How to grow instagram business account

How to grow in 2022 and beyond

Projected to reach 1.2 billion users by 2023, Instagram has huge potential for small business owners to boost their marketing efforts, and marketers everywhere know it. According to Social Media Examiner’s 2021 social media marketing report, “Seventy-eight percent of marketers are using Instagram.” Marketers rank it second in importance after Facebook, and sixty-four percent of marketers plan to increase their activities on Instagram over the next year.

The potential of Instagram lies more in user behavior than the large number of active users: Instagrammers like to connect with brands.

Ninety percent of Instagram users follow a brand on the platform, according to Instagram. And according to 2019 data commissioned by Facebook, 54% of people have made a purchase after seeing a product or service on Instagram.

Instagram is particularly well-suited to small business owners who don’t have the time or budget for expensive marketing campaigns. Unpaid social media marketing lets you grow your customer base without a dedicated marketing team or a big budget — just a free account and a smartphone camera are all you need to get started.

Just take a look at Southern Elegance Candle Company (SECC), a brand that has a thriving Instagram presence.

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A post shared by Southern Elegance™ Candle Co. (@secandleco)

SECC uses social media to create a loyal fan base and bring in over $100,000 a month.

Once you understand some basic Instagram best practices, Instagram can become a key channel for you to grow your small business.

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Schedule your Instagram posts, carousels, stories, and reels with Buffer
Visually plan your content calendar and make your profile a "must-follow" with Buffer's suite of Instagram scheduling and analytics tools.

Can your small business do well on Instagram?

Any business can do well on Instagram — whether you own a local book shop, e-commerce store, landscape business, auto repair shop, or yoga studio. If your customers are on Instagram, you can be successful on Instagram.

But, if you only have time to invest in one or two social media platforms, then you need to make sure that Instagram is popular with your prospective customers. Here are a few ways to find out.

1. Ask your customers

If you want to know if your customers are active on Instagram, the easiest thing to do is just ask!

If you already have an email list, send a quick survey to your customers to ask about their social media habits. Ask what channels they use most frequently and where they like to follow brands.

Two free options to survey your audience are SurveyMonkey and Typeform. Typeform even has a social media survey template you can use for inspiration. Customize it with questions that will show you what you want to know about your customers.

2. Compare your target audience to Instagram’s audience

Different groups of people are more active on certain social media platforms than others. Compare your target audience’s demographics (things like age, gender, income, geographical location, etc.) and psychographics (psychological traits like interests, personality, and values) with the social media platforms you’re considering.

For example, the 18-29 age group is most active on Instagram, while the 50-64 age group leads the way on Pinterest.

(Left source, right source)

3. Look at your competitors

Your competitors’ customers are also potential new customers for you. So if businesses similar to yours are doing well on Instagram, it’s likely your people are on Instagram. You just need to start posting!

If your competitors aren’t on Instagram, it might not be the right platform. But if multiple customers have told you they’d follow your brand on Instagram, go ahead and create an account. Instagram could have untapped potential, and you’ll be the first brand in your niche to discover it.

Getting started with an Instagram strategy as a small business

Whether you’re completely new to Instagram and preparing to share your first post or are already established and looking to boost your presence on the platform, it’s important to start with clear goals in mind to guide the kind of content you should post on Instagram.

Instagram goals for small businesses

There’s a plethora of content you could post on Instagram. Setting goals will help define your Instagram marketing strategy and narrow your focus, making it a lot easier to choose what to post!

Here are a few common goals small businesses might choose:

Increase sales
Grow their audience
Improve brand loyalty
Increase brand awareness
Drive website traffic
Establish business partnerships (with influencers or complementary brands)

Choose one or two goals for your Instagram profile and post content related to these goals.

Establish content pillars or themes that align with your audience

Once you know your goals, it can be helpful to choose themes that guide your content. Then your brand is more consistent, and your audience knows what to expect and gets excited to interact with you. Content pillars (or themes) can be a type of content such as behind-the-scenes content:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tortuga (@tortugabackpacks)

Here, travel backpack company Tortuga shares a sneak peek of upcoming product designs. Fans of the brand flooded to the comment section to share support and feedback on the designs.

Or, content pillars can be interest-based, like productivity:

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A post shared by Sunsama 🌻 (@sunsamahq)

Task manager app Sunsama posts regular productivity tips like this one, often introducing their take on better ways to work to spread their mission.

Use your audience’s interests to inform your content pillars. It just needs to make sense with your brand. Even if Sunsama’s customers were really into travel, it wouldn’t make sense for them to post travel content as a to-do list app.

Instagram content pillar examples to help you get started:

Behind-the-scenes content
User-generated content
Polls
Giveaways
Product demos
Educational (e.g. tips or tutorials)
Culture-focused (showing the human side of your company)
Customer stories
Product launches
Travel
Productivity
Motivation
Food
Exercise
Mental health
Body positivity
Environmentalism

For example, for interest-based pillars, Girlfriend Collective tends to make posts about diversity, body positivity, beautiful nature spaces, and sustainability to move its mission forward. For content types, the brand uses UGC to keep a relatable feel and product previews to build hype around a launch.

Here, Girlfriend represents different body types in a nature space as part of a product launch:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Girlfriend Collective (@girlfriend)

Meditation app Headspace posts educational content about mental health:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Headspace (@headspace)

And here, Hairstory uses polls in Instagram Stories to start conversations around self-care:

Choose what types of content you want to publish on Instagram

Now that you know what your goals are and the themes you want to post about, it’s time to get posting!

