Growing your Instagram profile and reaching your business goals is not the walk in the park that it used to be. The simple and well known #followforfollow might have worked in the short-term, but when if that’s all you relied on, your profile just didn’t do enough. It would take a long time to get real interactions with your followers and gain some valuable, one-of-a-kind, traffic.

To manage this problem, more and more special bots were created by various companies. The mechanism was simple – you provided them with your profile details, and they made magic happen. Well, at least until Instagram decided to start shutting down such platforms. And we’re not surprised – take it as a sign that you should grow your audience naturally and in organically.

How can I grow my Instagram profile… naturally?

1. Post great content regularly

It seems so easy, yet so difficult for many. Instagram is not just “another platform” where you can copy and paste “some random pictures”. Instagram, same as any other serious social media platform, requires strategy. Or at the very least, some kind of plan to follow. Without that, it’s not possible to work effectively towards your business goals. So consider your content, rethink your strategy if it’s not working (you can use Sotrender to check if you’re doing things right  and bringing your brand the best possible results!), and post something that’s truly valuable for your audience. And to add to that, you can use Instagram Stories to drive even more engagement.

2. Follow your competitors… and their followers

Your competitors can be the source of some practical benefits. If they’ve been on Instagram longer than you have, they probably already have quite a few followers. Check their list and start following them, interacting with them when and how you feel like it. This means liking their comments or even commenting on their photos. Be careful though! Instagram might consider your actions spam if you’re too pushy and exceed some daily limits.

Benchmarking can also be helpful for improving your content – if you find out what type of content your competitors use and what really works. You can then consider applying their successes to your own strategy.

3. Make the most of cross-promotion

You’re not the only one who struggles with limited reach or needs to grow organically. Find some people or brands to cooperate with. Often times, it’s worth promoting your profile on other’s profiles. Even cooperating with micro-influencers can be beneficial for your brand, as long as they have your target group hanging around.

4. Use appropriate hashtags

You can use up to 30 hashtags in your posts – but many, many brands use only a few. No one is telling you to add any hashtags that aren’t relevant to your brand – that won’t help. But if you work in the field of marketing or at least take part on social media platforms, you should try to be at least a little creative, right?

5. Let your audience know about your Instagram efforts

If you haven’t announced that your business has an Instagram presence, it’s high time to do it! Post about your Instagram account with a link to it on your Facebook Page, Pinterest, Google+, Linkedin, or blog.

6. Repost

Your followers (but not only) will feel special if you show some interest in their profiles. Reposting their best or most original content can make them more engaged with your brand. And if they haven’t heard about your brand, they can might just discover you when they wouldn’t have before. There are a few external apps that allow you to repost photos – one of the most popular being Repost.

7. Find your target group

If you’re using unique hashtags (e.g. in your native language), there is a possibility that not many people already use it – and if they do, they might be exactly what and who you need!

8. Think about contests

People love contests, and on Instagram they rarely have to go the extra mile to take part. Try to test out a simple contest and arrange something for your followers. It doesn’t have to be very complicated or even extremely engaging – but every contest entry can be really beneficial and valuable.

9. Test a lot!

You can listen to our advice or not, but the truth is – you need to test a lot to see what really works for your brand on Instagram. There is no universal solution – you need to come up with the perfect solution yourself!

Take a look at our short video as well – we’ll be more than happy to see it shared!

Maybe you have some more ideas we could add to this list? Let us know!