How To Grow Your Instagram: 8 Ways To Get More Followers

Profile photo of Karen Lin, author

Karen Lin

Instagram 101 | Oct 08, 2024

Want More Real Instagram Followers?

The Instagram app is the main social media platform that businesses and influencers turn to for recognition. For many influencers, their number of Instagram followers is a testament to how well they do on social media. The bigger the fanbase is on your Instagram account, the more trustworthy, credible, and successful you are. It also gives you way more career opportunities and sales. But not every aspiring business or content creator knows how to gain Instagram followers. And not every growth company will tell you how to grow your Instagram followers. 

Want to know how to grow your Instagram page? We’ll explore the best strategies to reach your target audiences and boost your success. And no, we’re not talking about quick fixes like buying Instagram followers who don’t even engage with your Instagram posts. Some users might look to buy Instagram followers for a quick fix, but it’s not helpful in the long run. 

You will want to avoid fake Instagram followers if you use any service to buy Instagram followers. We’ll teach you the most sustainable strategies to get real followers who will love and appreciate your content.

Ready to unlock the secrets to growing your Instagram account? Keep reading to see our top eight tips on getting more followers to grow and maximize your Instagram presence.

A person holding an iPad showing a graph of growing followers.

Wondering “Why Can’t I Get Instagram Followers?” 

Struggling to gain Instagram followers can be frustrating, especially when you’re trying to create engaging content. If you’re asking yourself, “Why can’t I get Instagram followers?” you’re not alone. We’ll explore common reasons behind this issue and strategies to help you attract more followers and boost your online presence.

1. Have an Aesthetic Feed: How to Grow Your Instagram Organically

Some people think you have to pay tons of money to grow on Instagram. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. You can grow on Instagram without spending a cent and instead putting all your effort into making amazing content. Wondering how to grow your Instagram organically? Our top tip: build an aesthetic feed with your Instagram posts, use relevant hashtags, and let the Instagram algorithm work.

Instagram is all about stunning visual content. People follow accounts that consistently post beautiful, interesting photos and videos. It’s good to schedule Instagram posts in advance to ensure a consistent presence across your social channels. Many Instagram scheduling tools help manage multiple Instagram accounts effectively, saving time for social media managers.

If you want your target audiences to give you a follow, use aesthetically pleasing content in your Instagram posts. That’s how to get follower growth without burning a hole in your pocket.

Aside from capturing your target audience’s attention, visually appealing content also showcases your brand identity to your Instagram followers. If you post attractive content on your Instagram feed, it’s easier for people to remember and recognize you.

Visually aesthetic content is also more shareable and has the potential to go viral. When people share your content on Instagram Stories, it broadens your reach to other Instagram users. As a result, you could reel in more followers, allowing your account to grow further.

But your Instagram content can’t just be visually beautiful. The content has to be interesting, relevant, and engaging as well. It needs to fit in your specific niche and be valuable to your community. Pretty isn’t everything—you need to show high-quality content that is helpful to your potential followers, too.

A smartphone on a desk showing an Instagram profile grid on the screen.

2. Invest in Ads: How To Grow Your Business on Instagram With Paid Content

Instagram is home to millions of users, including thousands of brands competing for attention. If you want to know how to grow your business on Instagram, Instagram ads are the way to go. Using ads in your Instagram content will attract actual users instead of fake followers. Ads can also land you on the Explore page.

Simply put, Instagram ads are digital advertisements you can post all over the platform. You can create content for ads on your feed, Instagram Stories, Reels, and more.

These photos and videos allow you to reach people who don’t follow you yet. If they find your products or brand relevant, you may get a boost in your followers on Instagram.

The secret to getting followers on Instagram using ads is selecting the relevant users in your target audience. While setting up an ads campaign, you determine what kind of people will see your content. Choose the right gender, age, location, and interests to ensure you gain followers who will engage with your everyday content. This is an important social media strategy to see any growth in follower count.

Instagram ads also allow you to showcase your product offerings and services through stunning, curated visual content. They can also help raise brand awareness in the long run. If your brand and its products get more popular, gaining followers will come quite easily.

Note that you need to switch your page from a personal account to a business account to run any ads. Then, you can start running paid campaigns to reach your target audiences. These campaign options include image ads, Stories ads, carousel ads, Reels ads, Shop ads, and Collection ads.

Boosting Organic Posts: The Easiest Way To Put Up Ads

Wondering how to grow an Instagram with paid content but don’t have time to strategize ad campaigns? Don’t worry—there’s a simpler way to run paid content on Instagram. That’s done by boosting organic posts that you already have on your feed.

