How To Grow Your Instagram And Monetize It.

Want to learn how to grow your Instagram?

You should! Instagram now has more than one BILLION users and sky-high user engagement levels in 2020.

80 percent of accounts following a business on Instagram, it seems like marketers might be keener than ever to get acquainted with Instagram for their business and over 50 percent of active Instagram users earn $100K and above.

Since Instagram is a platform that has such amazing perks, I thought it would be fun to research some ways to grow a following there.

Whether you’re growing your own personal account or a brand, follow these top 10 best tactics (with tools and examples!) I discovered that could help you grow a bigger, more relevant audience on Instagram.

Top best instagram tactics

1. Create a compelling Instagram profile

First impressions lasts!. When someone visits your Instagram profile, your bio could lets them decide in seconds whether or not to follow your account. You have 150 characters for your Instagram bio! I recommend bullet points and use emojis, they communicate a lot.

Make the most of your bio URL, use that clickable link in your bio to drive traffic to your website or content.

2. Develop your own Instagram style.

Create your own unique, recognizable visual style. Figure out how you want to stand out and make it so!

Create a fun, energetic, classic, bold or modern style that helps you project a beautiful gallery.

Edit: High resolution photos and third-party editing apps to enhance your photos.

Filters: Instagram filters, third-party filters, or no filter as appropriate to your brand.

3. Employ videos, live videos, and Stories

Features like videos, live videos, and Stories, help brands create many different types of content to engage the audience and grow their following.

Stories have been a very effective part of social media marketing strategy.

Average engagement for videos is much higher than the average engagement for images.

Live Instagram videos will appear at the front of Stories feed.

These help project creative storytelling.

4. Study and use quality hashtags

Get creative with your hashtags. Be funny, ironic, or outrageous – but never boring! The right hashtags (and location tag) can expose your brand to a large and targeted audience.

Instagram posts with both hashtags and a location tag get the highest average engagement, in other words, hashtags could be your best bet for growing a fast following on Instagram.

Use Instagram tools like Display Purpose, SocialPilot, and get quality, relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts.

Promote your dedicated hashtag on your other social profiles, and on your website.

5. Collaborate and interact with other brands

Another great way to extend your Instagram reach and grow your following is to interact and collaborate with others. Visit the profiles of top influencers in your niche and "Turn On Post Notifications" to be notified every time they share new content, interact with them and try to become one of their favorite people or brands. A partnership might be in the works!

6. Post at your best times

There isn’t a universal best time to post on Instagram. Check your own analytics to see what works best for your account. Every account and audience is different! Every brand has its own best times to post. You have yours, too!

You can use Instagram tool SocialPilot to post on Instagram at the best time, every time!

7. Post consistently to grow your Instagram account

Consistency is a key element to getting your posts seen and appearing at the top of the timeline.

Post consistently on Instagram. The more you post, the more likes and followers you get. This can be tough, especially for people who are busy. But you really need to post daily or reduce your engagement.

Brands that get into a regular flow with Instagram posts tend to see the best results.

Social marketing tool SocialPilot helps users at every step - right from scheduling and publishing posts on their profiles to analyzing their posts' performance.

8. Post user-generated content

Get your audience to help, when you're out of contents and post ideas!

Simply take the best-of-the-best user content from around the web and feature it on your own social media or other platforms while giving credit to the user.

Create a branded hashtag that can showcase all user-generated content for your brand. You can feature this on your bio for your fans to see.

User-generated content also increases the likelihood of an Instagram follower becoming a customer. It’s a smart way to increase your brand awareness and get more content too.

9. Engage your fans

Get social with your followers. A great practice is to engage your followers by liking or replying to their comments to your posts. Your followers take the effort to check out your posts and comment on them, it would be great to reciprocate by returning the favor or starting a conversation.

You can use a free search engine like Social Searcher for quickly measuring and tracking what people are saying about you or your brand, making it easy for you to interact better with your fans.

10. Host contests

Create contest posts, and give out items and other freebies as the prize.

These posts are great for increasing your brand awareness on Instagram and gaining new followers. You could even invite your followers to comment with their favorite emojis or tag a friend to enter the contest.

This way you could reach many people who might not have heard of your brand before. And if they like the posts on your profile, they might even choose to follow you.

The WORST way to promote your Instagram

• Automate liking

• Commenting

• Follow/Unfollowing

• Irrelevant promotion quotes

• Annoying comments e.g ''check out our awesome profile!"

• Using bots

These things violate Instagram’s Terms of Use and could get your account shut down.

Conclusion

These are quite a lot of tactics to remember and try! Combine lots of these tips and start gaining a massive following on Instagram.

The tips shared above have been proven by research to actually work!

Are you marketing your business on Instagram? Make your Instagram marketing easy by signing up for a free trial of SocialPilot today!

Got more tips, or questions on how to grow your Instagram account? Let me know in a comment!

Affiliate Disclosure: This post is for educational and informational purposes only. This post may contain affiliate links, which means that if you use or sign up on one of the product links, I'll receive a small commission. I won't post anything that I haven't researched or verified myself.