Over time, I have read many different Instagram growth strategies, many of which promise you hundreds of new followers every day if you follow their advice. Some work, but most do not – at least not to the extent stated. However, most methods show some very striking similarities that numerous marketers use – and which work.
In this blog post, we want to examine the effectiveness of some of these proposed methods – and find out which tactics can actually help you improve your Instagram growth strategy. In addition, there is downloadable software as Instagram marketing and content planning solutions.
My Software Tip: Instagram Marketing & Content Planning -> Combin Growth & Scheduler in German
Why should you use your time and other resources for Instagram’s growth strategy?
The simple answer is: Because Instagram growth can positively impact your bottom line. Instagram is where your existing and potential customers hang out. Building a robust Instagram presence has many business benefits, including:
- Increasing brand awareness and establishing your company as an industry leader
- Reaching brand new target audiences
- Generate new leads & sales and influence your revenue level
- Social media is here to stay, and you might as well benefit from what it has to offer.
What does Instagram growth mean?
To ensure we are all on the same page, let’s first define Instagram growth.
Many will measure Instagram growth by the number of new followers, likes, and comments on their posts.
Others will consider their hashtag performance or estimated social media reach.
All of these metrics are insightful social media KPIs. We want to encourage a slightly different approach.
If Instagram is an essential part of your marketing strategy, you should measure growth based on business KPIs.
Why do you invest in building an Instagram presence and increasing reach? Because a strong social media presence can positively impact your bottom line.
Become more visible on Google & Social Media?
In a free strategy consultation for data-driven online marketing, we uncover your untapped potential, review any existing ad accounts if necessary, examine your SEO ranking and visibility, and determine which strategy is appropriate for your budget and which active measures will lead to more inquiries or sales.
✅ More visibility & perception through targeted placement
✅ More visitors > prospects > customers > revenue
✅ Reach target groups scalably with SEA
✅ Act and grow sustainably with SEO
🫵 Maximum success with our hybrid strategy
💪 More than 15 years of experience across industries in over 1,000+ projects demonstrable!
Growing your Instagram account can help you:
- Sell your products directly from the platform
- Provide exquisite customer service
- Expand your customer base by reaching a brand new audience
- Establish your brand as an industry leader
- Growing your Instagram account keeps you one step ahead of your competitors.
What techniques should you implement to achieve robust Instagram growth?
Top Instagram Growth Tips
Use Instagram Hashtags Correctly
If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you probably know the importance of using the right hashtags. They are the best tool at your disposal to reach more people and consequently encourage more engagement and activity for your posts.
In a recent test conducted by the Social Media Lab to find out if they could get 100 new followers on Instagram within 24 hours, they used the following tactic for hashtags:
Choose 30 relevant hashtags
Make sure they are not too popular, but also not too rare – the sweet spot in this case was between 50,000 and 300,000 images per hashtag. The goal was to get the images into the top 9 for the hashtag to increase visibility. If there are too many images for that hashtag on Instagram, this is almost impossible, especially if your profile is not yet very popular.
When you post your hashtags, don’t put them in the caption, but in a comment. Neil Patel also recommends this – for one, it looks better, and for another, as he says, hashtags are not so much to be seen as to help people find your content.
The Right Instagram Schedule
OK, get ready; you probably need to increase the amount of content you post on Instagram daily.
One or two images a day simply isn’t enough. There’s too much content, too many people posting more and better content, and if you can’t keep up, yours will probably just get lost in people’s Insta feeds.
Aside from the obligatory 1-2 photos per day, Instagram experts recommend:
5-30 Instagram Stories
1 live video per day (Neil Patel also recommends that you start it at the exact same time every day so you can get more people to join in every day.)
This may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be. Stories are easy to create and live videos don’t have to be too long.
Ideally, you should plan your Instagram content strategy in advance so you are always ready for anything:
- Honest shots from the office as well as outside the office (team building trip, anyone?)
- Photos of your lunches – nothing is better on Instagram than food. Except maybe for cute dogs. And cute cats. And other cute animals. Apart from that, food rules social media and Instagram in particular.
- Motivational, funny and interesting quotes
- Take a look at upcoming products
- Branded content – promotional photos and videos, photos of your products or services, etc.
- Interesting statistics (just turn them into an image)
This way, you can keep an eye on the top posts shared with these hashtags. This will help you better understand what kind of content resonates with the audience.
Analyze Instagram Hashtags
A social media listening tool collects additional data that can help you boost your Instagram presence.
Let’s discuss the benefits of social media monitoring for Instagram growth.
To boost your Instagram growth, it’s important to track the performance of your hashtags online. This way, you’ll get some key Instagram metrics:
the social media reach of your posts – to see how many people might have seen your post
The total number of interaction types – to determine if your posts are engaging your community
Trending hashtags in your industry – to increase your social media reach and find new users interested in your content.
In addition, Combin Growth & Combin Scheduler help collect all mentions with your predefined hashtag, location, or people’s profile. This way, you can respond to all posts where your target audience is active.