Posts on the Instagram app come in five forms: regular posts, Instagram Stories, Instagram Live, Reels, and IGTV. The most popular ways to post on Instagram remain regular posts and Instagram Stories, but here’s a breakdown of all of them:

Regular Instagram posts are evergreen. They’ll stay there unless you delete them. These show up in your followers’ Instagram Feeds.
Instagram Stories are fifteen seconds long and vanish after 24 hours. Stories lend themselves to more casual and in-the-moment content.
Instagram Live appears in the Stories feeds of your followers, but is recorded in real-time, so you can see people as they join and read comments as they come in.
Instagram Reels is a short-form video up to 60 seconds long, similar to TikTok in that you can edit together multiple clips and add music and sound effects.
IGTV is similar to YouTube. You can upload long-form videos up to ten minutes long (or sixty minutes if you have a verified business account with more than 10,000 followers). This is perfect for things like product demos, tutorials, or guided workouts.

8 Instagram for small businesses best practices

Now that you know what kind of content you want to create, use these best practices to be successful.

1. Set up your Instagram business profile the right way

Your Instagram profile is like your homepage on the platform. It tells people who you are and why you exist.

Start with your profile picture: Your brand needs to be recognizable. Use your logo or brand icon as your profile picture.

Evernote uses its recognizable elephant icon:

Then add your bio: This should represent your business and show new followers what you do as a company. You could include your brand slogan or tagline or describe your business.

MATE the Label uses its Instagram bio to describe its products and allude to its mission of sustainability.

Last, add your link: Unlike other social networks, you can’t add links to every post. You only get one link, and that’s the one in your profile. (Though Instagram accounts with more than 10,000 followers can also share links within Instagram Stories.)

Most businesses link to their homepage to drive traffic:

But you can also update your profile with a link you reference in your latest post, whether it’s a blog post, recipe, or YouTube video — like NikkieTutorials does.

Or, you could use a link in bio tool to lead to a landing page that has multiple links your audience might be interested in (like your homepage, recent blog post, and more.)

When clicking on the link in the food blog I Love Vegan’s Instagram profile, followers can go to the blog’s homepage, find resources, or click on photos from recent Instagram posts to get taken to the recipe.

2. Be relatable, not salesy

Remember: it’s a post, not an ad. It needs to be content people want to look at. That might be your product, or it might be more general content like a dentist posting about proper tooth brushing techniques.

Here, meditation app Headspace posts about mental health:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Headspace (@headspace)

When you do post promotional content, it should be in the mix with plenty of non-salesy content to make your account worth following.

3. Engage with your followers

Doing well on Instagram is more than posting pretty photos. Engage with people who are interacting with you on Instagram.

Follow them back, like their posts, keep the conversation going by responding to comments. You’ll build relationships with your followers, and it will encourage your fans to keep engaging with you.

4. Grow your audience organically, don’t buy them

Buying Instagram followers can be tempting to boost your metrics, but it’s not going to do anything for your business growth. Bought followers aren’t going to interact with you. And if people find out you bought followers, they might trust you less and not want to give you business.

Instead, draw in new audiences with high-quality content. Encourage existing customers to follow you on Instagram by putting your Instagram handle at the bottom of emails or by your cash register.

5. Use hashtags to extend your reach

Hashtags help people find the content they’re interested in. Add them to Instagram captions to get your posts in front of more people and grow your followers.

While brainstorming hashtags to use, you can do a search on Instagram, and it can tell you how many posts have that hashtag, which is a good indication of popularity. Stick with hashtags under 1 million posts, so yours doesn’t get lost in the noise.

If you own a local business, consider hashtags specific to your region to find people in your community.

6. Use Instagram Carousels to hit the same users again

Instagram Carousels are regular posts that have multiple photos or videos in the same post. They act as a small photo album and enable you to show up in your followers’ Instagram feeds more than once.

Here, Hairstory uses carousels to show hair color for curly hair in four different looks.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hairstory Studio (@hairstorystudio)

Viewers can scroll through the photos, but if they don’t, the carousel post can show up in their feed later featuring a different photo.

7. Post regularly

Consistency and publishing frequency can help your audience learn when to expect new content from you and get them in the habit of interacting with you on Instagram. The more they interact with you, the more the Instagram algorithm rewards you — by putting your content at the top of your followers’ feeds.

Keeping a consistent schedule makes sure you maximize engagement without hitting any lulls without updates. Once a week is plenty to get started.

8. Make sure your work is paying off by measuring your Instagram success

You need to make sure your marketing efforts are paying off. It’ll take time to build a following, so your follower count and engagement rate will be low to start. Don’t be discouraged!

Keep tracking your followers and engagement to make sure you’re growing over time. And double down on what your followers want to see.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to using Instagram analytics.

Adding Instagram marketing to your plate is no small task for small business owners. As an entrepreneur, you have dozens of projects to manage as it is.

So save time by using a social media marketing tool like Buffer to schedule your posts in advance. You can set up posts weeks in advance, so you never go dark on Instagram.

The best part? Buffer is free for up to three social accounts, and you can schedule up to ten posts in advance on each one. That’s plenty for any small business to get started on Instagram.

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17 Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram (2023)

Instagram can be a highly targetable, visual marketing channel for your brand and an opportunity to build a loyal audience that grows with your business.

In fact, over 500 million Instagram users browse the app every day, making it home to some of the most engaged audiences around.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to grow your Instagram follower profile and increase engagement, while growing a massive following over time—one that’s full of real fans, not bots or fake followers.

