Getting Instagram Followers The Crucial Ingredient To Instagram Success
Since Instagram is one of the most visual social networks, it’s all about getting attention and engagement.
Without followers, you’ll have no one paying attention to your posts.
If you resort to buying fake followers, you’ll get little to no engagement.
If you’re not getting the right people following you, you won’t be able to monetize well.
Attention and engagement are key factors in getting the most out of Instagram.
Here are four tactics you can use to build up your following:
1. Following/Unfollowing Method
A lot of people turn their nose up at this method, citing it as something for people who don’t know what they’re doing.
The reality is following and unfollowing is still one of the most practical ways to build an account with targeted followers.
Instagram is one of the best social networks for the follow and unfollow method.
Most people are excited to follow back, especially if you have a quality looking profile.
Don’t expect a high follow back ratio if all you have is a default avatar and a CPA link in your bio!
Put some effort into your profile to see the benefits of the follow/unfollow method.
Who Should You Follow?
If you’re going to spend time doing the follow/unfollow method, then you need to make sure that people you’re attracting are targeted.
Following people who follow large accounts in your niche is an excellent strategy to build up a targeted audience.
Another set of people you should follow are individuals who like posts from large accounts in your niche.
Since they already like similar content, there’s a good chance they’ll follow you back when they see your profile.
This is another reason why having a visually enticing profile is so important. Give people a reason to follow your account!
How Often Should You Follow?
How often you should follow and how many people is a classic point of debate.
If you’re into Instagram for the long-term benefits, then slow and steady is your best option.
However, you can also set up a few short-term accounts that you can use to test your limits and different strategies.
Building up a New Account
When starting a new account, keep your following ratios conservative.
The first few days you should follow between 5 – 15 people at the max.
The more spread out your following schedule is, the more natural your account will look.
The first few days of having an account is also a good time to post some pictures, fill out your bio and put a niche related profile picture.
As your account begins to age, you can follow more and more people.
It’s safe for a new account to slowly increase to following 20, 30, 40 and eventually more than 50 a day.
Once you can safely do this, you can move to higher following amounts.
Establishing an Account
After warming up your account for a week or two, you can speed up the process.
You want to make sure you maintain a steady amount of posting, liking and commenting on other pictures to make your account appear as natural as possible.
Any changes you make to your account behavior should be done gradually.
Don’t suddenly jump from following 20 people a day to 100 a day just because your account has a little age to it now.
Gradual increases in follows with random numbers are your best bet for staying under the radar.
With an account that’s 1- 2 weeks old, it should be safe to move up to follow more than 50 a day.
You should slowly increase the number of people you follow by 5 – 10 people each day.
In my experience, you can safely follow 60 people an hour with a truly aged account.
Once you get to this point, your account will be at least a few months old, and you should already have a few thousand followers.
When Should I Start Unfollowing?
Unfollowing can be a tricky task but has immense value when done right.
People are more likely to follow your account when you have a higher follower ratio to you the people you follow.
Following fewer people establishes your account as an authority and makes it easier to leverage your reputation.
Unfollowing too early is where most new marketers mess up.
You should wait until you’re following at least 5000 ~ 7500 people before you start unfollowing.
You also need to adjust your following schedule, so you’re not following people and unfollowing them the same day.
You can control this best if you follow/unfollow manually, or by using software that has scheduling features.
Instagram allows you to follow a maximum of 7500 people in total.
Pending requests from accounts on private also count towards your total follower number.
You may want to consider ignoring private accounts since pending requests can add up quickly.
Can I follow and unfollow at the same time?
This is another mistake you need to stay far away from.
Remember your goal is to make your account look as natural as possible, following and unfollow at the same time definitely isn’t normal behavior for an account.
You can try things like keeping following and unfollowing for separate days or doing it manually, so you only unfollow certain people.
2. Shoutouts Trading (S4S)
Shoutoutpost is a useful website for building up your new accounts.
Shoutoutpost connects you with other Instagram users to exchange shoutouts.
The best part is this service is free; you just need to invest your time looking for people to exchange with.
If done right, you can even find partners willing to work together in the long term.
Before using this site, you should have at minimum 2000 followers.
You want to make it enticing for people to exchange with you, if you only have a couple of hundred followers, it’ll be hard to grow your account on Shoutoutpost.
Shoutoutpost works by curating a list of all their users for you to browse through.
You get basic stats such as the number of followers, and most recent posts.
You can execute searches by niche to save time.
Once you find an account you like, you send them a Trade Request.
Your request should include an enticing blurb (one or two sentences) that will make people want to check out your account.
Take the time to write an enticing description that will make people go out of their way to follow you.
After you send in your Trade Request, you have 48 hours for the other account to accept or deny.
If accepted, you’ll get a request for the other person looking for a shoutout as well.
Shoutoutpost is of mutual benefit to both parties and is a great way to supplement your following/unfollowing strategy.
3. Buying Shoutouts
Another way to increase your followers is to buy shoutouts.
If done properly, this can be a very lucrative way to get engagement on your posts and new followers.
If you don’t take the time to plan and research your shoutouts, you can very easily waste your investment.
Thoroughly Research Shoutout Sellers
It’s imperative you double and triple check that you’re only buying shoutouts from high-quality accounts.
You should always go through an accounts follower’s, check out their previous posts and see the type of comments people have made.
You’re looking for accounts with real pictures, real user interaction such as tagging friends in interesting posts and an overall sense of a real community from the page.
You should also study the potential accounts in real time.
Check how many likes they get per post or views per video.
If an account has 80k followers, but they’re only getting 100 – 200 likes per post, there’s a good chance they have a lot of fake or inactive followers.
Stay away!
4. Buying an Instagram Account
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For peace of mind, we always offer our clients account statistics and proof of ownership before payments are ever sent or requested.
This helps to reassure your confidence in our service and your satisfaction.
Regardless of your account needs, requirements, or stipulations – you can be confident in our ability to provide you with an account that meets your demands.
From choosing the page niche to requesting the desired follower count – we’re here to help fulfill all of your account needs in a swift, convenient, and affordable manner.
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If you want to learn how to make money through Instagram, check out our next article.