Viral Hacks on How To Increase Instagram Followers

Top Tips on How to Increase Followers on Instagram

1. Take Advantage of Your Bio

A warm and engaging bio is the first thing people see on your Instagram page. In a way, it's like a homepage of your brand. The bio gives people an idea about what your brand is all about. The bio should also include a link to your website or the latest content for easy accessibility. You can also add relevant hashtags to your bio to further pique visitors' interest. A good bio goes a long way.

2. Use Relevant Hashtags for Your Content

Hashtags can introduce your content to a brand new audience. Use branded hashtags (hashtags specific to your brand) or hashtags relevant to your target audience. The more relevant users find your hashtags, the more likely they are to follow your brand.

3. Collaborate with Niche Brands or Creators

Partnering with brands or creators in a similar niche can help you increase Instagram followers. Live sessions done together, mutual shoutouts, and even joint posts done in a way where all parties gain traction, can be great ways of collaboration. When aligned well, such partnerships bring genuine engagement and help grow your follower base with users who are likely to stay.

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4. Engage with Your Competitor’s Audience Smartly

If people are already engaging with the content from your competitors, they will likely take an interest in your content as well. Look at their posts that receive high numbers of likes and comments. Participate in the discussion by responding constructively, replying to questions, or providing insightful comments.

5. Pay for Sponsored Posts and Product Reviews

It is vital to find influencers operating within your industry. Having them advertise your content will expose it to a broader audience. Influencers with more than 20,000 subscribers and email addresses in their bio may be interested in collaborating with your brand. For unique products, you could send influencers a copy of the product to review and post.

6. Use Geotags for Local Discoverability

By tagging your location on your content or stories, people searching for that location can come across your content. It can help promote your business locally to the relevant audience. You can also contribute your posts and stories related to that location.

7. Use Instagram Stories

Instagram stories enable you to increase your followers and grow your user base. It can increase your brand's authenticity. It can also increase interactivity and give your users a behind-the-scenes look at your brand. You can endorse your blogs, your posts, and post relevant industry, and so on.

8. Highlight Important Stories

The highlight feature of stories will enable you to organize your stories to tell them what your brand is all about. Thanks to the short life of stories, highlights give your content a second life and encourage users to follow your brand. Being a kind of archive, stories can be categorized for easier use.

9. Ask For Followers

People may enjoy your content, but don't necessarily follow your brand yet. What they need is a small push. This can be done by asking users to follow you. You can also work these into your captions and in the comments section, thus urging people to follow and engage with your brand.

10. Stay Updated With Latest Trends

You can increase engagement and visibility by keeping in touch with popular trends. Align your content and hashtags with the relevant trends. However, make sure your content is presented in a meaningful way and is something that your audience might be interested in.

Fun Fact: Posts with at least one hashtag on Instagram average 12.6% more engagement than those without hashtags. 🚀📊 (Source: Sprinklr)

11. Run Contests and Giveaways

By running contests and giveaways, you can attract a higher number of people to your brand’s page. Some of the things you can do are: ask users to like, share, comment, use a specific hashtag, tag a friend, and so on.

12. Stay Consistent with Posts

Ensure your posts follow a consistent schedule, and follow a theme. You can schedule your posts to create an engaging theme and tell users a story you want to tell. Scheduling posts also ensures that you can come up with content in advance, rather than winging it. 

13. Keep Track of Your Instagram Followers

Ensure that you keep track of your growth (or the lack thereof). Data analytics from Instagram gives you insight on where your shortcomings are, and where there is scope to improve. You can also grow your brand, by identifying what works in the successful posts. 

14. Leverage Instagram Ads Strategically 

Instagram offers a unique advantage when it comes to advertising. By using Facebook's Ad Manager, you can easily create and manage Instagram ads that reach a targeted audience. These ads can be customized based on user interests, behaviors, demographics, and more, ensuring your content is shown to people most likely to engage. 

