In January 2020, Instagram reported almost a billion monthly users. Come January 2021, that number is bound to go up several notches and this rapid increase of Instagram users only goes to show how far the platform has come. Today, Instagram is a major money-making machine for businesses and social media influencers, which is why it’s much more than a social media platform. On the other hand, it’s practically a career for many. The most influential brands and social media influencers are making millions per post, so why should you get left behind?
Before you start to make some real money from Instagram, you have to work hard to cultivate your image on the platform. There are a few factors that dictate how quickly and how much money you make through Instagram. These include who you are, the values your brand stands for, what you’ve got to offer, and how many people trust you and turn to you for solutions.
Establishing your brand’s identity and ensuring the quality of the products and/or services is your major responsibility. But, there are ways to rapidly increase the number of your followers. Options to get free Instagram followers and paid alternatives can give you an edge over your competitors. This is especially with regard to reaching out to your target audience and making a lasting impression.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at how having more Insta followers can work wonders for you. So, without further ado, let’s get right into it!
The benefits of having more followers on Instagram
On Instagram, the effort is the means and money is the end. However, you’ll only get there when you have more Instagram followers. Here are some amazing benefits you’ll start to see once your follower count keeps rising consistently.
- More takers for your product: What you’ve got to offer won’t generate much of a buzz unless it gets across to a lot of people among your target audience. With more followers, you’ll have a consistent, growing stream of people who’ll not only share your content but buy your products as well. Some of the most profitable Instagram niches include traveling and tourism, beauty, health and fitness, fashion, parenting, lifestyle, business, food, photography, and music.Take Jane Selter for example. With over 12 million Instagram followers, the fitness model has been a celebrated figure on Instagram for promoting exercise, health, and overall well-being. Jane is the perfect example of someone who is passionate about something (in her case, fitness). She is also using her time to share it with like-minded individuals around the world. It’s hard to imagine that one of Instagram’s most famous fitness models was once bullied based on looks.Today, Selter earns handsomely from her paid fitness programs and also through Instagram, where she keeps adding to her followers with each passing day.
- You may feature on Insta’s Explore page: When you make a name for yourself in your niche and have a decent-enough following, your post may appear on Instagram’s Explore page. We’re using the term ‘decent-enough’ because there’s no hard-and-fast rule as to how many followers you should have to get featured on Instagram Explore. Instagram’s Explore page was overhauled back in May 2019 and now, it features a navigation bar that allows users to choose the kind of content that they want to view. The options include IGTV, which is Insta’s very own platform for viewing long-form videos (one-minute-plus videos), and Shop – the Instagram shopping platform.Alongside IGTV and Shop, users can also choose topic channels to view content from the niches they are interested in. For example, if your Instagram account is all about food, you may be featured in the Explore page of a user who’s looking for food-related content. Being featured on Instagram Explore can get your channel connected with users who probably never even knew you existed and what you had to offer.Instagram now allows brands to purchase ads on Explore. While purchased ads aren’t displayed in the Explore feed itself, they can further the chances of your brand being discovered.
- Increase website traffic: If your brand mainly works from its official website, then you’ll need to use Instagram as a platform to market your website. You’ll find many blogs and articles on the internet that recommend taking a few easy steps. These include adding the link to your business website in your Instagram bio and across all your posted images and videos. However, unless you have sufficient followers, you can’t expect Instagram to be a platform to connect your website with your target audience.If you’re struggling to garner new followers even though you regularly post high-quality content on Instagram, it’s time to sign up for a service that allows you to get free Instagram followers. As the number of your followers skyrockets, so will the number of visitors to your brand’s official website.While increasing website traffic is no guarantee that people will purchase what you’re selling, it will give your website some much-needed visibility. If you make enough efforts to ensure that your website is search-engine optimized by including the right keywords throughout, the combined results can be positive. Your website’s search engine ranking will improve, making your brand more visible not only on Instagram, but also on platforms such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
- Get more attention on YouTube: YouTube is the world’s biggest video-based social media platform and if you’re an aspiring YouTuber, you can’t just be doing your thing on YouTube. Maintain an Instagram profile as well and remember to use it actively. Just as you would do for a website, paste your YouTube channel link in your Insta bio and also keep updating the link to your most-recently posted YouTube video.Among your combined followers and subscribers across YouTube and Instagram, there may be many who are introduced to you on Instagram. Including the details of your YouTube videos and channel in your Instagram bio will encourage existing Instagram followers to head over to your YouTube channel. If they like what they see, you’ll have more subscribers and views on YouTube, which would dramatically increase your chances of becoming a full-time YouTuber.If you can be proactive across both platforms, it would yield even more rewards. Imagine earning healthy sums of money from both YouTube and Instagram. Sounds inviting, doesn’t it?
