BEST INSTAGRAM GROWTH TOOLS
With more than a billion users competing for each other’s attention on a daily basis, Instagram is a swiftly growing digital place.
Not all of that growth is proportionate or equal, however, and those who figure out the mechanics of the new growth will end up with much bigger pieces of it than those who remain complacent.
Top Instagram Hacks
For your convenience, we’ve made a list of 10 new tips and hacks for growing your Instagram in 2023. Let’s dive right in!
1. Optimize Hashtags
Did you know that algorithms favor hashtags much more than the content that goes with them? Hashtags are your portals to popularity, as they link the content with otherwise unreachable pockets of Instagram users.
Smart, well-researched use of hashtags will have exponentially more reach than a random, ‘intuitive’ hashtag generation and placement.
This is where hashtag tools like Flick come in handy. Rather than spending loads of time trying to fine-tune each post on IG, you can have that automatized and streamlined with top-quality hashtag libraries and AI-obtained insights from the general market as well as your competitors.
Mastering hashtags is the first step to mastering Instagram growth.
2. Utilize Multimedia
Instagram is the most visually-centered social media, period. This means that the content you place on it has to hit the sweet spot of the eyes of your followers. Fancy images, specific aesthetics, unique color palettes? Yes, of course, but certainly not that only.
Keep in mind that Instagram also allows stories, videos, and live videos. To fully utilize the code beneath content placement, you have to make sure to have content on these three channels as well.
3. Fix Your Posting Schedule
This might seem an obvious one, but there have been numerous articles claiming that few, but precise posts beat multiple posts per day. This is simply not true.
Of course, it’s of utmost importance not to spam or post just for the sake of posting, but if you have quality content make sure to post as frequently as several posts per day.
Studies have shown that posting two or three times per day gets you up to six times more followers than posting one or less than one post per day on average.
4. Find Your Own Best Posting Time
There’s no universally ideal time for posting. It depends on too many factors to be reliably determined, like culture, geographical location, target audience’s age, ethnicity… The list goes on without end.
Rely on your experience, in combination with Instagram Insights (if your account is business rather than personal). Conduct a couple of test posts and measure the engagement rate of each. Do that for e.g. a week and compare the results. It should be obvious from the numbers what your ideal posting time is!
Just remember to do this whenever you feel that your audience’s habits have changed!
5. Cooperate With Other Brands
Instagram doesn’t represent a zero-sum game. In other words, your gains don’t necessarily mean the equivalent losses on the presumed ‘opposite side’. On the contrary, teaming up with others increased your exposure, as well as that of your partners.
This is how most of the big names have grown. Find an ally in your niche and you’ll both grow more than going solo! Even a single cooperative instance can represent a chance for you to be seen on the feed of another audience, which means tapping into another reservoir of potential followers. And those come in handy at all times!
6. Showcase User-Generated Content
Sharing content that came from your followers has more than one benefit. First and foremost, this entails acknowledging the effort of your fans which they’ll welcome and cherish, and reward with devotion. A loyal fan base makes the most effective preacher of your brand.
And then, having a quality content-generator that comes for free can never be a bad thing. And this isn’t any content–it’s something made for you, without asking anything in return! Putting it on your account page’s spotlight will show to all of Instagram that you have a loving audience, and suddenly everyone will want to be a part of the big brand family of yours.
7. Put on Lotteries, Contests, and/or Giveaways
If you haven’t already, it’s high time you did something like this for your community. For a trivial material investment of providing a reward (it doesn’t even have to be material, it might as well be a token of your gratitude), hosting such an event will bring massive spikes in engagement rate and reach.
Bad sides? Quite literally none! We all love gifts, rewards, and signs of appreciation. Instagram isn’t any different than real life on this.
8. Communicate With Your Audience
The importance of including your community in everything you do is of utmost importance. People on social media just adore when they get invited to participate in their favorite brand’s activities. A passive brand feels alienating, while an occasional comment, mention, or shoutout ensures that your followers stick around and invite more to your Instagram posts.
So yeah, talk with users and shower them with your attention. Doing this ensures your profile becomes a beacon attracting attention from places you never even dreamt of drawing your audience from.
9. Rely Heavily on Insights
We’ve already mentioned insights as something vital to hashtags. The truth is that proper insights should lie behind every decision that you make on your Instagram account.
You aren’t exactly sure in which direction your brand should go regarding audience targeting? Hop on to Insights and see the main characteristics of your average follower. Thinking about which region you should launch your advertising campaign in? Here’s insights with precise data about the location of each and every of your followers.
These are two examples only, but you get the idea. Insights represent a mighty tool if wielded by a smart Instagramer, which we never doubt you stand for.
10. Integrate Your Instagram with Other Social Media
As the final tip, remember to think of Instagram as a link in a big chain, rather than an independent social media universe. Cross-posting should be a standard in your decision-making, as each social media has its own peculiarities that you can use to strengthen your Instagram presence.
Thinking outside of (just) Instagram is thinking outside of the box. After all, social media is one big and happy family!