The Ultimate Guide to Building a Genuine and Engaged Instagram Following

Developing an engaged following is getting more challenging on Instagram with millions of creators and millions of posts. Valuable Instagram followers are people actively running their Instagram accounts and engaging with your account.

Many users are prioritizing third-party apps or services and/or bots to increase their follower count and the size of their accounts via automatic engagement. This is not the right way because these apps or services can result in gaining poor-quality and fake followers which the algorithm and the audience can easily notice.

It can lead to limitations to your profile’s success, reputation damage, and get your account penalized or entirely deleted. Moreover, these tips increase follower count for a short time. So, it’s good to opt for proven strategies that can increase your followers organically and boost engagement to unprecedented levels.

This post will provide a complete step-by-step guide on how to grow a genuine and loyal followership on Instagram.

Understand your plan in marketing on Instagram.

In order to achieve success on Instagram, one needs to have a plan and a reasonable first target. Your goal may not be to develop a burgeoning Insta-following, but your purpose has to be part of a greater plan that links your business plan and social marketing strategy.

The first thing that one needs to find out is the reasons why they want to have more followers. For instance, you may desire followers to enhance your brand’s visibility, drive website traffic, or enhance sales. Defining your business-oriented goals will help you to keep your account cogent and expanding. It can also assist you in building an engaging narrative about your brand-new visitors and building your audience base.

Find your Target Audience, their Habits, and Preferences.

Before moving on to what kind of content, it is necessary to determine what kind of users you will address and what exactly you want them to do. To identify your audience, one needs to pose some key questions including; who the potential audience is, where they are located, the time and how they use the app, and the kind of content that they seek in their Instagram. Based on the answers to these questions, you can create meaningful and valuable content that will keep your users engaged for the long run. 

Generate quality content.

When it comes to gaining more followers on Instagram, creating a stunning Instagram grid is important. Make sure that every post on your grid is visually appealing and features the best quality. When any new person visits your Instagram account, your post must persuade them to see more and click the follow button on your profile.

A long, catchy, and informative caption can provide you with more reach and increase engagement. When you create captions, put the important words or a sentence in the first line and ask a question to make the audience leave a comment. Try different caption lengths and use emojis to make your caption concise and enticing. Make sure the content you are creating must be shareable.

Schedule your posts.

To let your content be easily discovered by the target audience and drive more engagement, it is important to schedule your posts consistently. Regular posting at peak times can gain more reach. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the best days to upload your content on Instagram.

Try to post content between 11 AM and 2 PM on weekdays and 10 AM on weekends. Sunday or weekends are the least right time to post on Instagram because users generally remain busy during weekends. Remember that the peak posting time is based on the audience and their habits. So, it is good to find the right time through AB testing.

Embrace Instagram reels and stories.

Reels or short-form videos are becoming popular on Instagram just like TikTok to grow organically and quickly. This form of content can be shared on Instagram to provide engaging and inspiring information. Reels are presented vertically on a scrollable feed and can be posted as Instagram stories or regular feed posts.

Instagram reels can last up to 90 seconds so create reels of only a few seconds. Add entertaining transitions, close captions, and trending sounds in your reels or remix other reels. You can also repurpose your existing video clips or stories.

Alongside Instagram reels, you can embrace stories to gain more followers. Around half a billion accounts on Instagram use stories daily and about 45% of most-explored stories are from business accounts. Use location features and relevant hashtags in your stories to present them in front of people who are not connected to you. Turn your stories into story highlights to let them last for more than 24 hours.  

Cross-promote your Instagram account on several social media channels.

Sharing your Instagram account on your other social media channels can be the best trick to drive Instagram free followers naturally while developing a solid connection with the audience. To get started, you can share your content or simply redirect your existing followers from other platforms to your Instagram profile. For example, you can add links to your Instagram profile in the About Us section of your Facebook page. 

Collaborate on Instagram reels and Feed Posts.

On Instagram, you can create content with other profiles and upload it at the same time on both feeds with the same tags, hashtags, and captions. This is the proven strategy to appear in front of the potential audience. Find and interact with an account in your niche with an identical audience as yours and generate content together. With this sort of content, when you engage relevant influencers, it is likely to attract several genuine followers.

Instagram challenges

Instagram challenges are effective in helping you realize a substantial increase in your followers. As you have noticed, there are numerous approaches to create an incredibly wide campaign, yet, the primary goal is to develop a contest that will prompt your audience to create great content; the winner will receive some brilliant products or services with no charge. It is also it is possible to produce product promotional videos, product photos, etc, collect a dedicated customer base, and more followers.