How to increase number of followers on Instagram?

Yesterday I wrote about how to increase the number of followers on Instagram with the help of dark side, so today I’m going to write how to normally increase the number of followers and give you the methods I use.

When I read tips to increase the number of followers, they mostly looks like this:

• you need to have good content
• good profile picture
• put nice pictures
• good profile description
• use relevant hashtags
• put location on your images
• create lot of Instagram stories and be crazy

Frankly, this is all bullshit. These are no tips for increasing the number of followers, but basic tips for running Instagram channels that should attract followers, and all the tips are good, but have no connection with a direct attack on the target, and the target is to bring new followers.

I want to make a guide that will help you to bring new followers.

I will pass on all the knowledge I have and what I use, but before you continue to read, consider that these things take away a lot of time and if you can not delegate it to anyone but you are doing it yourself, organize time to create time for these activities.

1. Follow/unfollow

This is the technique used by 99% of the profiles, and it’s about following other profiles in the hope that they will follow you back- very easy. You can find profiles by hashtags, you can take profiles that liked posts of your competitors, you can take profiles that are tagged at any location – it all depends on what you’re targeting.

If you do a little bit more, you can do the the follow – like – like technique where after you follow them leave two likes on their photos, they will get a notification that the user has liked two pictures and followed them, so there are good chances they will follow you back.

If you want to further increase the chances of getting your profile followed back and leave the best possible impression, then leave them a comment on one of the images but do not copy / paste the generic comments, but write it over again, comment on that picture, express the general impression on the channel, tell them that you will be glad if they come to your channel, they may find something for themselves.

Never beg them to follow you back.

Some people will follow you back, some people won’t, and after a while the number of people you will follow will increase. You do not want to have too many in the following because anyone who is more experienced will se what you are doing and I believe that you want to avoid it.

No one is following 1,500 profiles, imagine a news feed of 1,500 profiles (I know, the algorithm is there and filter those with whom you have the most connection). You need to remove those you follow, and they don’t follow you, unless these channels are of importance to you.

Tim Ferris doesn’t follow me, but is important channel for me.

Here you will most benefit from the Unfollowers application that shows you who has stopped following you and, among other things, the ability to stop following 20 people with one click. I suggest that you don’t do follow / unfollow activities too often in the day sp that Instagram does not mark you as an automation program and ban you, but if you follow around 100 people through the day (not within 15 minutes) and to run as much throughout the day should not create problems but not can guarantee nothing, so take these numbers with caution.

This method will work if you have good content to keep these profiles, otherwise you will be cleaned manually or using the application listed above. It seemed to me that the profiles has removed me within three days because my content was not interesting, not the figure to be taken for granted but almost my experience.

2. Profiles active in the top post section

This is the way that takes far more time, but it gives significantly better results, and below I describe the steps:

• pick one hashtags and look at his top post section
• look at every single post in top post and people who left a relevant comment
• follow those people, leave them a comment and like their pictures

Why those people?

What do we know about those profiles? We know three things:

• they are active Instagram users
• they take time to leave a relevant comment
• they are interested in that specific topic

If we apply that knowledge, we realize that we have come to the golden mine of the user profile we want – the one who will make intereaction on our posts, of course if the content is bad they won’t, but since they are already doing, there are great chances to work for us as well.

What I have recently discovered is a variety of make-up bloggers profiles that count over 10,000 followers and their posts are full of comments from other women who praise them, they have incredibly good and active fan base base and doing a great job. For every profile I encountered at one blog post I left like on a couple of pictures, commented on them and followed them.

3 out of 10 followed back, but I have not unfollowed the rest yet, I’m going to leave couple more comments and likes, as soon as they post something about the food or the area I consider relevant to give advice, I am going to provide a value that will be good enough for them to trigger the follow back button.

NOTE: Do not select the most popular hash tags (#love, #fitness, #nature) because mostly automation programs comment there and you will not find anything relevant. Choose specific hashtags with a small number of posts, local hashtags where you’ll find more relevant comments.

3. Sending DM messages

This is the most personalized access to all of the above, and it’s about sending DM to the potential follower (direct message, Instagram Inbox) and tell what you think about their channel, comment a couple of photos, tell her that you are following her/him now, and inform her/him about your channel and what are you doing. Simply in that comment you MUST give value and show that you care about them and their work. You can not lie to such things. Gary Vaynerchuk has promoted this method and I can say that it works pretty well.

Look for potential profiles on the same way, here are some methods that were good for me:

• people who tagged a location in their posts
• people who left relevant hashtags in their posts
• people that are commenting on top posts

What is the conclusion of the whole story?

I believe that you are now a little clear why lot of people decide on the dark side of Instagram, these things take a lot of time, but they give good results. I hope these free tips will be helpful and you will be able to apply them.

Keep in mind that there are certainly more tactics that you can use to attract new followers, but one thing is common – give them a reason to follow you!

If you have any questions about marketing on social networks, you need advice about a specific situation, please let me know at mirko@different.hr – the answer will take only a few minutes for me and for you it may be of a great help!

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