Instagram is a powerful marketing tool that helps brands of virtually any size and industry connect with your target audience. It’s popular, engaging, and offers plenty of scope for creativity. It is not easy to examine Instagram Following With Minimal Budget services.
But if you haven’t got a sizeable following, then all your great content and hard work will fall flat. To help you get there, read on for some essential tips that’ll build you a solid Instagram following without breaking the bank.
Instagram is the perfect place to market your new mobile app. Check out this guide for more tips on promoting your mobile app on social media.
Give people more of what they want
What really draws followers to your Instagram account in their droves is excellent, visually-appealing content. It’s easy to forget that Instagram is built on attractive, engaging visuals, and it’s why people visit the platform every day.
Consequently, if you want more followers on Instagram, you simply need to give people what they want. But to do this right, you need to really understand your target audience and identify what they want.
Start with some market research. You could invest in a costly research tool, but if you’re on a budget, simply check out your competition. Trawl your competitors’ feed and see what kind of content they post, what is effective, what gets the most comments, and so on. Take inspiration from the best content for your own Instagram feed.
Your Instagram analytics are also an affordable but effective way to understand what resonates with your target audience. These are built into your Instagram, so you don’t need to pay extra for it.
See what kind of content your existing followers engage with most and pick apart exactly why they like it. You can then use this to fine-tune your Instagram content strategy further down the line.
Don’t underestimate the power of a good hashtag strategy
One of the most reliable ways to build a following on Instagram is with hashtags. Hashtags are what connect every piece of content on Instagram together. They form a web through which users can find the photos, videos, and accounts that they want to see.
Consequently, hashtags are the foundation of an Instagram growth strategy. But if you really want to get the most out of your hashtags, they should be diverse and relevant. This means you need to conduct some thorough hashtag research.
A haphazard approach to your hashtags wastes your time and resources. Instead, use a hashtag research tool such as RiteTag to find hashtags that relate to your target keywords.
For example, let’s say you’re a smartphone review site. #Smartphonereview is relevant, but it’s quite broad. But including a hashtag like #iphonexreview gets you seen by people specifically looking for reviews of the iPhone X.
Include a mix of both generic ones (e.g. #smartphonereview) and specific (e.g. #iphonexreview). This increases your visits from relevant users who are looking for your content on Instagram.
Finally, aim for between 9 and 11 hashtags per post. This optimizes your post for the most engagement.
UGC is content made by your followers, for your followers
If you want more followers, you need to create great content that keeps people coming back for more. But Instagram plays host to billions of photos and videos. It’s a crowded space, and consequently, it’s a struggle getting your content seen above the rest.
It takes time and effort to create stellar content that is aesthetically-pleasing and engaging. So why not get your existing audience to do it instead?
User-generated content (UGC) is a quick, easy, and affordable way to fill your Instagram calendar.
What makes UGC so useful for building a following on a budget is that it’s genuine. People react to content that feels authentic. It creates a connection between yourself and your followers that feels genuine, which in turn encourages them to click that follow button.
UGC is relatively easy to source as well. Contests are the best way to achieve this. Encourage your existing followers to share photos based around a certain theme, tagging your profile in order to enter. Select the best entries and share them on your feed, tagging the entrant to nurture that relationship a little more.
As well as providing you with some valuable user-generated content, this also raises awareness of your brand to the entrant’s followers too.
Host an engaging Stories contest for quick growth
Instagram has no shortage of engaging tricks and tools such as Pikdo to attract followers to your account and keep existing ones locked in. But the most impressive and creative feature Instagram has to offer is easily Stories.
Instagram Stories are short images or clips that stay on your feed for 24 hours — after that, they’re gone. This offers you plenty of creative scope for showcasing your brand personality.
A regularly updated Story keeps your Instagram account in the Story feed of your followers, simultaneously ensuring you stay at the forefront of their minds too. Plus, due to the ephemeral nature of Stories, you can quickly increase your follower count within the space of 24 hours.
Your Story can be jazzed up with a number of interesting Stickers, such as gifs, locations, hashtags, questions, and more. As well as letting you showcase dynamic content in a fresh way, these Stickers are also perfect for another growth strategy: contests.
Host regular competitions and giveaways on your Story, requiring people to tag their friends and follow to be in with a chance to win. The prize could be a product, a discount code, or anything else.
Keep it interesting by centering your contest around a relevant and engaging theme. For example, if you’re an eCommerce brand that sells activewear, you could ask people to submit their most unusual post-workout routine.
Don’t be afraid to get creative with your Story — a unique, memorable Story will keep people coming back to your account again and again.
Instagram is a great marketing channel that’s perfect for small businesses on a budget. If you’re struggling to increase your follower count, follow the tips above and you’ll soon see your audience grow and grow.
