It’s no secret that there are effective ways to increase organic followers on Instagram. As obvious as that, there are also ways that hurt your growth when it comes to getting real followers on the Instagram platform.

The trick is knowing which strategies can damage your brand’s reputation and avoiding them.

This article will cover nine effective ways to increase organic followers on Instagram so you can start implementing strategies right away.

How to Grow Your Instagram Followers Organically

Paid ads can help you gain more followers on Instagram, but they are expensive. What if you don’t have a big budget? You can still grow your Instagram followers organically.

Use the Right Hashtags

This Instagram organic growth strategy is often overlooked because people have mixed results. That being said, you can get a great reach by using the right hashtags to get more authentic followers on Instagram.

Instagram has a separate page for each specific hashtag. Posts related to that hashtag are listed on this page. If you can publish your post on this page, it will have a wider reach. This can mean more growth.

Remember:

By choosing the right hashtags, it all comes down to knowing your audience. When you know your audience (and know their wants, needs, and desires), you get a much better view of the hashtags they’ll use.

For more hashtag ideas, you can also use specialized hashtag platforms to check what types of hashtags your competitors use in their posts.

Post at the Right Times

Posting at the right time on Instagram is a very effective way to get more organic followers on the platform. If you’ve spent any time on the Instagram game, you already know.

When you publish a post when your audience is likely to browse Instagram, you have a better chance of showing your content. You also have a better chance of getting more participation.

The key is finding the right time to post. When it comes to publishing, you can’t take a “one size fits all” approach. You may need to experiment a bit to find out which times work best for you.

Steal Your Competitors’ Followers

Stealing your competitors’ followers is easier than you think. What you want to do is check your accounts and see who fits your target audience. Then get involved with your content and follow them on Instagram.

That way, you can appear in their notifications. It can be a tedious process.

However, you can also use Instagram’s automation tools for this. You can easily get multiple usernames that follow your competitors and that may be relevant to your brand.

Use Geotags to Attract Local Followers

If you are a local business owner and want to get more local followers, you should take advantage of Instagram’s geotagging feature.

By using this tag, you can reach and interact with local consumers more effectively. It’s a great way to gain more visibility in your neighborhood and increase brand awareness.

Milk Makeup, a New York-based cosmetics brand, uses this feature to highlight where they are.

Organize Stories Into Highlights on Your Profile

Stories are an effective way to increase your number of organic followers on Instagram. After Snapchat launched this feature, Instagram realized that this content format had a lot of potentials.

So, they also released it on their platform.

Since its launch, Instagram has added another feature for “Stories”. You can organize them as “Featured” on your profile so that they are permanently visible on your profile.

They’re highlighted, so it’s a great way to highlight special events or products that you want users to review first.

Get inspired by Sephora’s Instagram profile. They showed all their important products from different categories in the Featured section.

Encourage Users to Follow You

This is pretty obvious, but many brands just don’t ask users to follow them. It’s similar to how novice marketers avoid asking users to buy their products. But you must be clear:

If you want more followers, you have to ask. If you create great content that attracts users, why not add an engaging call-to-action (CTA)?

This can help drive growth for your followers and even generate more sales.

Leverage Trends

Instagram is all about trends. If you can spot a trend early and create brand-centric content related to it, you have a chance to experience exponential growth in your follower count.

This is what happens when content goes “viral.” Not sure how to find hot content?

Using a tool like the HashtagsForLikes parser is a great way to find trending content that works well.

Another great tool that you can check out for Instagram marketing is BuzzSumo.

Run a Giveaway

People are always interested in getting things for free, especially if they are valuable. That’s why giveaways are a great way to get more engagement on Instagram.

The benefits of running a giveaway the right way are that you get that “viral” effect from tags and social shares.

Furthermore, it can also help you increase your engagement and reach on Instagram.

See Fabletics how to give gifts to get more followers on Instagram. They clearly listed all the rules of engagement in a way that can help them get more followers.

Use the Tools to Help You Grow

To help you get more followers on Instagram, be sure to take full advantage of Instagram marketing tools.

From hashtag reporting tools to post schedulers, there are tools that can help you with everything. They can help you save time and be more efficient.

Pro Tip: The HashtagsForLikes platform has amazing hashtag reporting stats. In addition, they also provide an in-depth analysis of any Instagram profile in the world.

Final Thought

The strategies mentioned above can help you get more Instagram followers organically. Use a combination of them for the best results.

Remember that getting more followers on Instagram is not easy. You need to have a solid strategy and work consistently to see remarkable results. Be patient and keep up the hard work!

Have a question related to getting organic followers on Instagram? Share them in the comment section.