured by influencers on Instagram.
It enables them to use real people, who have a loyal following, in order to reach their target customers.
When it comes to product advertising, everyone knows that word of mouth is just as powerful, if not more so, than an advert.
Influencers have built a relationship with their audience, who feel they can relate to that person and most importantly that they trust them.
By using influencers to market their products, brands know that it’s almost akin to a friend making a recommendation.
People with around 10,000 followers can expect to make roughly £200 per post. Those with 30,000 or more may earn £750 per post.
If you have a highly engaged following, this could be a whole lot more.
You may have got into the blogging game because you want to be a blogger with a website, but if you want to expand your potential for making money then you need an Instagram account.
Having an Instagram account tied in with your blog provides you with another selling point to offer brands who may be interested in working with you.
When I work with brands through my website The Mummy Bubble, I often negotiate package deals where they will get a blog post, Instagram post and posts to Twitter and Facebook too.
By doing this I can charge more for the work. Having Instagram makes what I have to offer more appealing to brands, who like the idea of getting a cross-platform marketing opportunity.
But it’s not just about getting sponsored work. Instagram can also be a place to connect with potential customers if you have products to sell.
Or it can be a place to drive web traffic from if you make money from advertising on your website.
In order to sell your products via Instagram, you first need to build a loyal following who will trust you and therefore be happy to purchase from you.
So we’re going to talk about getting your Instagram profile set up for success, and how to grow your Instagram following so that you can get brand work, or sell your products, on your Insta account.
1. Write a great bio
First of all, get your profile to sparkle.
Choose a handle that fits in with the branding on your blog, so using your blog name works best. Having said that I’m a little bit of a hypocrite here because my Insta handle is my name, not my blog name.
I made this decision because I knew eventually my Insta would be for promoting more than one website. Remember, whatever handle you do choose, you can always change it somewhere down the line.
You can put your actual name in your profile so people know who you are. Use a profile picture of yourself that’s clear so people can see you.
Your profile photo should say something about who you are and your personality.
If you will be using particular colours on your Instagram grid of pictures, then try to use these colours in your profile photo.
When writing your bio, you have just 150 characters of space. That’s not a lot to really summarise who you are and what you have to offer!
Try to be clear, witty and fun in your description. Explain what you have to offer, so that when people land on your profile they can clearly understand what you’re all about.
Summarise what type of content you create and the areas in which you can offer help to people.
Here are a couple of fab bio examples.
2. Engage
The first rule of Instagram is to engage, engage, engage.
You cannot just expect to drop a photo and see the likes and comments roll in. It doesn’t work that way, unless you’re very famous!
Find similar instagrammers who are in your niche, sharing similar content to you, and follow them. Like their pictures when they post and leave a thoughtful comment that shows you have read their caption. Don’t just drop an emoji. Make your comment at least five words, preferably more.
The people who pull in the most engagement tend to be those who leave a really long comment that shows they have actually read the person’s caption and are responding properly to it. It’s those people that grab attention, and are therefore more likely to receive engagement back in return.
Be sure to watch people’s Insta stories, and engage with those. Leave a comment or ask a question. By getting people’s attention here, you’re more likely to pick up new followers.
So many people these days follow and then immediately unfollow on Instagram in a bid to grow their following. It’s annoying and means that many people now won’t automatically follow you back just because you followed them. They want to see you have committed to being their follower!
So if you do follow someone, be sure to show them you’re a good follower and engage with their content.
If you want to grow your Instagram following fast, then you will need to spending at least an hour a day engaging.
You also need to be engaging on your own content. Reply to every comment on your photos. The people who do this best are those who strike up a conversation in those comments. This leads to more comments on your post, which sends a signal to Instagram that it’s an engaging post that needs to be shared with more people.
When it comes to engagement, it’s particularly good to support other influencers’ adverts. Leave a comment and if it’s a competition, why not share it to your stories too? It’s always good to support each other’s work, plus brands do look at comments to spot other potential influencers to work with.
3. Pick a style
What’s your photo style? This is a tricky one to find if you are not particularly handy with a camera.
I certainly wasn’t in the beginning but my photography is a lot better than it used to be, although I’m by no means an expert.
Some people pick one or two colours to focus on in their grid, such as pink or blue.
Others have a particular theme such as books or flowers.
There are some Instagram profiles, such as Sienna and I, which use Photoshop to produce amazing, dream-like photos. This is the type of thing you can play around with if it interests you.
Little Paper Swan has some lovely tips for using Photoshop to get creative with your images over on her profile.
