Do you want to grow your following on Instagram? Do you want to get the attention of your dream customers but nothing seems to work?
Well, it’s not common. Most people never get the results they want because they are doing it wrong. And that’s why in this article I am going to reveal to you some of the best Instagram practices to build your audience.
So, are you ready to begin? If so, let’s dive in…
1. Engage With Your Audience
This is the most basic way to get the attention of your dream customers and get new followers, especially when you are beginning on Instagram.
When you are going to engage with your audience, every time you make a comment, somebody is going to see it and they are going to ask themselves…
“Who is this person?”
And that’s when you have won. Because at that moment they are going to tap on your profile picture, visit your profile, and if you share great content and your profile is optimized, they are going to follow you.
However, not every comment causes this kind of reaction. The comments that cause it are valuable and feedback-giving comments.
If you are going to make comments like “Thanks for sharing” I bet you’re not going to get any great results.
So, yes, it is more than important that you engage, but you must be going to do it the right way.
Also, the volume of engagement is going to determine the amount of attention you are going to get.
And that’s why I follow this engagement strategy that has been proven to work for me for years and it is one of the best Instagram practices to build your audience:
- 50 comments on posts from leading industry accounts.
- 50 comments on hashtags.
- 50 comments on your follower’s posts.
- Reply to all comments.
When you are going to follow this engagement strategy, you are going to get amazing results.
2. Post More Often
A great Instagram practice to grow your audience faster is to share more content more often. That’s because if the content is more high quality and it adds value to the lives of your target audience…
When you leverage Instagram features, then you are going to get more exposure than you normally would.
My recommendation is that you try to share a new piece of content at least once a day. If you can handle it, you can go up to posting 3x a day.
However, if you can’t handle it for some reason and you just can’t post that often, then try to ramp up your content production to your limits.
But remember, this is only going to work if your content is already great. If your posts struggle to get reach, then sharing more of them is not going to work.
Crappy posts shared more often will still be crappy.
So, you’ll need to fix your content first before you move to this thing.
3. Create Better Content
This is probably the most important Instagram practice to build your audience and reach more people of all. The better content you’re going to create, the better results you’re going to get…
So, what are the 3 core elements of creating amazing Instagram content that gets a lot of reach and helps you to build your audience?
- VALUE
- PRESENTATION
- RELEVANCY
If just one of these things is missing, then your content is not going to get you any great results. So, let’s have a quick look at each of these things…
Value is the reason why people should consume the post and it is the thing they are going to GET from it. There are 3 types of value – education, entertainment, and inspiration.
Make sure your content adds as much value as possible if you want to get amazing results.
Presentation is the thing that makes the message desirable to consume. In other words, it is the design, the headline, video quality, and editing, etc.
You need to make it as great as possible or chances are that people won’t even bother to consume the content that you create. And…
Relevancy is extremely important as well. That’s because irrelevant value is not valuable. You have to ensure that whatever that you’re talking about is relevant to your dream customers. If it’s not, your content is NEVER going to perform.
Create your content with all of these 3 pillars in place or your content is never going to perform and you are never going to build your audience.
4. Use Reels
Instagram reels are currently a trending content format and because Instagram is promoting them a lot, they also get a lot of attention.
That’s the main reason why it’s more than powerful to use them to build your audience on Instagram.
So, if you are currently sharing only image-based content like single-image posts or carousels, then I highly suggest that you add Instagram reels to your strategy as well.
5. Optimize Your Profile
Optimizing your profile is one of the best Instagram practices to build your audience. Doing it is going to help you get new followers without any extra effort.
So, what are some of the main elements that you need to look at when you are optimizing your Instagram profile? Well…
- Username – your or your company’s name
- Headline – your name + keyword
- Profile Pic – make it look professional, it will be your logo or your face
- Bio – authority sentence, promise sentence, call to action
- Bio Link – link to the first page in your sales funnel
When you’re going to follow these steps, then you’ll get great results as much more people who are going to visit your profile are also going to follow you.
Also, it is going to help you get more exposure because when you include a keyword in the headline, you are going to appear in search results when somebody types that keyword into the search bar.
6. Use A “Follow Me” Call To Action In Your Content
When you are going to use a “follow me” call to action, in your content, way more people are going to take action based on it and they are going to follow you…
…which is going to result in you growing your audience on Instagram.
Always try to include this kind of call to action at the end of your content and you’ll see how many extra people who are going to go through your posts will hit the “follow” button.
Filip Konecny 