By boosting a post on your Instagram feed, you can turn an organic post into an ad in an instant. You can boost your Instagram posts, Stories, and Reels. If you have a paid partnership with an influencer and they tag you as a collaborator, you can boost that.

Just go to your profile and find the post you want to boost. Click on the blue “Boost post” button underneath the post. From there, you’ll fill in your target audiences, goals, and budget, just like when setting up an ad campaign. Confirm all the information, and that’s it! Your ad post will then reach your target audiences and current followers.

Boosting posts is a quick way to grow your Instagram with increased paid content. It’s also cost-effective since you don’t have to create content from scratch for your ads.

When choosing which posts to boost, always go for the ones that historically perform the best. Boosted posts with the most views, likes, and comments will do great since you already know people like them.

3. How To Grow Your Instagram Followers With Reels and Stories

Posting beautiful photos is a must on Instagram. However, it’s not the only thing you should post to make noise about your brand. Today, people are really digging for vertical video content on social media like Instagram Reels and Stories. If you plan to grow your Instagram followers, consider adding these two formats to your content mix.

Instagram Reels are short and entertaining videos users make by stitching clips, photos, and audio together. Because they’re so addicting, people can spend all day scrolling through Reel after Reel.

Aside from being relatable and relevant to most Instagram users, Reels also allows brands to be more discoverable online. Sharing behind-the-scenes content can humanize your brand and foster a deeper connection with your social media followers.

Instagram has a separate tab for Reels, which they curate based on virality and each user’s interests.

If you’re creating content with Reels, they might push it out to more users on the Instagram Explore page. This lets more people discover your brand, allowing you to gain new followers.

Instagram Stories are also great for growing your Instagram account. Only your Instagram followers will see these temporary videos on their homepage. However, you can pin them up as highlights after they expire. That way, if someone visits your profile, they’ll see your Instagram Stories Highlights on your page. If they’re interesting or educational posts, you may increase your follower count from visitors!

Businesses can post Story Highlights for customer reviews, product highlights, and FAQs. Influencers can post OOTDs, travel content, and brand collabs. Create cute and aesthetic Highlight covers on your Instagram profile to make them look more exciting!

If someone stumbles upon your Instagram profile, Highlights will tell them who you are and what you offer. Hopefully, this will help you pull in new followers.

A man taking a video with his phone of a couple of other men playing music.

4. Do a Collab: Grow Your Following With Influencer Marketing

Let’s talk about a few ideas to get more Instagram followers on your account with the help of Instagram influencers.

Your Instagram bio should clearly convey your brand message and direct followers to your other platforms.

One of the smartest ways to build relationships with other creators and grow your brand is by collaborating with them. If your brand “sponsors” an influencer’s post, you can reach their massive fanbase. You can suggest an Instagram account takeover, get on their social media content calendar, and talk Instagram strategy with them.

They can talk about your brand and show off your products through a paid partnership. And if their followers love your brand, you will get new followers.

Around 69% of people trust an influencer’s product recommendation over a brand’s advertisement. It feels more authentic like a friend telling you about their new favorite drink or lipstick. Partnering with creators boosts awareness for your brand while making it look credible.

When picking influencers to work with, choose those with the same target audiences as your own audience. That way, you know they’ll be talking to the people you want to attract to your page.

A girl is doing a dance in front of her phone, which is propped up on a tripod.

5. Encourage UGC

When it comes to how to grow your brand on Instagram, don’t rely solely on your content creation. Once you get a significant fanbase, more loyal followers will start posting about your products for you. This is user-generated content or UGC, and it’s incredible for growing your Instagram page.

So, let’s talk about getting more Instagram followers using UGC. This type of content refers to organic, unpaid Instagram posts that customers create to showcase a brand they genuinely love.

UGC includes brand reviews and photos of them using your product. Some examples of UGC are OOTDs featuring a brand’s clothes and get-ready-with-me videos using a brand’s makeup products. When people post UGC, your brand will be visible to many potential new Instagram followers.

Here’s how your Instagram can grow with UGC. People will post about your product on their feed or Instagram Stories and Reels. Hopefully, they’ll tag you in their post so their friends and family know where the products came from.

Then, their followers will see your brand since their friend has such good things to say about it. From there, you could get a few new followers.

You can maximize how UGC helps grow your Instagram. Encourage your loyal followers to create user-generated content and use relevant hashtags for your brand or product. Give discount codes or freebies on their next purchase if they post a photo of your product and tag you. Not only will you reach more people from it, but your brand will also look more trustworthy and credible.

An influencer holding up a shirt in front of her camera that is propped up on a ring-light tripod.