While Instagram is a visual platform first, that’s not to say that you can’t get anywhere without beautiful, insta-perfect photos.
There are plenty of accounts that keep it totally real and have grown huge followings that make them a full-time income. Brummy Mummy of 2 is one example.
These people generally are really hot on their caption writing. They write funny, engaging and relatable content that people love to read and share.
You’ll need to think about the overall look of your grid, and so it can help to have a planning app on your phone which lets you lay out your pics you plan to post.
When planning your grid, it can help to alternate between light and then dark photos, to give your grid balance. Some people choose to post a photo, then a text image of a quote.
Your style is likely to evolve over time, so the best thing to do is just get started and use Instagram regularly so you get a feel for the style you like best, and what reflects your brand best.
Over time you should develop a style that’s unique to you, so that when people see one of your images they automatically know it’s one of yours just by glancing at it.
You can find help and inspiration for taking Insta photos from creative Insta accounts such as Little Paper Swan, whose beautiful grid is one of my absolute favourites. She makes her own presets, which you can use in the Lightroom app to edit your photos, plus shares tips for editing your photos for Instagram.
Me & Orla offers a Instagram Retreat course sharing her secrets to Insta success. However she also offers free help for those who sign up to her mailing list, which is well worth a look.
4. Write interesting captions
Captions are just as important as the actual image!
You want to give your followers something that is helpful, or inspiring, that keeps them coming back to you.
Try to provide a tip, or a little insight into what you have been up to that relates to your blog niche.
For example, author and parenting expert Sarah Ockwell-Smith uses her Instagram grid to answer audience questions about parenting issues such as newborn or toddler sleep.
It can really help to ask a question in the caption in order to spark engagement in the comments of the post.
If your style suits it, then sprinkle in some emojis to your caption to break it up a little.
5. Research hashtags
Using hashtags is a great way to connect with fellow bloggers and get your content seen by a wider audience other than just your followers.
You can add up to 30 hashtags to a post, but many people tend to stick to around 10 hashtags.
It’s important that you research hashtags and have a long list of different ones to use, so that you are not using exactly the same group of hashtags for every post. This is generally thought to not do well with the Instagram algorithm.
Try to avoid hashtags with more than a million posts, as you will find it tricky to be seen amidst all the others.
Aim for a hashtag with around 10,000 posts or more.
When you use a hashtag, try to click in to it and engage with some other posts also using this hashtag. It’s a great way to gain new followers and meet like-minded bloggers.
6. Join in with communities
One of the best things about Instagram is the sense of community you can forge on there.
There are influencers who have started hashtags which have a loyal following.
Which community hashtag you join in with really depends on your niche.
My good friend Claire at The Pramshed focuses on interiors and lifestyle on her Instagram feed, where she shares pictures of her renovation of her home. She has her own hashtag community, which she runs with a group of fellow interiors Instagrammers, called #myspaceanddecor.
In fashion, there are several weekly hashtag communities such as #whatmamaworemonday which was founded by Hey It’s Romeca.
There’s also #fashtagfriday which is run by a group of lifestyle and fashion bloggers including Shell and the Littlies.
Once you have spent a little time on the platform and looked at other Instagrammers within your niche, you will get a sense for the popular communities and you can start to join in.
Getting involved with these communities is a great way to get your content shared, and seen by a wider audience.
Remember, it’s about more than just using the hashtag in your caption, you also need to be engaging with the host or hosts’ content as well as other members of the community.
7. Use the location tag
You never know who may discover your images through a simple browse of the geo-tag feature. So try to remember to add in the tag when you upload a new image.
It can be especially helpful to do this when you visit somewhere new, as well as your local area, as you never know who may stumble upon your account in this way.
The same goes for your Insta stories. Remember to add the geo-tag to your stories so that other people may discover you. You can pick up followers in this way.
8. Create amazing stories
I would say these days that Instagram stories are as important, if not more so, than what you post on your actual grid.
Instagram stories are where you can share your daily thoughts, extra tips, insights and really connect with your audience.
The famous Sophie Hinchliffe, who grew to 3M followers on Instagram in just over a year, had hardly any posts on her Instagram grid at @MrsHinchHome. But she uploaded more than 20 Insta stories a day, which is where her following grew.
People loved watching her clean her house every day, picking up tips and enjoying her humour.
Stories are a really great opportunity to show your personality, and really help your audience.
Some tips for making engaging Instagram stories include:
- Use an app such as Unfold to make beautiful images and collages. There are some stunning effects on this app, such as polaroid and scrapbook type effects.
- Use filters which can add a nostalgic-type haze to your stories if this fits in with your niche.