17 ways to get more Instagram followers

Incorporate Reels into your content mix
Cross promote content
Curate your profile grid
Work with brand ambassadors
Get follows from your loyalty program
Market through your personal Instagram account
Get on feature accounts
Use the right hashtags
Post at the right times
Steal your competitors' followers
Pay for sponsored posts and product reviews
Use geotags to boost local discovery
Organize your Stories in highlights
Ask for more followers
Run a giveaway
Share user-generated content
Use Instagram live

Let’s dive deeper into how to implement each tactic to get more Instagram followers.

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1. Incorporate Reels into your content mix

Reels are fun videos you can share with followers on your Instagram account. They have audio, effects, and creative tools. You can share them on your feed and publicly in Explore to reach new audiences.

Reels are new territory for brands. Instagram’s beauty partnerships manager, Kristie Dash, stated in a Glossy forum that Reels are still a relatively new way to publish content, and there isn’t one formula for success. But, she does suggest the following tips to gain traction:

Keep content unique and trend drive. Identify trends on Instagram and TikTok and put your own spin on it. This increases the chance your Reels will go viral and get in front of new people.

Make content relatable and simple. Not every Reel needs to be a production. Lower quality videos can perform the same, if not better, than highly produced Reels.

Educate your audience. Find the balance between education and entertainment in your Reels.

Reels should be a huge priority for you right now. It’s prime real estate for your brand to be discovered by new followers.
Kristen Dash, Beauty Partnerships Manager, Instagram

Social media marketing agency owner Trilce Jirón Garro, of TBS Marketing, agrees. “Don’t sell your products through Reels content. Share facts. Provide tips about the industry you’re in. Entertain viewers,” she says.

Trilce suggests that both new and existing brands incorporate entertaining Reels into their Instagram strategy. “Reels give anyone the opportunity to reach new target audiences. There’s no learning curve because Reels content is lo-fi. And creators can produce community-driven content that builds trust, gains followers, and makes sales over time.”

Trilce also loves the Instagram Insights Tool introduced for Reels. “Reels have become an integrated part of any Instagram marketing strategy. Analytics tools for Reels has made it easy to track metrics and analyze data to see if your Reels are working. Now, you can understand exactly what your audience likes and dislikes, when to post Reels, and what calls to action resonate with viewers.”

Using Reels Insights, you can see patterns and understand different spikes in engagement that affect your visibility on the platform. That way, you can create higher-quality content that gets even more engagement and followers.

Need help creating a Reels strategy? Read Why and How to Use Instagram Reels to Market Your Shopify Store to learn more.

2. Cross promote content

Cross-promoting involves posting similar content across various social media channels. It’s a tactic used to save time and resources. It’s also effective at increasing brand awareness and growing an audience on Instagram.

Mobile users are spending an increasing amount of time with video and entertainment apps, with video content on social media platforms accounting for the biggest increase. Whether it’s a short-form video or lengthy tutorial, you want to improve the reach of your Instagram content.

Justin Bieber’s holiday dance challenge is a great example of successful cross-posting. During the 2020 holiday season, the Canadian singer posted the same dance challenge on both TikTok and Instagram. On TikTok, his video short received 9.8 million likes. The same content on Instagram received 4.8 million likes. He was able to get in front of more people just by posting the same video on two different platforms.

Nadya Okamoto, founder of lifestyle period brand August, has found that TikTok naturally cross-pollinates to Instagram and YouTube. She says in an interview with Modern Retail, “As we’ve grown on TikTok from August, we’ve also grown to 175,000 followers on Instagram. ” Actively posting on multiple platforms has “affected our overall cost of acquisitions to be super effective,” allowing the brand to steer away from paid media as a main acquisition channel.

TikTok isn’t the only channel you can cross-post on. The Instagram Reels format translates well to YouTube Shorts and Pinterest Stories. It’s important to note that Instagram’s algorithm won’t promote Reels that have a TikTok watermark. So if you’re going to cross-post content from Instagram to other channels, ensure the content is high quality and doesn’t promote a competing platform through watermarks.

3. Curate your profile grid

Most of your followers won’t follow you for what you posted in the past but for the promise of what you’ll post in the future. Your audience wants to know what they’re going to get if they hit that Follow button.

Having a feed with a consistent theme and a consistent posting schedule can have just as much of an impact in growing a following as many of the other growth strategies we’ve covered above. Even a simple pattern can entice new followers, as long as it’s communicated at first glance to anyone who lands on your profile.

Consider your Instagram bio and your last nine posts as your first impression on Instagram. Do they effectively communicate some degree of consistency through personality, filters, colors, or layout? Does the clickable link send people to the same homepage every week? Or are you linking out to fun and exciting content too?

The layout of your grid is an often underestimated way to get creative with the aesthetic of your feed while adding a rhythm to your publishing strategy and consistency that’s worth following.

In fact, many accounts that adopt this approach are often able to spend less effort on creating content by focusing on converting visitors into followers, producing text graphics or other content with a faster turnaround, and streamlining the overall production of their Instagram content.

You can use a tool like Later to easily plan out and schedule the look and layout of your feed. Letterfolk is just one example of how far some brands go with the aesthetic of their Instagram layout.

Your feed serves as the billboard for your brand. It’s a customer’s first touchpoint with you and captures the essence of your brand.
Trilce Jiron, TBS Marketing

4. Work with brand ambassadors

Don’t want to pay the celebrity influencer big bucks to market your brand? Works with brand ambassadors who have anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand followers. Ambassadors are people who genuinely support and believe in your brand and will tell their friends about it.

Luxury shoe retailer Sarah Flint reports seeing success with its brand ambassador program, which has over 500 women. Each ambassador has their own unique discount code, which gives them a free pair of Sarah Flint shoes after five new customers use it.

