How To Get Instagram Followers Without Ads
For a platform with around one billion active users, there’s no doubt that no matter your business niche; your potential customers are on Instagram.
Instagram is one of the social media platforms with continuous opportunities for businesses; hence, this is one of the best times to be on the platform.
This photo-sharing platform has continuously been raising the standards for other platforms and the massive potentials it has cannot be overemphasized.
Therefore, if you are a business and you’re yet to join Instagram, then there’s a chance that you’re missing out on a chunk of customers.
However, if you’re already on Instagram but you’re struggling to grow your followers – then we suggest you read this post.
There’s one thing about Instagram or most social media networks – except you’re already popular or famous, having a huge following immediately can be very hard.
However, that doesn’t mean that it is not possible to grow your following to a significant number, but it does require some hard work.
In addition, with so many businesses on Instagram, you do not want to be seen lagging. Therefore, growing your following is essential.
Nevertheless, when trying to grow your Instagram following, there are various ways to do that.
You don’t necessarily need to spend money on advertising and paid promotion, most especially when you have a tight budget or no budget at all.
All you need is a bit of time, effort, and consistency. If you can invest your time and efforts and you’re consistent about it, then you’d realize that you’d be able to grow your following quickly.
So how can can you grow Instagram followers without spending on ads?
- Optimize your Profile
- Post Consistently
- Cross-Promote
- Utilize Contests & Giveaways
- Use other Instagram Features to Your Advantage
Let’s go over each method:
1. Optimize Your Profile
The first step to getting new followers is to optimize your Instagram profile. This is crucial in ensuring that your page is shown to the right people.
Page Name
This includes ensuring that your username is searchable and easy to spell.
Although there’s a chance that your desired name may have been taken, you could still use that name if you add certain words to it.
Whatever name you choose, you must ensure that it is easy to spell to avoid people misspelling the name.
Page Bio
When optimizing your profile, the next thing is to ensure that you have a comprehensive bio that tells people what your page is about.
It is essential to keep your bio simple and straight-to-the-point.
In your bio; do not forget to also add other aspects like a business email address or phone number, the link to your website and perhaps, your business physical address.
Profile Picture
A profile picture is also deemed important. It is vital to have a nice and attractive picture as your profile picture. For a business, you could use a professional photo that relates to your business niche as your profile picture.
Whatever picture you use, just ensure that it is attractive.
Profile Hashtags
To optimize your profile, you could also go further by having one or two hashtags related to your niche in your profile.
By doing all these, your business profile will come off as genuine. Nevertheless, optimizing your page is important to enable the Instagram algorithm to show your posts to your target audience.
2. Post Consistently
Once, you’ve optimized your Instagram page, the next step to increasing your Instagram following is to post consistently.
It is very important to post consistently when it comes to Instagram. No one likes a page whose last post was two months ago. People only follow and engage with active pages hence, posting consistently is essential. To enable you to post consistently, there are various factors you must know.
Set Your Posting Schedule
If you must post consistently, it is important to have a posting schedule. The purpose of having a posting schedule is to help you keep track of your postings.
You could set your posting schedule to correlate with the time your potential audience would be online; so that you can post when they are likely to see it.
Curate Your Instagram Content
If you’re just starting out, before engaging with people, you might want to consider curating your Instagram content to ensure that you have enough posts to keep you afloat.
It is also essential that before you start engaging with others, ensure that you already have some posts on your page.
If you do not have any posts yet, then you might want to upload some while curating more for future purposes.
Use a Consistent Brand Voice or Theme
One thing you’d want to be known for is a recognizable brand. People are often more attracted to brands that resonate and attract them.
Hence, having a consistent brand voice and page theme is important. Therefore, before you start off, it is essential to decide on your brand voice and theme.
Make Use of Engaging Captions
Posting pictures or videos is not enough. You also need highly engaging captions that would make people want to share your posts instantly.
When it comes to your captions, you’d have to be creative to ensure that you come up with something that leaves your audience hooked. Remember th memor a powerful caption, then you can easily win over new followers.
Optimize Your Posts with Hashtags
If you’ve successfully written an engaging caption for your post, the next step is to optimize your post with relevant hashtags related to your niche.
Your hashtags are very crucial in helping you grow Instagram followers without spending on ads.
So, if you have no intention of spending money on ads, then you must make good use of the hashtag feature because if you do it right, your post could gain lots of traction hence, bringing in new followers for you.
3. Cross-Promote
If you follow the steps listed above, chances are that you’d already start getting new followers organically. However, if you want to speed up the process, then there are other ways as you can get Instagram followers without ads.
Reach Out to Other Similar Accounts
One way to cross-promote is by reaching out to other accounts in your niche who may have a higher number of audience than you.
Once you identify these accounts, you can genuinely start a conversation with them and politely offer to cross-promote.
If they agree, then you’d be getting access to a whole new audience which could result in more followers for you. This ad-free follower growth strategy is ideal most especially when you have no budget for advertising.
So, depending on your agreement with such an account, cross-promotion could be useful in helping you get new followers.
Make Use of Other Social Networks
If you have other social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. you can promote your Instagram page on those networks and encourage people to follow you.
However, it is important that when doing this, you must do it strategically to avoid being labeled as spam. Nevertheless, this is one good way to get new Instagram followers quickly.
Interact with Your Audience
When trying to get more followers, it is crucial to interact with your audience.
It could be by replying to their comments, following them back or even liking their post. This gives them a sense of belonging and they would likely see your business differently.
Sometimes, these little gestures could pay off in the future because when your audience realizes that you care about them, they might start sharing your posts or spreading the word of your business.
Utilize Contests & Giveaways
If there’s one thing that most people like, that is freebies.
One quick way of getting Instagram followers without ads is to host contests or giveaways to get more people to follow your page.
Your contest or giveaway does not necessarily need to be expensive or overly ambiguous. Hence, a simple giveaway is ideal.
You could offer your product or service as the price or you could get an inexpensive price that is related to your niche.
By hosting a contest or giveaway, you’d get a stream of followers in no time. To know more, read how to run successful Instagram giveaway that’ll bring you a flood of traffic.
Use Instagram Stories & IGTV
Another way to get new followers quickly is by utilizing other Instagram features such as your Instagram stories, live videos and even, the recently introduced Instagram TV, also known as IGTV.
When it comes to these, it is crucial to make good use of well-curated content that resonates with your target audience.
Once you’ve curated your content for your Instagram story and IGTV, feel free to upload them and make a post about it encouraging people to watch it.
Your Instagram story could be very effective in getting you, new followers.
To read on how to utilize your Instagram story, kindly check (link).
Apart from that, you could also decide to go live, giving people the ability to ask you questions and connect with your brand on a personal level.
Get Instagram Followers Without Ads: Final Note
If you want to grow your Instagram following without spending on ads, then these steps listed above will help you get off the ground.
However, it is vital to know that consistency is key here.
If you’re not consistent, then there’s no way you can grow your following quickly.
So, for these steps to work; you must be consistent.
Karen is a senior technical writer and copywriter here at GrowFollowing. Her area of expertize are social media apps and new media.