- Add gifs for humour and to catch people’s interest.
- Caption your stories if you are speaking. This makes them accessible to those who are deaf, or who are listening without the sound on while trying to feed a baby in the middle of the night.
- Share a little insight into your every day. Where do you go, what do you cook, what do you think about something? Try to share things that will spark a conversation with your followers and create engagement in your DMs.
- Use polls and interactive story features. You can add a poll or a reaction slider so that your followers can engage more with your stories.
9. Speak to the camera
There are some very successful Instagrammers who rarely show their face on their stories.
But in general people like to see you and hear you speak.
If you’re feeling nervous at the prospect of speaking to the camera, remember you can do a few dry runs first. You don’t have to post what you have recorded right away.
Try to think about what you want to say first.
The more you speak to the camera, the easier it will become.
And once again, as I said above, please caption what you say. It makes your stories more accessible for all. People genuinely appreciate it if you do caption!
10. Do not buy followers
Rome was not built in a day, and your Instagram success can not be built in one either.
So in this section we’re going to take a look at the ways in which you can artificially grow your account, and the problems with doing so:
Paid-for followers
Bought followers are so obvious. The accounts tend to have very odd names, no posts and just look dodgy. You can spot them from a mile away, and so can brands!
It might be tempting to try to cut corners, because growing on Instagram is a massive effort. But just don’t do it!
These followers will never engage with your account and so it will be clear from the low number of likes on your posts relative to your following number that you have paid for followers.
Go for real followers who actually want to follow you! It’s way better to have an engaged and loyal following than a huge number that never interacts on your pictures.
Pods
Pods are groups of like-minded Instagrammers who gather in a group chat, usually in Instagram’s own messaging area, and like and comment on each other’s posts.
You’ll often form friendships in this group and it’s nice to have fellow bloggers to chat to.
While some people claim these pods are frowned on by Instagram, I’ve never experienced an issue with them and I know of many big bloggers who use them.
Like-for-like threads on Facebook
A level up from this type of like-for-like community is the Facebook like groups for Instagram. In these groups there tend to be daily threads where you drop a link to your latest Instagram post then everyone in the same thread must like your post, and you must like theirs.
Some of the threads can gain you 300+ likes in a matter of minutes.
There are several successful UK bloggers who use these type of groups. I have used them in the past.
The trouble with them can be that Instagram can temporarily ban activity on your account if it sees you spamming likes.
The other problem is that in many of these Facebook groups there are a large number of users from America or elsewhere around the globe. While many brands may not mind global exposure, some may prefer to see that the majority of your following and engagement is from UK based accounts.
But I don’t see using these type of forums hurting the bloggers who I know use them. They continue to get a lot of work with very large brands.
So if you choose to use them, that’s totally up to you. But be aware that they do not count as “authentic” engagement and one day it is possible Instagram will make a leap to really crack down on this type of activity.
At all times, it’s best to strive for authentic followers who want to engage with your account.
Follow loops
One way influencers try to grow their following is through follow loops, which normally involve you posting a photo created by the follow loop host to your grid then agreeing to follow a large number of accounts in exchange for follows back.
The trouble with this is, even if people promise to follow and stick with you, they don’t have to do this and may well cut you from their list within a matter of days.
Another issue is, they may not engage with your content at all. In this case, they can really hurt your engagement rate – which is the percentage of followers who engage with your posts – which doesn’t look great to brands.
Final thoughts on making money on Instagram
Growing an engaged, and large, following on Instagram does not happen overnight.
It takes time, a lot of engagement and real investment in the platform.
You do not have to have 100,000 followers to make your first quid on Instagram. But brands do tend to favour the influencers with 10,000 followers or more.
Having said that, there is plenty of work out there for micro-influencers who have a smaller but engaged following.
I had my first paid Instagram work at just 2,000 followers. So honestly, you do not need to have thousands and thousands of followers to make money on Instagram.
Having said that, it’s highly unlikely that Instagram will become a full-time income for you on its own in a matter of months.
This is why, if you want to make a living from blogging or your business online, that I thoroughly recommend you see Instagram as one strand of what you’re doing to make money.
Put yourself out there on as many platforms as you can, trying to grow authentically from day one.
If you want to sell your products on Instagram, try to remember to not constantly sell to your followers. Offer them free, interesting content that ties in with the products you are selling, and this will ultimately lead to more followers, who are also engaged with what you are doing, and therefore more sales.
Growing your following on Instagram can feel like a real slog, but it’s well worth it in terms of money-making potential for your brand.
PS. Don’t forget to follow me! @byvickysmith