Ambassadors like Holly Hollon attest to the quality and comfort of the brand’s shoes. Her posts are authentic and relatable to regular Sarah Flint shoppers. This helps the brand grow its Instagram following and earn sales.

5. Get follows from your loyalty program

Retailers are increasingly launching loyalty programs, repeatedly encouraging consumers to shop with their brand over another. It’s worked for brands like Sephora and Blume. One way brands are capitalizing on loyalty programs is by rewarding those who follow them on Instagram.

When luxury retailer Rebecca Minkoff launched its rewards program, RM Rewards, it gave shoppers the option to earn points by following the brand’s Instagram account. Brands like Blume are also finding the value in rewarding Instagram followers. Program members can earn Blume Bucks for becoming a friend on Instagram versus Facebook or Twitter.

6. Market through your personal Instagram account

Another popular way to increase your Instagram following is growing your personal account—basically, make yourself the influencer. Harnessing both the company account and your personal account can increase brand recognition, follower counts, and sales. Pro tip: You can also run this playbook on TikTok to improve your numbers.

It’s a tactic that works well for fashion label ANINE BING. In addition to the brand’s Instagram profile, the company’s founder also drives engagement and awareness through her personal Instagram page, which has over one million followers.

Anine invites followers into her design studio, takes them through the design process, and even gets feedback from followers throughout the creative process. Anine also shares a bit about her personal life and milestones, giving followers a peak behind the curtains of their favorite designer’s life.

7. Get on feature accounts

Instagram feature accounts are pages that curate the best content in a specific niche. They are like the “best of” photo journals for an industry. Some feature accounts have a massive following. If you get placement on the account, it can send new Instagram followers to your profile.

There are feature accounts for every niche: travel, fashion, photography, and more. For example, @discoverearth curates adventurous travel content from around the world for over 6.1 million followers.

8. Use the right hashtags

Your goal on Instagram is to engage your current audience on a regular basis while also growing your number of real followers. Posting new, interesting, and engaging photos will satisfy the first requirement, but to begin growing you’ll find hashtagging your photos extremely important. Hashtagging makes it easy for people searching for specific terms to find your photos.

So which hashtags should you use? Just like with Twitter and other social sites, users on Instagram choose certain hashtags over others. If you use popular Instagram hashtags within your photos, you’re much more likely to reach new users and be discovered.

At the time of this writing, these were the top 20 hashtags on Instagram:

#love
#instagood
#photooftheday
#fashion
#beautiful
#happy
#cute
#like4like
#tbt
#followme
#picoftheday
#follow
#me
#art
#selfie
#summer
#instadaily
#repost
#friends
#nature

If you looked at this list and said, “But none of those apply to my products or brand,” you’re likely correct.

Using hashtags is one thing; using the right tags is completely different.

Popular tags like the ones listed above will likely net you additional engagement and likes. However, they won’t lead to increased long-term engagement, new interested followers, or, most importantly, sales.

If you want to tag your photos properly, you’ll need to find and use the most relevant hashtags. This means doing the appropriate research to make sure you’re using hashtags that not only describe your brand but that are also being searched for on Instagram.

To find relevant hashtags, you’ll want to use a free online tool like IconoSquare or Webstagram to start.

Below, I used Webstagram to find relevant, related, and popular hashtags for my men’s accessory business by searching for key hashtags closely related to my brand.

As an example, searching the hashtag #MensFashion, I was able to pull the following list of additional keyword hashtags along with the number of times they have been used (i. e., their popularity).

You can also find more related hashtags and their popularity if you search for any of your target keywords directly in the Instagram app.

You’ll want to go through this exercise trying different keywords that describe your brand and products, building out your hashtag keyword list as you go.

Keep in mind that Instagram allows for a maximum of 30 hashtags per post. Additionally, the popular words will change over time, so make sure you revisit your hashtag keywords every few months so you're using the best possible terms.

You can also steal hashtag ideas from competitors or similar accounts that have the kind of following you aspire to, but ultimately, you want to create your own groups of hashtags that relate to your specific account.

Pro tip #1: Here’s a trick I use for my ecommerce businesses. For every product and product category in my stores, I’ve researched the most popular related Instagram hashtags. I came up with 15 to 20 popular hashtags for each category of products I sell, as well as a base of five to 10 popular tags that describe my brand and product offering. Finally, I also created a list of popular local specific hashtags that relate to my brand.

For example:

Brand keyword hashtags

#mybrandname #mensfashion #mensaccessories #mensgoods #fashion #mensstyle #instafashion #menswear

Product category keyword hashtags

#bugatchisocks #happysocks #corgisocks #socks #sockswag #socksoftheday #sockgame #sockswagg #socksofinstagram #happysockday #sockwars #funsocks #happysockday

Location-specific keyword hashtags

#Toronto #TorontoFashion #TorontoFashionBloggers

All of these groups of keyword hashtags are stored in a page on Evernote. This makes it easy and efficient when I’m on the go to post a new Instagram image optimized for the most relevant keywords.

You can easily open my Evernote and copy my standard brand-, product-, and location-specific hashtags to post with each photo. Some Instagram scheduling tools also let you save caption templates for storing your hashtag groups.

Doing the work of researching, organizing, and saving the most applicable and popular hashtags upfront will save you a ton of time down the road, increase your engagement, and help garner new followers.

Pro tip #2: If you’ve been posting to Instagram for a while and feel you’ve missed out on all these opportunities to build your audience using keyword hashtags, fret not. You can still go back and post a comment with your new hashtag keyword lists and watch the likes and followers roll in.

