Think about it, almost all the top brands you know (if not all) have established their presence on the Instagram app. Have you ever wondered why? It’s simple by growing their Instagram followers those brands were able to solidify their brand’s social presence, grow conversions, drive profitable traffic to their landing pages, and build an engaging audience.

Your Instagram followers are not just numbers, they are your online community. That’s why it’s important that you must put effort into improving the strategies you employ to generate real, organic followers on the app. Growing your brand or business organically isn’t an easy task that’s why many startup brands try to fast forward the process by getting more followers through paying for likes or through follower sites. Those methods are not usually worth it, one major drawback Instagram algorithm gets updated regularly and when that happens, paid, low-quality accounts and interactions get weeded out. 

Want to learn how to grow your Instagram followers organically? If you are, congratulations! You have it to the right blog post and in today’s article, I’ll be teaching you how to skyrocket your Instagram followers this year.

How to skyrocket your Instagram followers

Optimize your Instagram account

Before you start looking for ways to attract new followers, the first thing to do is to optimize your Instagram account. One of the first things you must do, if you haven’t already done it, is to create a good bio for your brand. Your brand’s Instagram bio is more like the homepage of your account—it’s one of the first things new visitors look at to determine what your Instagram is all about. Take your time to think about what your brand stands for the services you offer then write an attention-grabbing bio to help pique your visitor’s interest.

Another important aspect of your bio is the in-bio link. Your in-bio link is the only clickable link on the app, so insert it wisely. Many businesses opt to use a standard link to their site while others change it from time to time in order to reflect their current post. Posting more than one link on Instagram isn’t except through the use of link-in-bio tools—these tools can help turn a single link into a catalogue of links.

Ascertain the best time to post on Instagram 

The best time to post on Instagram isn’t in the morning, afternoon, or evening. The best time to post on Instagram is when your Instagram followers are most active. You can determine when your audience are usually online using Instagram Insights. 

Secondly, determine when your content are most relevant. For instance, let’s say you are running a cooking brand and you want to post a step-by-step recipe, for such a page, the best time to post your content would be in the outside working hours (for example, weekends) because your audience may likely be cooking at the time. Experimenting with different posting times and tracking the engagement on those times can also help in determining the best time to post your content on Instagram. 

Post consistently

A study carried out in 2021 of 14 industries show that businesses post an average of four Instagram posts a week. Just like any other social media platform, posting consistently is the key to engaging and growing your Instagram followers. A Tailwind study showed that brands or profiles that post content daily gain Instagram followers faster than profiles or brands that post less frequently. 

Additionally, Instagram’s algorithmic timeline favours consistency. This means that a profile that posts more and attracts good engagement is more likely to be seen (the post will be shown at the top of your follower’s feed) than one that posts less. While posting your content, remember that quality is always better than quantity. Hence, focus on creating and posting quality content that is capable of resonating with your target audience.

Understand how the Instagram algorithm works

When Instagram changed from using a chronological feed to a ranked timeline, it caused a lot of Instagram users to panic since they were used to the chronological order. However, ever since the change occurred the average post is now seen by 50% more followers when compared to the past. So rather than racking your brain to discover ways to beat the system, think of ways to make the system work for you. 

Have you noticed how everyone’s timeline on Instagram? The reason is that the app uses 6 factors that determine what shows up in each person’s timeline. 

The 6 factors are: 

Interest: This has to do with how much Instagram thinks the user will like a particular content based on previous activities.

Timeliness: This how to do with how recent the post is. 

Relationship: The accounts the user engages with frequently. 

Following: These are the posts from the account the user follows. 

Frequency: How often the users use the app.

Usage: The amount of time the user spends on the app.

The objective of Instagram’s algorithm is to provide the best possible content for each individual. Thinking about the 6 factors while creating an Instagram post can be a lot to handle, instead, focus on creating high-quality content regularly.