Whether it's through photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, or story ads, Instagram ads allow you to increase visibility and drive meaningful interactions with your brand.

15. Create Visually Attractive Ads

Your advertisements on Instagram cannot be successful unless they can catch user attention. Some of the things you can focus on include: 

• Using images that are natural and native to the platform
• Reducing the amount of text in ads
• Ensuring that your captions are relevant to the image and your audience
• Using hashtags to show your content to a larger audience

16. Use Tools to Automate and Optimize Performance

Tools that can assist you in this matter are post-scheduling tools, engagement-optimizing tools, performance-analysis tools, etc. Not only does this save you time, but it also allows you to get a clear analysis of how your audience engages with your content, helping you further refine your content strategy. They also help you pinpoint the best hashtags for your posts and increase visibility. 

Some of the most popular social media management tools, like Hootsuite, Later and Linktree all serve to make managing your presence on Instagram more efficient, as they help you stay on top of trends and engage with followers more effectively.

17. Develop Your Style

Create a visual style that will enable you to stand out in front of your audience. With this, you can create a unique style for your brand that users can recognize instantly. This style becomes a part of your brand identity, which in turn, boosts brand recall.

18. Use User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content (UGC) is content created by your followers or customers, such as photos, videos, or reviews, that feature your brand or products. Encouraging UGC can significantly boost your brand’s credibility because it shows real people using and enjoying your products. This form of content is more relatable and authentic, helping potential customers trust your brand more.

A beauty brand may request its customers to post videos of how they use their skincare products with a special hashtag. The brand can then feature these posts on their own page, highlighting satisfied customers. As an added bonus, the relationship with current followers is improved, while attracting new by utilising credibility through peer referrals.

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19. Use High-Quality Images and Videos

Images of the highest quality, that are original and authentic must be used. Ensuring this can help the users to develop a personal relationship with the images. Video content needs to be fun, concise, and informative to ensure that users don't lose interest. 

20. Promote Your Content on Other Social Media Channels

What's the point of your social media platforms if you don't use them? You can promote your Instagram profile on other social media platforms. Promoting your page at offline events like print ads and other events goes a long way.

21. Use Keywords to Appear in Searches

To improve discoverability, Instagram advises using appropriate keywords in post captions. It is due to a change in how search results are shown. Previously, search results included just relevant accounts, hashtags, and locations. The keyword results pages intended for browsing are now included in search results.

22. Design a Gorgeous Instagram Grid

Your grid is a chance to present your vibe or brand to someone following you for the first time or visiting your profile to look at your stuff. The grid creates the first impression for visitors and gives you a bird's-eye look at a user's posting history.

23. Experiment on Threads

Threads is an Instagram app that helps you reach a wider audience with text. You do not need to commit to it yet, but it will provide a way to keep your name out there. More people can discover your content as your Instagram and Threads accounts are connected. Now, with new features such as drafts, saves, and trends, it’s the perfect time to give it a shot and discover how it can work best for you.

24. Use the Pin Feature on Instagram

Instagram now lets you pin up to three posts at the top of your profile. This helps you highlight your best content, whether a popular reel, a product launch, or an important update, so it’s always the first thing visitors see when they land on your page.

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Get More Instagram Followers in 15 Steps

There is a method to give your audience an engaging, premium, and distinctive experience regardless of where you are in the process of increasing your Instagram following. Here are some steps you may take to broaden your reach and increase your Instagram followers.

Step 1: Decide what your Instagram account's overall goal is.

Step 2: Develop a well-thought-out Instagram content marketing strategy.

Step 3: Create your profile for the most engagement possible.

Step 4: Share photographs that catch people's attention.

Step 5: Include lengthy captions for your images in your post.

Step 6: To attract new users, utilize relevant hashtags.

Step 7: Plan out your stories and posting schedule.

Step 8: Find and follow your target audience.

Step 9: Follow 50 users each hour.

Step 10: Become an active community member.

Step 11: Collaborate with relevant users and engage in cross-promotion.