Using hashtags in Instagram stories

Hashtagging on Instagram posts is a given, but you should also be using hashtags in your Stories for the chance to be seen by users who follow that specific hashtag.

You can use hashtag stickers (which can be found in the Instagram Stickers menu when creating a Story) or just hashtag directly in your captions for a chance to be featured in a hashtag story.

Now that users can follow hashtags, your Stories on Instagram have a chance to be seen by both people who are following that hashtag and anyone who’s just checking it out.

9. Post at the right times

Beyond adding the appropriate hashtags and using the best filters to get more Instagram followers, you should also consider the timing of your posts.

A targeted approach involves analyzing what has and has not worked for you in the past. By visiting IconoSquare’s optimization section, you can get a detailed analysis of your posting history versus engagement. This report will also highlight the best times of the day and days of the week to post.

The dark circles indicate when you usually post media. The light gray circles show when your community has been interacting. The biggest light gray circles represent the best times for you to post.

You can also get a lot of great insight for free from Instagram analytics for business accounts, found under the Followers section.

You may want to consider using a social media scheduling tool to automatically publish your posts when your audience is the most engaged.

10. Steal your competitors’ followers

One of the best ways to find and attract a new following is by seeking out your closest competitors’ Instagram accounts and engaging with their audiences. These people have already shown some level of interest in the products you carry simply by following your competitors.

So how do you effectively steal your competitors’ followers? By engaging with them. There are several ways to engage with Instagram users, and the more work you put in, the more followers and repeat engagement you’ll get out of it.

The three types of engagement on Instagram are:

Follow a user
Like a photo
Comment on a photo

Don’t be afraid to use an emoji or two to add some personality to your text.

11. Pay for sponsored posts and product reviews

All this optimized posting to your account is great, but if you really want to increase Instagram followers, you need to take advantage of influencer marketing and expose your brand to a wider audience.

So, how do you do that? First, unlike the tactics to grow Instagram followers mentioned above, this one usually isn’t free. However, if done correctly, it’s of good value.

To get started, you’ll need to make a list of large accounts in your niche. For example, if you sell beauty products, you’ll want to find large accounts from beauty bloggers.

You may already be following these accounts, but if not, you’ll need to find them. One of the best ways is to use Webstagram (mentioned earlier) and search for some of the closest hashtag keywords you uncovered in the beginning of this post. When you do a search for your keywords, not only will it show you the related keywords, it will also show you the top Instagram accounts that feature those keywords.

There are a couple of things to look for in the profiles results:

A large following—usually 20,000 to 200,000
An email address in the profile

If there is an email address in the profile, it usually means the account is open to sponsored posts or a shoutout in a sponsored Story.

You’ll want to email and ask their sponsored post pricing. In general, I have found the average rate to be around $20 to $50 per post, depending on the size of the following.

However, if you’re selling a unique and original product, you may also want to consider sending your product for the influencer to review and post. Usually, the more natural and less advertisement-like the image, the greater the engagement and response.

You don’t necessarily need influencers with a massive following to get more followers on Instagram, but rather ones with a high engagement rate (likes and comments relative to follower count), which many influencer marketplaces can provide.

12. Use geotags to boost local discovery

Besides hashtags, you can also make your Instagram posts and Stories discoverable by tagging your location—either the city you’re in or the venue where the photo or video was taken.

Locations not only have their own Instagram feed but also their own Story, and hashtags that you can contribute to when you use the location sticker in your own Stories.

Local businesses can get the most value out of location tags by posting regularly to these feeds and also engaging with posts from prospective customers who are physically in the vicinity.

13. Organize your Stories into Highlights

Whenever a potential follower lands on your business profile, you have a short span of time to convince them to follow you.

One way to do this is by using the Highlights feature on your profile to organize your Instagram Stories in a way that communicates what your account is about.

Since Stories have a 24-hour lifespan, Highlights can be used to give them a second life and entice others to follow you so they don’t miss out on more Stories in the future.

Use Story Highlights to grow Instagram followers by:

Creating trailers that tease what your account is about
Organizing your Stories into themes (like countries you’ve visited, for travel accounts)
Explaining your products through pictures and videos

14. Ask for more followers

It sounds obvious, but it deserves to be said: Don’t be afraid to occasionally ask your audience to follow you.

The same way YouTubers ask their viewers to follow them at the end of their videos, you can also ask viewers to follow you for more content.

Sometimes people might really enjoy what you put out on Instagram but need a nudge before they actually follow you.

You can also do this in your Instagram captions, work it into your content by pitching what your audience will get if they follow you or by hinting at content that’s coming up that they won’t want to miss.

15. Run a giveaway

One of the best kinds of comments you can get on any social media post, not just Instagram, is when one user tags a friend. Not only do these comments contribute to your post’s engagement, which in turn makes it favorable to the Instagram algorithm, but each tag brings you a new audience member who arrived through a recommendation and who you could potentially win over as a follower.

One way to encourage this behavior is by posting relatable content that begs for 1:1 sharing (e.g., a gym meme that asks you to tag a friend who skips leg day). But a more reliable way is by running a giveaway that encourages your audience to tag a friend and follow your account.

Follow Instagram’s promotion guidelines and any legal requirements for running an Instagram contest that applies in your country of operation.

For inspiration, here’s an example of a successful product giveaway from Philip Kingsley that incentivizes people to follow its account and tag a friend for the chance to win a collection.

