How To Grow Instagram Followers Organically

In the world of social media marketing, everyone wants to know how to grow their Instagram followers organically. While there’s no secret recipe to success — marketers have all kinds of tools and tricks to build a strong following.

The key is to know what makes your audience tick so you can boost engagement repeatedly. Once you understand what interests your followers, you can keep growing organically by following these tips below!

1. Build a Community Around Your Brand

Small businesses should aim to build a community around their brand for several reasons. First, it provides you with long-term success. Investing in an online community means making your followers feel part of something. It allows you to build meaningful connections and keeps followers engaged, as they’ll want to return for more.

To build a community around your brand on Instagram, start by creating content that your audience will love. In general, people love posts from brands that make their content personal. Putting a touch of the emotional side of your brand on Instagram humanizes you and can create a deeper connection with people who resonate.

Another way to create a community is by going live on Instagram and interacting with people who watch. It’s a great way to show the authenticity of your brand — and the more you go live, the more you learn about your audience. Live–streaming allows you to provide entertainment, and there are plenty of ways to keep viewers engaged.

For instance, you could share tips, have Q&A sessions, offer quick updates or go behind the scenes.

2. Provide Value to Your Audience

A surefire way to grow Instagram followers organically is through the value you provide them. Of course, quality visuals and copy matter. Plus, there are other aspects of an Instagram marketing strategy that create an effect. However, none of that matters unless you’re creating content that gives your audience something they can take with them.

To create content that provides value, consider how to create content that serves your audience. What type of content can you post that helps your audience get better results? If you understand the problems that your followers are running into, try to post content that solves their problems.

A great example to follow is Earth Breeze — an eco-friendly laundry detergent company that solves customers’ problems with sustainable laundry hacks. The company has over 200K followers because its customers find how valuable its content is on Instagram.

While the company focuses on selling laundry sheets, the brand shares daily posts and videos about using its product effectively and getting clean laundry every cycle.

3. Post at the Right Time

Posting at the right time on this platform is essential to gain maximum visibility and new followers. That’s why it’s crucial to post during peak hours. It boosts your engagement, so knowing when your followers are online and active is important.

While the best time to post on Instagram varies, you can learn which times offer the most potential by knowing when your audience is active. Do a deep dive into your Instagram Insights or a third-party analytics tool. Once you collect this information, you can schedule posts during those times and adjust accordingly to monitor your engagement rate.

4. Engage With Your Followers

Engaging with your followers is a key part of building a strong following on Instagram. It lets you connect with them and show them that you care. It also helps you build trust, crucial to establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

The most important thing to remember when engaging with Instagram followers is to be genuine. That way, they can pick up on what you offer them and learn more about how they feel about your brand. If you start by posting content that speaks to them, they’ll continue to follow you and engage with your posts.

Once you gain followers, consistently respond to their comments and messages. Doing so allows you to build rapport with them, and they’ll love that they’re gaining interaction with you.

Finally, ensure you’re commenting on your followers’ posts and keeping up with their content. When you comment on other users’ posts, you’re increasing your brand’s visibility. However, a one-word comment with a bunch of emojis won’t be as effective as something that has meaning and is interesting to share.

5. Use Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels are short clips that can last up to 90 seconds. You can use them to record videos, add music and group photos together. Reels are a great way to grow Instagram followers organically because they’re entertaining and allow you to boost visibility. In fact, these types of posts provide you with 22% higher engagement than long-form videos.

Plus, they showcase what makes your business unique and give people a taste of what they can expect if they follow you.

When using Instagram Reels, start creating ones that follow trendy posts. Find videos that are viral in your industry and use them for inspiration to create your own. Make sure you strategically use a few hashtags to boost exposure for your Reel. Also, consider using audio to add background music to the video.

Additionally, you can incorporate text overlays to add context or details about each Reel. Most of the time, users like to watch videos without sound. By adding text or subtitles, you can reach more people this way.

6. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are an incredibly important part of Instagram because they are the component of making content more visible and searchable. That way, people who haven’t discovered you can find your brand and follow you.

However, the key to using hashtags successfully is to incorporate ones relevant to your niche and currently trending. Start by researching hashtags and exploring which are pertinent to your niche by entering keywords in the search bar. Once you discover possible hashtags, you’ll want to incorporate ones with small to medium-sized postings.

For instance, using hashtags between 1,000 to 10,000 posts is ideal. While these are less popular, using them makes sense as they put you at the top of the search results. Next, consider using hashtags between 10,000 to 100,000 and 100,000 to 1,000,000. Anything you choose higher than that number will give you a lesser chance of exposure due to too many accounts using that hashtag.

Consider using tools like Hashtag Expert to help with your search. This mobile app lets you generate hashtags for your posts and customize which hashtags to use each time you post content.

7. Use Website Traffic to Grow Instagram Followers Organically

Another effective way to grow Instagram followers organically is by utilizing your website traffic. The great thing about this method is that it’s free because you’re going without spending money on ads or investing in other marketing. Essentially, you’re leveraging something you’ve built and turning it into an opportunity to grow your following quickly.

One step you can take to gain more followers on Instagram with your website is to add socials. Users can easily find your Instagram account when you link your socials to your site. You could also add social sharing buttons, so website users can share your content across social media and spread the word about your brand.

Another step to take is creating posts encouraging people to follow you on Instagram. Use a call-to-action in your blog posts, so people know what steps to take next once they read through your content.

Learn How to Grow Instagram Followers Organically

Growing Instagram followers organically takes time, but it’s easily doable if you take action and follow the right steps. As long as you’re posting consistently and being genuine on the platform, you give users a reason to engage with and follow you online. Hopefully, you’ve gained a deeper understanding of how to grow your Instagram followers, and you can implement these strategies to keep moving forward.