Pet & Animal: How to Get Followers on Instagram

Instagram is an app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices that allows users to share and upload photos within the Instagram community or across social networks. Getting more followers is essential to increasing your Instagram presence, but knowing where to start can be difficult. See Step 1 below for tips on creating good photos, interacting with the community, and [other ways to increase your followers].

Steps

Participating in the Community

Follow similar accounts. Instagram is a community, and you will find yourself gaining followers if you participate in that community. This means interacting beyond simply uploading photos. Find people that are posting pictures that interest you, and follow their accounts. This will let you see their latest photos on your feed.
- Don't just follow everyone you see, or your feed will become too overloaded to process. Limit yourself to following only those accounts that you find most interesting.
Like and comment on pictures. Once you start following some people, take some time to Like and comment on their photos. Not only will this make the other person feel good, but other people may see your name or comment and check out your profile. If you stay active, this can lead to a steady stream of new followers.
Respond to comments on your own photos. Interacting with your own followers is essential to maintaining your follower base. Respond to any interesting comments, and thank your followers for any compliments. If a follower asks an intriguing question, take the time to answer it properly.
Ask your followers questions. Use the photo caption to ask questions to your followers. This will get your comments section more active, which will attract more viewers to your photo.
- Consider having a call-to-action, such as "Double-tap if you found this funny" or "Share your story in the comments". This will help drive community interaction with your photos.
Connect your Facebook account. Instagram is now owned by Facebook, and you are losing out on a lot of potential followers if you don't connect your accounts. All of your Instagram posts will be pushed to Facebook as well, giving you double exposure.^[1]
- You can connect your accounts through the Instagram Settings menu.
Fill out your bio. Your Instagram bio is an often-overlooked but very important part of your Instagram account. Let people know who you are and why they should follow you. Include a couple hashtags as well that relate to your content.
- Your bio is another good place to place a call-to-action.

Using Hashtags

Research popular hashtags for you niche. Hashtags are words and short phrases that describe and categorize the image. Hashtags help people search for your image, and can add your image to current trends. Using hashtags is incredibly important to reaching a larger audience.^[2]
- instagram is a great tool for finding what the most popular trending tags are.
- The top hashtags on Instagram are almost always "#love", "#me", and "#follow".
Add a few hashtags to each image. Add a few of the most pertinent hashtags you can find to your image. Try to limit the number of hashtags to three at the most. If you have too many hashtags, your followers will feel like your images are too spammy.
Create your own tag. If you have a decent amount of followers, you can try creating your own hashtags. This could be your company name or a slogan that applies to many of your photos. This will help brand your Instagram account, and lead to a more cohesive community presence.
Geotag your photos. Instagram users are interested in photos from locations that they know. On top of that, as you post geotagged photos, Instagram will bring up other photos from that location.
- Other users posting photos from the same location may see your pictures and follow them to your account, giving you more exposure and potentially new local followers.
Use "Like for Like" hashtags. If you want to try and bolster your likes, you can use some of the more popular like-trading hashtags, such as "#like4like" or "#like4likes". Just make sure that you actually Like someone's picture if they Like yours.
- Some people consider this a "dirty" tactic, and you may lose some followers if you tag this too often.
- While this tactic may lead to new followers, be aware that they may only follow you to gain more likes on their own photos rather than out of genuine interest.