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16. Share user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is any type of content—such as videos, photos, reviews, audio, and more—that you curate from fans or followers. It’s an essential tool in your marketing arsenal for gaining followers on Instagram. UGC helps humanize your brand by featuring real people, with real stories, that show your product in real life and builds a more trusting relationship with potential customers.

Not only does your audience love their 15 minutes of fame on your Instagram feed, featuring them also helps drive more sales in your online store. According to research from Olapic, consumers today are 56% more likely to buy something after seeing a photo of the product shared by customers.

Take Fashion Nova, for example. The online retailer’s Instagram account relies heavily on user-generated content.

Fashion Nova’s user-generated content gives it access to thousands of pictures from people all over the world to share with its audience—pictures that both showcase the brand’s values and inspire followers to engage with its posts and buy the clothes real people are wearing.

When it comes to creating user-generated content for your online store, start by asking customers to share their favorite experiences and images with your products by:

Creating a branded hashtag feed where customers can post images
Adding a call to action in your Instagram bio
Running a contest
Reaching out to influencers
Adding an “ask” for user-generated content in your packaging

Remember, the goal of UGC is to show an authentic view of your products. If some customers send you lower-quality photos that still highlight your products’ best features, don’t be afraid to use them.

17. Use Instagram Live

Live video is the key to running a successful marketing strategy on any social media platform. With Instagram, you can use Instagram Live to stream videos to your followers and engage with them in real-time.

When your brand starts a live video stream, a ring encases your profile picture in Instagram Stories to tell followers they can check it out. Followers also receive a notification when you start a live video. Once you finish your livestream, you can upload it to your Story for 24 hours.

Remember that Instagram Live is interactive. Your followers will probably comment while you’re live, so try to acknowledge their comments and find ways to get them to participate.

Some ways to gain more followers when using Instagram Live include:

Influencer takeovers
Hosting an AMA (ask me anything) or Q&A
Teasing a product launch or update
Hosting a talk show
Going behind the scenes on your operations
Sharing a current event
Running product tutorials

Building an Instagram growth strategy to drive followers

In this post we talked about the most effective ways to use Instagram to grow your instagram following, but it's not always a numbers game. As with any social network, the most successful content strategy is to be authentic and social.

If you focus on engagement, not just number of followers, Instagram can be a great home for your products and brand and can lead to a healthy stream of revenue for your ecommerce business. For more tips on turning this social media platform into a profitable channel, check out our post on how to make money on Instagram.

Illustration by Eugenia Mello

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How to get more followers on Instagram FAQ

How do you get more followers on Instagram for free?

Find and post in popular hashtags related to your photo, product, or brand.
Create your own branded hashtag.
Use hashtags in Stories.
Create Instagram Reels.

How can I increase my followers on Instagram?

Use the right Instagram hashtags.
Steal your competitors' followers.
Use geotags on Instagram posts.
Organize Stories into Highlights.
Post user-generated content.
Collaborate with other brands.
Post at the best times.
Use Instagram analytics tools.
Publish Instagram Reels.
Livestream on Instagram Stories.

How to use Instagram to promote your business: 13 practical tips

Instagram is one of the most promising social platforms for business promotion. First, the popularity of this network is steadily growing. At the same time, Instagram users demonstrate high involvement in interaction with each other and with brands. Secondly, Instagram allows you to publish and consume visual content that is perceived by users tens of thousands of times faster than text content. Add to this the ability to use Instagram literally on the go using mobile gadgets. It turns out almost an ideal social platform for a modern person living at a frantic pace. Third, unlike traditional social media, visual content sharing platforms are successful at generating immediate conversions. nine0003

After reading this article, you will no longer doubt the effectiveness of promotion on Instagram. You will also learn how to promote projects using Instagram.

“I ate a man on promoting a business using Instagram.” Everyone can use this network

Why a business needs Instagram

You can answer this question with the help of statistics. According to the Pew Research Center, 17% of total social media users over the age of 18 check their Instagram account daily. The core audience of this social network is represented by young people aged 18 to 29years. We are talking about the generation of millennials, who often make buying decisions under the influence of social platforms. Gender-wise, Instagram is dominated by women. Instagram users are very active on this network. 57% of owners check their account at least once a day, and 35% do it several times a day.

Instagram users are engaged

Pinterest vs. Instagram: which of these platforms is better to use in online marketing

Hopes & Fears gives a simple and clear argument for using Instagram to promote your business in RuNet:

Haute Future online clothing store attracts about 80% of customers using Instagram.
Buy-by-me resale store attracts 65% of customers using Instagram.
Hand made goods store Lapatanova, represented by the founder Katya Kotova, attracts customers exclusively through Instagram.

Of course, these figures are not derived from a study with a representative sample. Rather, we are talking about examples that confirm the possibility of effectively using Instagram to promote a business in RuNet.

Free social media audit

Drawing of 3 places until 24.08. The rest of the participants of the drawing - 50% discount

More nine0008 Practical Tips for Using Instagram to Promote Your Business

If you sell services such as endowment life insurance, online trading or laptop repair, look for customers on Facebook and other traditional social networks. Visual social platforms, including Instagram, are more suitable for selling products. Clothing, cosmetics, DIY and handmade products, photographs, decorative items are some of the categories of products that can be promoted on Instagram. nine0003

The following practical tips will help you attract clients in practice:

1. Subscribe to Instagram for business blog updates

On the Instagram for business blog you will find recommendations on how to use this network to promote projects. You will also be able to receive notifications about new features and examples of successful use of Instagram by established brands.