The more you customize your Instagram content strategy with Combin Instagram marketing and content planning solutions, the better – and some of this content you can prepare in advance to make your work easier.
Materials you can prepare in advance include, for example: product images, motivational, interesting, and funny quote images, and promotional content. For the rest, keep your eyes open every day and take in the world around you: What would your audience like to see from your world?
Diversify your content
Back when Instagram was invented, you could only share photos. Once Facebook bought the social media platform, you could diversify the content.
If you want to increase your Instagram reach, you should explore everything Instagram has to offer.
Regularly post content to your feed, use Instagram Stories, and prepare content for IGTV. You might attract a slightly different audience with each type of content to organically grow your Instagram presence.
Use UGC – User Generated Content
By sharing user-generated content, you can expand your Instagram by reaching brand new audiences.
How to do this?
Create a hashtag campaign for Instagram users that promotes your brand hashtag. Then select the posts you want to promote in your feed and properly credit the authors.
User-generated content can positively impact your Instagram growth strategy. Not only will you engage your followers, but you’ll also get a lot of unique and often very creative content that you can use on your social media.
Regularly follow target users
Another essential step in a successful Instagram growth strategy is to find and follow targeted users.
Instagram allows you to follow up to 50 users per hour before they get angry. But it might still not be the best idea to follow 50 people every hour and 8 hours a day – a few dozen a day is great to start with.
First, find some of your top competitors who share an audience with you – preferably a very engaged audience.
Look at accounts that not only appeal to the same audience but also get a lot of engagement on their posts – this usually shows that they have an engaged audience, which is the best kind of audience.
Otherwise, what’s the point? You might have a lot of followers, tens of thousands, but if they couldn’t care less about you, your business, or what you post, then what’s the point? It might look good (and feel good) to see that you have so many followers, but it’s actually much better to have fewer but very engaged followers.
Surprisingly, this is not the case in other social networks – or at least not to the extent they used to be. In my case, for example, some of my posts with the least engagement actually generate the most traffic, while posts with many comments and likes get hardly any traffic. It’s a strange time for social media marketing. But unfortunately, I’ve digressed enough – Instagram, unlike Facebook and Twitter, still thrives on engagement.
So, as I said, find top competitors with over 50,000 followers and a lot of engagement on their posts.
Once you have found at least 10 accounts, write them down in a spreadsheet and follow their followers – as mentioned, never more than 50 per hour according to Instagram's guidelines.
Be active and engage in the network
It’s not enough to just post content, you also need to engage – and it’s a great way to reach new people and get targeted users to follow you and re-engage with you.
Take about 5 minutes each day to engage: leave comments, reply to every comment you receive on your content, such as pictures and videos, etc.
This not only helps you increase your Instagram engagement, but can also help you gain more followers. So, if you find users who fit your target audience, reach out to them by liking their content and leaving comments. It will put you on their radar – and it could lead to a follow-up from a truly interested and engaged user.
Cross-Post
You are probably active on more than one social media platform. This means you can easily post the same content on different social media channels.
This Instagram growth hack has several advantages. You can engage your followers on different platforms and direct some of the traffic to your Instagram account. Remember to offer exclusive content on Instagram so that your potential followers have an incentive to follow your account.
Check out another visual social media platform, Pinterest. If you use a service like IFTTT, you can easily connect two accounts and post Instagram photos directly to Pinterest.
To boost Instagram growth, you can also add a link to your Instagram account in your newsletter or Intercom chat. This way, you make your potential followers aware of the social media platforms where you are active.
How does Instagram grow organically and cleanly?
In summary, a solid Instagram growth strategy requires:
- A solid daily content schedule: 1-2 photos per day, one live video per day, and at least 5 Instagram stories – the more, the better
- Always use relevant hashtags – find up to 30 relevant hashtags and post them in a comment rather than in the caption of the posts
- Follow targeted users – find top competitors and follow their followers (up to 10 per hour -> very active!)
- Engage – Interact with other users daily and be an active user on the platform
Combin Growth simplifies all these processes.
What does Combin Software offer for Instagram?
Combin* is both an Instagram growth service and a content planning solution and post scheduling tool. You can purchase Combin for Instagram growth only, for scheduling only, or for both increasing your followers and planning and scheduling your posts.
The Combin growth tool aims to identify, engage with, and increase your Instagram followers. They offer numerous filters to target followers who are interested in your content and therefore more likely to follow back and engage with your posts. This platform uses machine learning to find and target quality accounts.
Combin also includes audience management, so you can see who isn’t following you and unfollow them. It also automates repetitive actions, allowing you to interact with multiple accounts and posts simultaneously to improve engagement. Mass follow, unfollow, like, and comment on accounts and posts in batches with Combin.
With Combin, you can manage multiple Instagram accounts simultaneously or focus on just one. They offer a free starter trial or monthly options for personal or business accounts.
Combination features:
- Instagram audience management
- Targeting filters
- Bulk actions and engagements
- Automated repetitive actions
- Free trial period
- Planning tool (sold separately)
- and much more.
Florian Ibe
CEO & Marketing Consultant
Your contact person: Florian Ibe
DE
