7 Tips to grow your instagram page

7 Tips to grow your instagram page

Instagram is one of the most frequent social media apps in the world; with over of 44 million photos and videos per day, 1.9 billion likes daily and well over 138 million daily activities (Source: Instagram statistics). Instagram is a visual app which thrives on popularity, trends and followership. Many little known individuals have reached stardom, thanks to instagram while many new talents have also been discovered just because they were able to drive followers on instagram. You can do same too; you can bring your dreams to life by sharing what makes you unique with people all over the world on instagram.

This article is going to focus on how to grow a personal account without having to buy followers from “followers’ hawker” (people who sell dummy followers on instagram).  If you can work with these tips you can be rest assured of doubling your followers every week, on a personal account.

Note that accounts on Instagram can be classified into three;

• Personal Account: These are individual accounts
• Celebrity account: These are accounts owned by celebrity or a parody
• Business Account: These are accounts own for the purpose of business e.g. marketing, shopping, product display etc

 (Some of these tips would also work for your business account)

1. Content:

• Content of your post: You must have content. Your page must be about something; workout, sex appeal, videos, stories, dance, comedy, drama, writing, motivational, personal weird life, lifestyle, love etc. If it is going to be pictures of you, let it be you doing interesting stuffs people will want to see. There must be content that is compelling and capable luring people to your page.
• Quality of visuals: A friend once said, ‘if the quality is not right, don’t bother putting it up’. If you want to put pictures or videos on instagram make sure they are clear, of high quality and not too heavy. A phone with camera less than 8MP is bad market while image size of more than 2mb would probably mean no one would wait around for your picture to open, not to talk of liking or trending it.

2. Treat your followers right

• Use of Shout-outs: However, you do this; make sure you acknowledge your followers especially those who are always there to like your posts. People generally like their ego to be massaged and that includes you. So acknowledging your followers keep them loyal and most importantly, it entices many others to follow your page. A single shout out can get you so many followers in a matter of seconds, it is that potent.
• Follow backs: If your account is neither a celebrity or business account, then you should not have issues following back. It is not necessary you follow everyone back but follow an appreciable number of people. This will encourage people to follow you too, and then when your account grows to the celebrity level, you might have no need to follow back.

3. Link your Instagram to your other social media accounts: If you are the type that has so many friends on Facebook or twitter, you might want to link your instagram to these apps. Instagram has a way of suggesting your account to your friends on other social media platforms, for them to follow you. The more your friends follow you, the more friends your account will be suggested to, even friends of friend would also get your account on their suggestion list. That’s why sometimes you see an account without a single post yet having over a thousand followers.

4. Caption & Hashtags

• Use of caption: Most people just post pictures or videos without caption while some use captions that are just too ordinary, if you are one of them this is an undoing. Caption on instagram is quite important, if you want to get more likes and grow your followers. You have to learn how to use suggestive captions, for example a caption like, ‘is this real?’ on a picture, ‘watch out for what this guy does next’ or ‘wait for it’ on a video post would make everyone want to watch it, even if it takes a while for the picture/video to load, people will wait to see it.
• Use of Hashtags (#): Firstly, note that Hashtags are meant to come before word(s) not after or before and after; #instagram (right), instagram# (wrong) and #instagram# (wrong). Hashtags are used to generate trends and some people search using these Hashtags, for instance when you use #Nigeria in your post, people who are interest in Nigeria related posts can search and see your post. Invariably, this increases your likes and followers; however you need to be conversant with the trending Hashtags and use them in your posts’ captions as often as possible. This will drive traffic to your posts.

5. Timing and Presence

• Post timing: In case you have not noticed instagram has traffic time. Depending on your location and time zone, there are some hours that it is not advisable you post; especially if your desire is to get as many likes and followers as possible. For instance, a post you made between 8-9pm on a weekday will definitely get more attention than a post you made between 1-3pm on same weekday. Get the timing that works for people in your zone right.
• Online presence: You have to be present as much as possible online to become relevant online. If you are just someone that comes online post and logout, then if you have up to 4 likes, you should be happy. To trend, get likes and follower, you have to spend time online too liking, commenting and following other people. The more time you spend, the more the relevant you become and remember nothing works till you work it.

6. Mentioning (tagging) & Repost (regram/regrann)

• Mentioning: This is another way to get followers quickly. Mention people who are influential or celebrities in your posts, especially people you know would regrann/regram or like your post (don’t overdo this, as it can be kind of weird for the person you are tagging). For instance, if your post is about comedy, you can mention someone like the Nigerian comedian Alibaba (@alibabagcfr), and you can be sure of a regrann or like from him, and this will trend your post; meaning more likes and new followers.
• Repost high-profile posts: You can regrann celebrity account’s post, instagram gives them a notification of the regrann and in turn, they may visit your account and like the post and others. Their followers see this and instantly you will get traffic on your own account. Some will just like but others will like and follow, especially if your contents are amazing.

7. Master Disappearance: This is a bit tactical; many people have learned to use this to their advantage while others just realize it happened but can’t explain how they did it. This is how it works, if you have been present online for say 6 consecutive days then do this, stay off (disappear) for just one day, you will find out that by the time you come online again you would have gotten many new followers. This is why, because instagram wants you every day, it will start throwing up your profile for people to follow and your pictures starts popping up on search for people to like, so that when you get those notifications you will comeback online. Hence the result you see when you come back online; more likes and followers. But like I said this is tactical, you have to use it wisely.

I hope this article has been helpful as you try to build your brand via instagram. Stardom is not impossible, if you can showcase your uniqueness and your fun side; there is so much to love about you.