In our Instagram, we publish news from the world of Internet marketing and follow the innovations in the social network. nine0003

2. Optimize your company profile on Instagram

Optimization will make your company profile visible to search engine users. In addition, the optimized profile will not let them get lost after landing. To optimize your profile, do the following:

Set your company logo as your profile photo. If you don't have a logo, use an image of one of your products.
Use the name of your company and/or words that express the essence of the business as a nickname. nine0020
Briefly describe the nature of your proposal. Users want to know what you are selling.
Include your contact information, including the website URL, in the description.

Pay attention to your privacy settings. Your photos must be available to all users.

Website promotion: 69 steps to reach the top

3. Post photos of your products

Turn your Instagram account into a shop window. Invest in professional photography. When you photograph a homemade cake with a digital camera, it looks beautiful. When the photo is taken by a professional, the cake looks so delicious that people want to buy it. nine0003

4. Add hashtags to your photos

Hashtags help your target audience find your products. According to the marketing company TrackMaven, 4-5 tags under the photo are enough.

6. Periodically post entertaining photos

Try to give your audience a reason to smile. It's good if funny photos are related to your business. Did the customer support manager spill coffee on the keyboard? Show users that company employees try not to ignore a single request, so they cannot go to the buffet even for 5 minutes. nine0003

If your colleague spills coffee on the keyboard, you have a good story for an Instagram post in your pocket

6. Attract followers

The effectiveness of using Instagram directly depends on the number of followers of your account. To increase the number of followers, follow these recommendations:

Connect your Instagram account to your Facebook timeline.
Tag your published photos with popular hashtags.
Subscribe to updates from other users, comment and mark your favorite photos.

Cross-posting photos to Facebook is a very effective way to get the attention of your friends on the world's largest social network who don't yet know about your Instagram account.

7. Post videos

Since mid-2013, Instagram users have been able to create and post 15-second videos. Share videos with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, include them in email newsletters. Don't forget about the ability to embed Instagram videos on your blog or website pages. nine0003

Does Instagram advertising work for bloggers?

8. Use Filters

According to TrackMaven, Mayfair, Normal and Inkwell are the most effective filters for photo processing. They most often generate user response. According to market research firm Simply Measured, brands most commonly use Lo-fi, Valencia, Rise and Amaro filters.

9. Invite the audience to participate in contests

Winning contests that offer valuable prizes effectively stimulate user activity. Use this tool to attract additional subscribers and get feedback from the audience. Offer contestants the conditions of the competition, excluding cheating. For example, announce that the best photo will be selected by a jury that includes you, your cat, and a canary. Or promise to determine the winner by drawing lots.

10. Offer your subscribers discounts and bonuses

According to the University of Massachusetts Darmouth, 64% of Facebook users follow brands to receive discounts. Instagram users will also follow your account more actively if you promise them bonuses. Don't just give away coupons. Ask the subscriber to leave a few comments, repost your photos, etc.

11. Show the kitchen of your business

Commissioning of equipment, opening of a new office, weekly meeting - use such information occasions to highlight the activities of the project. Post photos of employees at work. Customers want to know they are talking to real people, not a faceless company X.

12. Show your product's capabilities

Stimulate demand by showing your product's capabilities. Show how high foam the coffee machine makes, let customers evaluate clothes not on hangers, but on models, demonstrate the speed of the vegetable cutter, show hairstyles and makeup that you can do in your beauty salon.

13. Measure the effectiveness of business promotion on Instagram

Focus on standard social media marketing performance metrics: the number of likes, comments, shares, clicks to the company's website, leads and conversions. Use analytics services to evaluate the performance of notes with visual content. nine0003

Evaluate an effective communication channel

Try to interact with your audience through Instagram. You will be able to attract customers if you sell clothes, handmade goods, decor items, beauty and body care services. Optimize your profile, post photos of your products, tag them with hashtags, run contests, and offer discounts to your customers.

And if you don't have the opportunity to promote your business on social networks, contact TexTerra. We will provide an integrated approach, a strong detuning from competitors and a direct hit on your target audience. nine0003

Business account promotion on Instagram

There will be a new site here soon! There will be a new site here soon! There will be a new site here soon! There will be a new site here soon! There will be a new site here soon! There will be a new site here soon!

Keeping a business blog among a qualified and solvent audience is a unique feature provided by the social network Instagram. Today, almost all small business participants are represented on the site; for effective promotion, there are initially the necessary tools here. Business promotion on Instagram is no longer a luxury, but a necessity, especially for such areas of activity as:

Organization of holidays and outdoor events. nine0003
Catering services, food delivery from cafes, restaurants.
Selection and sale of cosmetics.
Sale of accessories and luxury items.
Tourism and travel.
Household goods, interior items.
Sale of furniture.
nine0002 Marketplaces, online stores.

And this list is far from complete. Any promotion of a business account on Instagram will be successful if you can provide users with quality content. In this article, we will look at how to make your page on a social network an effective tool for promoting your business.

Article content:

How to start promoting a business page on Instagram?

Self-configuring a business account: step-by-step instructions

Creating content for Instagram
The subtleties of business promotion on Instagram
Ways to promote a business account on Instagram
Why is unqualified account management dangerous?
Conclusion
nine0020

How to start promoting a business page on Instagram?

To register an account, you will need a phone number, email address or a Facebook page. Through your personal Facebook account, you can then set up all advertising campaigns. You can switch your business account to personal and vice versa at any time.