- Collaborate with other brands and reap the rewards: When you start gaining visibility on Instagram, other brands and content-creators working in your niche would want to collaborate with you. These days, it’s more about collaboration and less about the competition on social media, and it works. What’s the use of putting someone else down when two businesses/individuals can work together and feed off each other’s achievements and successes? We see travel vloggers collaborating with fellow travel vloggers, as well as musicians, and artists collaborating. There’s no doubt that Instagram has opened numerous doors of opportunities. You have to raise your own game and concentrate on putting out content that draws the attention of your target audience. Once you have a fair amount of followers, you can approach other brands for collaborations.While all your collaboration requests won’t be accepted, some will go through and if pulled off well, they can push your follower-count higher. When you reach the ‘social media influencer’ level, you can expect collaboration requests from other brands and content creators, and the cycle will continue.As an influencer, you will also have the power to collaborate with brands from other niches that offer products that are complementary to your niche. For example, if you’re a musician and manage to achieve ‘influencer’ status on Instagram, you can approach brands that manufacture and sell products that you play. A guitar player can collaborate with a guitar and/or amplifier-manufacturer, a vocalist can collaborate with a microphone-producing company, and so on.
Instagram features for promoting your brand
Once your Instagram page starts getting noticed and you get more followers, you can take advantage of Instagram’s unique marketing features to find even more Instagram followers. While using all of these features isn’t mandatory, feel free to mix and match. This way, you can make the most of Insta’s in-built tools to maximize your brand’s reach. Apart from regular photo-sharing features, Instagram boasts of the following marketing features.
Video features
We discussed IGTV before, but that’s exclusively a long-form video platform. The default Instagram app only allows for short-form video posts. Apart from the normal short-form video upload feature, the two other video features offered by the platform include live videos and stories.
The live video feature allows brands to build brand authenticity and transparency – things that are becoming more valuable with each passing day. This is owing to the ever-increasing competition across niches. It’s a great way for your followers to interact with you in real-time as well. Every time you start streaming a live video, your followers are notified.
The platform recently upgraded its live video capabilities and now, two users can feature in a live video from two separate devices. From live interviews to live product launches to real-time collaborations, the possibilities are endless.
If Instagram’s algorithm is favorable to you, your live video may even make it to the “Top Live” videos on the Instagram Explore page. If it does, your video may be viewed by Insta users all over the globe, drastically improving the chances of an increased follower count.
There’s also the ‘Stories’ feature that allows 10-second image viewing and 15-second video viewing. It’s a nifty feature that has been heavily used by brands and influencers to update their followers regarding their latest products, services, and/or posted content.
Instagram has enabled product-tagging within the ‘Stories’ feature as well, which means if you’re displaying a product you’re selling on one of your ‘Stories’, you can tag it. Followers who are interested in buying it can click on the product tag and purchase it from your website.
Instagram Ads
Apart from sharing photos and videos, you can also post ads to promote what you have to offer on Instagram. There are various settings you can experiment with to find the right type of ads to run for your brand. You can even use existing content on your page and transform them into ads with the Instagram Ads feature. To create and manage ads on Instagram, you have to use Facebook’s Ad Manager as Instagram is a Facebook-owned app.
Push notifications
Instagram users can enable push notifications, which would notify them when the pages they follow upload new photos, videos, etc. To make use of this feature, you have to encourage your existing followers to take action. Across all your posts, include calls-to-action, telling your followers to enable push notifications for your channel.
While all your followers won’t respond to your calls, some will. If they like what you’ve posted, they’ll share it with their friends and followers. Push notifications may not be your best bet in terms of gaining more visibility on Instagram, but it can be of good help.
Conclusion
So, now you know how more Instagram followers can benefit you and some of Insta’s most potent marketing features. Next, you should decide on how you want to go about gaining more followers. Yes, by all means, you can take the organic route and wait for people to engage with your content before hitting the ‘Follow’ button. However, it is time-consuming and if you want to scale the heights of Instagram success, you’d probably be better off in selecting an alternative path.
By signing up for programs that rapidly increase Instagram visibility, you can get free Instagram followers and likes rapidly. The programs have paid versions on offer as well. While the paid ones will bring you results even quicker, you can achieve a lot by using the free versions as well. The best part about such programs is that there are no bots involved. So, all the new followers you gain are genuine Instagram users. So why not sign up for such a program and let your brand have a bigger-than-ever-before impact online?