8 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

I absolutely love Instagram and think it is one of the best and easiest (and most fun!) ways to grow your online following, get more loyal readers, and even convert leads to your email newsletter or sales of your products or affiliate products.

Here are 8 ways to grow your following on Instagram:

1. Post great content.

If you want people to follow you and stick around and recommend you to others, you need to be bringing value to their life every single week.

Value comes in all shapes and sizes. Maybe you’re helping them be a better mom, feel less alone, laugh more, be more intentional with their time, cook better meals, or organize their home.

Any time somebody follows you on social media, whether they realize it or not, they’re asking themselves, “What’s in this for me?”

Think about how you’ll answer that question by making their life better in some way.

2. Show up consistently.

You can’t expect to grow your following if you’re not consistently present for your community.

You have to show up, and you have to show up consistently.

Commit to show up more often and I can almost guarantee you’ll see your numbers grow!

3. Follow other people.

When I follow a few new people regularly, I find that I usually get a few new followers as a result. I won’t necessarily get followed back by those same people I followed, but it often triggers other people in similar communities to follow me!

Tip: Don’t just go out and mass-follow 2,000 people. Intentionally follow people that have the same kinds of audiences that you want to attract. And follow people that will teach you things you need and want to learn.

4. Use IGTV.

Instagram is rewarding people for using Instagram TV right now.

Not only will they show your content to your followers more, but they’ll also show your content in the “recommended for you” section — which gets you in front of a lot more people that aren’t already following you!

So if you aren’t using IGTV, definitely start experimenting with it regularly!

Tip: I save many of my videos that I do on Instagram Live and post them to IGTV. This is a great way to get even more return on my investment of time and effort — and get my account in front of a lot of new people! Note: If you don’t have 10,000 followers, you’ll can only upload videos to IGTV that are less than 10 minutes. You can either edit your videos or just make sure you are concise and keep your Instagram Lives short!

5. Promote Instagram wherever you are online.

Be sure to talk about your Instagram account anywhere you’re present online! People won’t know or assume you have an Instagram account unless you tell them.

Talk about your Instagram account on Facebook, in your blog posts, in your newsletter, on your podcast, in your welcome e-mail, etc.

I often tell people to be sure to follow me on Instagram, because it’s a more personal account and they’ll get more behind-the-scenes real-life stuff if they follow along on there.

6. Use Hashtags.

Experiment with different hashtags and change it up frequently.

I’ve been experimenting with this a lot on both of my accounts — @themoneysavingmom and @yourbloggingmentor — and I’m finding that it truly does work.

Just be sure your hashtags are legitimate and that they’ll attract the right kinds of people who will appreciate your post. Don’t just use hashtags that you know will attract the most people to your post, because that probably means they won’t stick around.

7. Leave comments on other Instagram posts.

Instagram is a community and engagement with other Instagrammers is encouraged and rewarded.

Also, when you comment on other people’s posts, they might appreciate it and follow you back. And other people will follow you when they see you comment, too!

Tip: if anyone comments on your posts or sends you a direct message, be sure to respond and engage with them. Want to take it to the next level? Consider responding with a video message (details on how to do that are here).

8. Host giveaways.

Giveaway are a great way to attract new followers!

I’ve done a lot of giveaways in the past, but a recent giveaway I did on my MSM Instagram account resulted in over 1,000 new followers!

Because of the engagement it got and how many followers I gained as a result, I decided to really reflect on what I did differently with this giveaway compared to past giveaways.

Here’s what I came up with and would offer as tips to you:

• Post an eye-catching photo. This gets people’s attention.
• Ask people to follow you, like your photo, and leave a comment tagging a friend. By doing this, you create more engagement and get more eyeballs on it.
• Pick a giveaway product that will get people excited and that you yourself are genuinely excited about. In this giveaway, I picked books I’ve personally read and love. I also included a popular book that has gotten a lot of exposure online so that people would be really excited about it.
• Give away an item that will attract people who would be interested in following you. This ensures they’ll stick around once the giveaway is over. Because I love books and frequently talk about them, I decided to give away a stack of books. I also posted intentional living books, since I often talk about intentional living on my MSM Instagram account.
• Tag companies in your giveaway. This might give you more exposure. I tagged all the authors in my books giveaway, and some of them re-shared the post — which resulted in the giveaway getting even more exposure!
• Promote it on video. When you show you giveaway products individually on live video, it gets people really excited! I promoted this giveaway on both Instagram Stories and Facebook Live.

I’d love to hear from you! What tips would you add to this list? What has helped you grow your Instagram following?