Posting Memorable Content

Take unique and interesting photos. While this may seem obvious, one of the best ways to get followers on Instagram is to simply take good pictures. Instagram is swamped with pictures of people's meals and cats, so set yourself apart with well-shot photos.
- Try to take pictures that will relate with your target audience. If your audience can connect with the images that you take, they are more likely to follow you.
- A good photo doesn't have to be a "perfect" photo. Good photos seem human and imperfections can help add to that feeling.
- Limit "selfies". Everyone likes to post a selfie every now and then, but you shouldn't let these pictures dominate your content. Most followers don't want to see you, they want to see your photos. Posting constant selfies can come across as narcissistic, and can drive followers away. The exception to this, sad as it may be, is if you are attractive. You can get a lot of followers by posting attractive pictures of yourself. Even then, don't let it dominate your content!
Add filters. Instagram got popular because of the filter options. These filters adjust the color of your photo, giving it a more "real" feel. Instagram has a variety of filters available, so don't be afraid to try multiple ones until you find one that works well with your photo.
- Avoid using the same filters over and over, or your images will start to feel too samey.
- If the picture is striking enough without a filter, a popular hashtag on Instagram is #nofilter. Use it!
Put captions on every photo. A good caption can turn an okay photo into an amazing one. Captions help grab the viewers' attention, and if you can make them laugh or smile with your caption you'll retain more people as followers. Jokes or cute captions are especially popular.
Use apps for expanded editing control. While you can do some minor editing in Instagram, there are a variety of apps for both iOS and Android that can give you way more tools. Use these apps to brighten, darken, crop, add text and effects, and much more.
- Popular editing apps include Photo Editor by Aviary, Afterlight, Bokehful, and Overgram.
Create collages. A great way to show progression or a collection of images is to create a collage to post on Instagram. There are several apps that will allow you to do this, including PicStitch, InstaCollage, and InstaPicFrame.
Post your photos at a good time. Instagram is an incredibly popular service, and your followers' feeds are likely updating constantly. If you want the most people possible to see your photos, you need to post them at the right time. The best time to post photos is during the morning and after normal work hours end for your audience.^[3]
- Instagram photos typically last around 4 hours in a person's feed, so avoid posting in the middle of the night or your followers may never actually see the image.
Post in a steady stream. Don't dump all of your photos into your feed at once. If you have multiple photos that you want to share, spread them out over a couple days. If you post too many pictures at once, your followers are likely to start skipping over them. On the other hand, if you don't post often enough, you will have difficulty maintaining followers and drawing in new ones.

Purchasing Followers

Find a good seller. There are lots of websites that offer followers for money. If you're desperate for more followers, purchasing some may help get your Instagram account off the ground.
- Make sure to read reviews of the services before settling on one.
Choose how many followers you would like to purchase. Most services allow you to choose from a variety of packages, ranging from 100 to 1 million followers. Choose the package that best suits your needs and budget.
Set your account to Public. You cannot purchase followers for a private account, so ensure that you set your account to be publicly visible. You can change the settings from your Profile page by tapping "Edit your Profile".
Understand the drawbacks. Buying followers can give you a quick boost, but there are some drawbacks. These followers will likely never interact with your photos and leave comments, which can leave your photos a little bare. People will also notice when you have lots of followers and no activity, which can turn them away.

Tips

Follow Shoutout accounts on Instagram to gain more followers, they usually give a shoutout to your account if you follow them or like one of their photos.
Use tags for likes hashtags, you can install an app on your iPhone or Android that shows a list of hashtags that you can put on the description of your photos to get more likes.
Whoever likes your photos or comments on one of your photos, make sure you check out their profile and leave a like on one of their photos or leave a nice comment. Doing this will increase the chance of them following you or leaving more likes on other photos.
Try to avoid posting many photos at once with random hashtags.
Mention your 'Following Guidelines' in your Instagram bio. Here's an example: "I am a mega fan of Katy Perry!". There will always be a lot of people with the same interests as you and then you'll probably get a whole heap of Katy Perry lovers following you. You might even be lucky enough to get the real Katy following you.
Follow users you are likely to follow you back. For instance: new Instagramers will be likely to follow anyone that follows them. All you need to do is to find out how many posts they have. If they have less than 10 posts, it'll be likely that they're new and trying to find followers.
It's more likely people will follow you if you have the exact same amount (or less) of followers and following. If you have too many 'following', people might mistake you as a new Instagrammer and are definitely less likely to follow you.
It will help if you do more posts and tag them more regularly than just once every 12 hours. Other people might just think you're boring. (Which you're not!)
Try and use Instagram during peak traffic times. There will be more people wanting to follow you then when most people will be asleep.
Ask all your friends that you know in real life to follow you.
Never put anything on instagram you would regret or that you wouldn't want your family to see.

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Sources and Citations

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Pet & Animal

Saturday, 11 July 2015

How to Get Followers on Instagram