5 Tips to Gain Organic Followers on Instagram

As an entrepreneur, you know the importance of social media for increasing your brand’s awareness, recognition, and trust. But not all small businesses have the resources to invest in social media advertising, at least initially—and they end up internalizing negative beliefs, such as the following:

• “It’s SUPER hard to grow your Instagram following.”
• “If I don’t use advertising, I won’t be able to generate awareness for my brand.”
• “The algorithm only benefits companies that spend a lot of money on advertising.”

Do you identify with this situation? Don’t be discouraged! This article is for you.

Here are some tips for how you can use your time to grow your following on Instagram and other social media platforms .

Encourage the algorithm by doing what it loves: use the network!

Instagram’s algorithm, like that of any other social network, favors the most active users . The trick is to take advantage of all the network’s features, interact with other users, and publish the type of content the algorithm prefers—never forgetting that you’re communicating, above all, with your followers.

Organic Strategies to Increase Followers on Instagram – and Other Social Networks

Publish relevant content frequently and in multiple formats

It’s not hard to see that quality content is key to achieving success on any social network. But what does quality content mean? It’s any content that’s highly relevant to your target audience .

Content frequency also shows your followers that you’re an active brand, and repetition will increase trust in your brand. Furthermore, the algorithm favors more active pages and will show your content to a greater number of people, increasing your reach .

Each social network has its own features in terms of content format. On Instagram, make the most of video content on IGTV and Instagram Reels, and don’t forget to post Instagram Stories frequently.

Follow, Comment, and Like Posts from Other Pages

Capture the attention of your target audience by placing your brand in popular publications and communicating directly with them.

First, research your market segment: look for relevant hashtags and follow influential pages in your niche. By interacting with these pages and commenting on their posts, you put your brand’s name in front of millions of users—that’s free advertising!

More directly, visit the profiles of people who like and comment on these types of posts and interact with them directly. You can even do this with your competitors’ followers to bring them to you!

Show the algorithm that you’re an active user by utilizing all the network’s features, especially interactions. These activities will increase the reach of your posts, appearing in more people’s feeds and, consequently, increasing your followers.

Share content from other pages and mention them in your posts

If your brand doesn’t yet have the resources to work with influencers, start by building relationships on social media. By sharing content from other brands or influencers and mentioning them in your posts, they’ll notice your brand and, if they like it, they’ll share the feedback.

Use relevant hashtags

Your social media strategy must include a hashtag strategy.

Have you ever wondered which hashtags your target audience follows and searches for on social media? These are exactly the hashtags you should include in your posts to be found by your ideal customers.

There are several social media tools that allow you to search for hashtags, but you can also do it directly on Instagram. Posts should include a mix of popular hashtags and less popular ones that are more specific to your business.

Invite people to like your page

Whether through your own social network or external platforms, share your network.

This strategy can be implemented in two ways, depending on the social network: the first, which works on Facebook and LinkedIn, is to invite your friends and connections to like your page directly on the platform. On Facebook, you can also click on any of your posts, see the people who liked it, and invite them to like the page, without them being your friends on the network.

On Instagram, you can’t invite users directly, but you can send posts via direct message to your friends or people who might be interested.

Get started today!

These are just a few of the quickest strategies for organically increasing your social media reach. With just a little time and patience, you’ll see a dramatic increase in your interactions and followers.

The most important thing of all is to publish quality content—that’s what will drive people to like your post on Facebook or save it on Instagram. From there, the algorithm recognizes that your content is relevant to your users and will benefit your page.