Setting up a business account on your own: a step-by-step guide

To increase the number of sales, company management should pay attention not only to the advertising promotion of a business account on Instagram. First of all, it is important to pay attention to setting up an account - it must meet all the requirements that guarantee attractiveness and usefulness for a potential buyer:

Instagram user avatar is small and round. Therefore, standard avatars from other social networks will not work. It will be optimal to create a new, appropriate image for the channel, which displays the direction of the company.
Be sure to fill in the profile description - it should be concise but informative. Companies often indicate here the main direction of their activities and contact details. nine0003
It is important to choose an account nickname that also reflects what your company does. Optimally - type of activity + name (for example, Restaurant Abazhur).
Specify an active link to your other page (also place a link to your Instagram profile on the company's website).
In the settings, specify the feedback methods - the corresponding button will appear on the page, allowing the user to call the account owner or send an e-mail. nine0003

Your business account is now set up and you are ready to post your first post.

Creating content for Instagram

Competent content creation is the most important step towards effective promotion of your Instagram account. First of all, it is advisable to get acquainted with competitors in the niche and their pages - you can find them through a hashtag search. This way you will get an idea of how you can effectively promote your business. Of course, we are not talking about plagiarism - content (both graphic and text) must be exceptionally unique, but competitor analysis will help in choosing potential topics for posts, their design, etc. Over time, you will be able to create your own content plan, following which you will be promoting a business account on Instagram. nine0003

Keep in mind that visitors only see the first 70 characters of a post's text in their feed. Therefore, try to interest your audience from the very first words. So that the text is not homogeneous, do not forget about formatting - break it into paragraphs using spaces, the first sentence can be made a heading.

Instagram is a social network, so emojis are very appropriate here. They both add emotionality to the text and separate or highlight the semantic blocks of the text. At the end of each text, try to make a call to action: for example, to follow the link and place an order, or leave a like and a comment. The appeal should be selected taking into account the direction of the post - it is educational, entertaining, image-building or selling. nine0003

The subtleties of business promotion on Instagram

Consider the main tools for promoting pages on Instagram that will make your business account more informative and attractive to the audience:

Don't forget the hashtags. They help both you and users to structure information. Well-chosen hashtags allow users to find your account and follow it.
On the Instagram page, you can post not only images, but also videos. Their duration is limited to 60 seconds, but during this time it is realistic to show the merits of the company's service or product. If you need more time, upload the video to IGTV, a resource for posting videos up to 15 minutes long. Subscribers will see the first minute of the video directly in the feed, after which they will be able to continue watching through IGTV. nine0003
Geotagging is indispensable for promoting local businesses. Such a tool will help you find and attract users from your region.
Do not forget that people come to Instagram for the sake of communication. It is imperative to conduct a dialogue with customers, answering their questions openly and honestly, as well as conducting polls and promotions on the page.
Stories is an account promotion tool that cannot be ignored by any business today. Stories disappear 24 hours after publication (here, for example, it is effective to post ads and express offers), have a higher degree of engagement than regular posts, because they interact with the visitor interactively. nine0003

Enter in your content plan the date of publication, the type of content, the hashtags used, and also track the reaction of users - for example, the number of likes, reposts, comments. It is also advisable to create a stock of photos and videos in advance for posting in your account.

Ways to promote a business account on Instagram

The peculiarity of Instagram is that a personal account can be turned into an active online store at no additional cost. It will carry out both sales and communication with existing and potential customers. nine0003

Business promotion on Instagram is possible in several ways:

With an advertising campaign through Instagram or Facebook. A method called targeted advertising is available to all business account holders. On the personal account page, statistics of impressions and reach of posts, as well as all information about your subscribers, will become available. It is possible to select the audience to which your account's ads will be shown, specifying the desired age, gender, city and country, and the interests of subscribers. nine0003
Another good way to promote your business in a social network is to order advertising from famous bloggers. Users trust the bloggers they follow, and such ads look unobtrusive and organic. Digital Info has a database of proven popular bloggers, by contacting the company you can get the most out of working with them.
Also, the promotion of a business account on Instagram will become more effective if you use contest mechanics that increase activity on the page. These can be drawings of gifts for a repost, promotions like invite a friend - get a discount on a service from a company, etc. nine0003

The best way to advertise on Instagram is to contact professionals from the Digital Info advertising agency. Self-adjustment without skills often leads to the fact that the entire budget is drained, and such advertising does not bring proper results. The company's specialists have extensive experience in setting up targeted advertising, as well as promotion in social networks in general - by applying for the services of Digital Info, you can not be afraid for the reliability and effectiveness of promotion. nine0003

Why is unqualified account management dangerous?

When planning to promote a business account on Instagram, it is not difficult to come across advertisements for various promotion services. Unskilled specialists who take up business promotion on Instagram have an arsenal of dubious means. But there is a nuance - the administrators of the Instagram site are actively fighting against cheating.

Since the end of 2019, the rules prohibit any automatic activity in the account, be it greetings, page views, likes, etc. Any such method will become a direct way to blocking an account, at least for a certain period (usually from a day to a week), as a maximum - forever. nine0003

Agree, it's a shame to waste all the efforts spent on promoting a business account. The same applies to spam offers on Instagram. This method will not only be ineffective and unethical in relation to site users, but will also block the account.

Buying users on special exchanges who are ready to subscribe to an account and put likes for a small fee - a method allowed by the Instagram administration, but it will also be of little efficiency. You will get the desired number of subscribers, but there will be no activity in the account (and even more so - potential buyers) at all. nine0003

For high-quality business promotion on Instagram, contact professionals from the Digital Info agency. This is a guarantee that user cheats, third-party applications and other ineffective or prohibited methods will not be used in the advertising campaign. You will get a live, active audience interested in your services.

Conclusion

Business promotion on Instagram will not completely replace promotion through other channels, but it will be an effective addition to it.