How to Get Followers on Instagram: From 0 to 10k Followers
#1. Join Instagram Engagement Groups
Some Instagram influencers who are just starting out have seen their Instagram followers increase fast. What did they do differently? They joined engagement groups.
While it can be tempting to join the biggest Instagram engagement groups, truth is you’ll get a more targeted list of followers by sticking to your niche. You can find engagement groups for travel, beauty, fashion and more.
In these groups, you can get followers and likes from people who have shared interests. But if you’re serious about getting the attention, you should also return the favor by following fan pages for people who join the group.
I’ve had friends get 2,000 new followers in only a couple weeks using this strategy.
While it might not help with immediate sales, it helps you gain credibility early on so your Instagram page doesn’t show that you only have 38 followers. This is more of a short-term strategy for your first few weeks on Instagram not a long-term one for getting Instagram followers.
#2. Repost Others’ Content
When I was building my store’s Instagram account, my entire posting strategy revolved around reposting other people’s content. The only way to do this without getting flagged is to credit the original poster in your description, every time.
When I first started, I’d take screenshots and add the pictures onto my Instagram. What really helped my page take off was when I bought the Repost app. It allowed me to start reposting video content on Instagram. One of the biggest home runs I had was when I re-posted a video that amassed 52,862 views, got 1264 comments and 9,147 likes. At the time, I didn’t even have 10,000 followers so this was a big freaking deal.
Why’d I repost other people’s content instead of posting my own?
Because I knew that it was easier to repost content and that my visual and video content would never be as good as someone else’s. Hey, at least I’m honest about it!
How did I know what to repost? I’d look at the numbers.
I was pretty active on Instagram so I’d browse the list of hashtags I came up with and used daily to find the top performing posts that weren’t posted by other fan pages (so not my competitors) but by individual people. I’d then watch the videos and look at the pictures to see which ones I had the biggest reactions to. If I felt the urge to share someone else’s post, I knew I had to repost it onto my page.
#3. Get your Instagram Account Promoted on Buzzfeed
To get that Instagram followers boost, you need to find a way to tap into a massive audience. And no one embeds Instagram posts into their content as much as Buzzfeed.
A Buzzfeed staff member wrote an article about how she grew her personal brand as an Instagram influencer. She currently has almost 6,000 followers but the article she wrote on the platform might’ve helped. Buzzfeed does have a Community section where anyone can post their own content onto their platform, though you’ll need to follow their guidelines to build trust and to get visibility.
Is Buzzfeed not right for your niche? That’s cool. You can also use a tool called HAROwhere you get emails three times a day filled with requests from reporters who are looking to get content and expert quotes for their stories. Most allow a website link and social links. So you can hit two birds with one stone by getting a link to your store and Instagram account.
#4. Ask Customers to Share their Photos
When you’re just starting out, getting followers on Instagram will be a lot easier with customer photos in your feed. Why? It can help increase social proof.
If you’ve never had a customer before, reach out to influencers in your niche with under 5,000 followers. I know the number seems low but influencers with few followers want to monetize their accounts and will be willing to take pictures with your products at a much lower rate. You can also offer them an affiliate deal where they’ll get a commission for every sale they score with their customer referral link.
If you’ve already had a couple of sales, reach out to customers and offer a free gift or cash incentive for taking quality images with the product they purchased. Offering incentives isn’t going to be your long-term strategy but for the short-term while you try to build your brand, this can help you grow.
As more customers start seeing customer photos on your Instagram, they’ll naturally start tagging you in posts when they receive their products. If you comment on their post, repost the content and follow them you’ll likely get them to follow back. Though some will follow you after tagging you in their post on their own.
#5. Have a consistent style that hooks people in
I know this sounds like one of those ‘blah, blah, blah’ ways to gain followers on Instagram. But it isn’t. Here’s why: people don’t follow you because of the content you’ve posted but because of what they think the future content you’ll post will be like.
Say you have a corgi fan page, every day you post cute corgi pictures and videos without fail. If Instagram users keep seeing your posts eventually they’ll realize that you always post the cutest corgi content. So they follow you with the expectation that your account will always be more of the same type of content.
Having a consistent style or theme is more than just a branding play, it’s about creating an expectation for your Instagram account that your followers or potential followers can count on. They want to see more of the same type of content, every day.
If you can deliver that consistency with every post, you’ll grow your followers at a faster rate over time.