Step 12: Conduct challenges and competitions.

Step 13: Run Instagram advertisements.

Step 14: Connect your Instagram account to your offline clients.

Step 15: Continue to improve your performance by keeping track of what's working.

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Latest Trends In Instagram Marketing

Here are some of the latest trends on Instagram that can help you grow your followers in 2025.

• Content Creation with AI

Instagram has started adopting AI tools in its approach to simpler content creation. You can now create custom stickers, utilize AI to make a Reel, and even use AI when writing captions. These are streamlined solutions that help create great content quickly and enable users to build a connection with their audience and increase their followers with ease.

• Longer Carousels to Boost Engagement

Carousels (posts with multiple images) are more engaging, especially now that you can add up to 20 pictures. Longer carousels let you share more content, and trends like “photo dumps” make your posts feel more personal and real. This helps keep users interested and encourages them to follow you.

• Tell Engaging Stories with Longer Reels

You can create Reels up to 3 minutes on Instagram. This allows you to share more detailed stories or behind-the-scenes content. Using Longer Reels makes it easier to engage your audiences bringing more followers to you.

• Test Content Ideas with Trial Reels

With the Trial Reels feature, you can test content with people who don’t follow you before sharing it with everyone. This lets you see how well your content might do and make improvements. It’s a great way to experiment and figure out what your audience likes, helping you get more followers.

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Conclusion

Growing your Instagram following takes time, consistency, and genuine engagement. Remember, success on Instagram is not just about numbers, but about creating meaningful connections and offering value to your followers.

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FAQs

1. What are the most effective strategies for increasing Instagram followers?

There are many different strategies that can be used to increase Instagram followers, but some of the most effective include:

• Using relevant hashtags
• Posting high-quality content
• Engaging with other Instagram users
• Running contests and giveaways
• Using paid advertising

2. How do I choose the right hashtags for my Instagram posts?

When choosing hashtags for your Instagram posts, it is important to choose ones that are relevant to your niche and used by a large number of people. A hashtag generator can help you find relevant hashtags.

3. How do I create high-quality content for Instagram?

When creating high-quality content for Instagram, it is important to focus on creating visually appealing content relevant to your target audience. You should also ensure that your content is consistent with your brand identity.

4. How do I engage with other users on Instagram?

One of the best ways to engage with other users on Instagram is to comment on their posts and to like their photos. You can also follow other users interested in the same things as you.

5. How do I use Instagram Stories to increase my followers?

Instagram Stories are a great way to increase your followers because they are more engaging than regular posts. You can use Stories to share behind-the-scenes content, run contests and giveaways, and connect with your audience more personally.

7. How do I run contests and giveaways on Instagram?

Running contests and giveaways is a great way to increase your followers and to generate excitement around your brand. When running a contest or giveaway, ensure that the prizes are relevant to your target audience and that the rules are clear.

8. How do I use paid advertising on Instagram?

Paid advertising can be a great way to reach a wider audience and to increase your followers. When using paid advertising on Instagram, targeting your ads to the right people and tracking your results is important.

9. How do I track my Instagram growth?

There are a number of ways to track your Instagram growth. Instagram Insights can track your follower count, engagement rate, and other metrics. You can also use third-party tools to track your growth.

10. What are some common mistakes to avoid when trying to increase Instagram followers?

Some common mistakes to avoid when trying to increase Instagram followers include:

• Using irrelevant hashtags
• Posting low-quality content
• Not engaging with other users
• Buying followers
• Using spammy tactics like posting irrelevant or excessive comments on other people's posts to get attention or sending unsolicited DMs

11. What is the 5-3-1 rule on Instagram?

​The 5-3-1 rule on Instagram is a simple engagement strategy designed to build authentic connections and grow your follower base. It involves:​

• Liking 5 posts from your target audience or niche
• Commenting on 3 posts with meaningful and personalized messages
• Following 1 new account that aligns with your interests or goals