6. Host a Giveaway: Get More Instagram Followers Fast With Contests

Another terrific strategy to gain followers fast is hosting a giveaway for your community. Run a promotional Instagram contest that gives your followers a chance to win a prize.

No one will say no to a chance to win free stuff. So, you can count on engagement to be high when you post these contests. The best part is that you can customize the mechanics to ensure they get you a lot of followers.

Here’s how to gain Instagram followers with a giveaway, step by step:

1. Choose what products you want to give way. It can be either products from your shop that you can ship out or discount codes and vouchers.

2. Decide on your mechanics. People usually enter by sharing the post on their Instagram Stories or tagging a friend in the comments. You can even make sure everyone entering the contest follows you to be eligible for the prize.

3. Create a post to promote the giveaway. Clearly state the caption’s mechanics to ensure everyone adheres to the rules. Amplify your efforts by posting the giveaway on Instagram Stories.

4. Choose the winner based on a random draw. Be as transparent as possible with how you select the winner.

5. Lastly, announce the winner and thank everyone for joining the giveaway.

If you’re lucky, the winner of your giveaway might love the prizes so much that they post about them. This automatically generates user-generated content that will increase buzz about your brand, thus gaining more followers.

a box with a notebook and a coffee mug

7. Use Hashtags: Get More Instagram Followers With Strategic Captions

Racking your brain about how to get more followers on Instagram easily? You don’t always need to run ads or promos to boost your follower count. Sometimes, something as easy as using relevant hashtags is enough to gain attention. To boost your visibility, find hashtags that align with your content and audience.

Instagram hashtags allow your posts to show up not just on your followers’ feeds but also on hashtag pages. Using simple hashtags like #fashion for clothing brands or #athomeworkouts for fitness influencers can make you more discoverable. If someone were to explore those hashtags for fun, they may stumble upon your page and give you a follow.

You can also find hashtags that you know are currently gaining much traction with trends. Popular hashtags will have tons of people lurking on their pages. Make the most out of this traffic by being present in trending hashtags for a chance to get more followers.

Note that Instagram captions will only allow 30 hashtags at a time. Choose only the best hashtags to include in your post. Having too many hashtags can look spammy. Creating a unique branded hashtag can help build your brand identity and encourage user-generated content. Also, post captions that resonate with your audience and encourage them to interact with your posts.

8. Tag Your Location

Our last tip is to tag your location on your Instagram posts. If you’re a travel content creator wondering how to grow on Instagram, geotagging your posts will help out a lot.

Like hashtags, location tags have dedicated pages. People can lurk and scroll through that page to find photos and videos of a specific place. This is great content inspiration if you have an upcoming trip and want to see what photos to take there.

So, when you tag your location on your posts, you’re more discoverable to people interested in the places you visit. If they like your content, they might visit your profile and follow to see more about the location you tagged.

Geotagging is also excellent if you want to boost brand awareness among local customers. If you’re a business with a physical store, it’s even more helpful. If people stumble upon your posts online and see that you operate in their city, they might follow you. It also can drive foot traffic to your store since they already know you’re near them.

Bonus Tip: How To Grow Your Instagram Account With Path Social

All the tips above will make a huge impact on your Instagram growth. Remember to consistently create engaging content, experiment with Instagram Stories and Reels, invest in ads, and use geotags and hashtags. Avoid resorting to fake Instagram followers if you go with buying followers. If you want to build your brand’s relationships with others, consider collaborating and running giveaways. You can also try encouraging user-generated content with your Instagram posts.

If you follow these tips to a T, you’re sure to reach your target audiences. When they see your relevant content and hit “follow” on your page, the Instagram followers will start pouring in.

Now that you know how to grow your Instagram account, we have another tip for growing your Instagram: Path Social. Our proprietary targeting algorithm doesn’t just push out your best content to your people for more engagement. It also makes your brand discoverable to your target audiences. This allows you to quickly and efficiently gain real followers who will be an asset to your fanbase. Start growing your Instagram with us today!

All the tips above will make a huge impact on your Instagram growth. Remember to consistently create beautiful content, experiment with Instagram Stories and Reels, invest in ads, and use geotags and hashtags. And if you want to build your brand’s relationships with others, think of doing collaborations, running giveaways, and encouraging user-generated content.

If you follow these tips to a T, you’re sure to reach your target audiences. Then, when they see your relevant content and hit “follow” on your page, you will see your Instagram account thrive.

But we do have one last tip on how to grow your Instagram account—working with Path Social. Our proprietary targeting algorithm doesn’t just push out your best content to your people for more engagement. It also makes your brand discoverable to your target audiences. This allows you to quickly and efficiently gain real followers that will be an asset to your fanbase. Start growing your Instagram with us today!