Patrick Biddiscombe walks through five steps to reach 1,000 Instagram followers organically: switch to a Business or Creator account, post 3-6 high-quality photos with keyword-rich captions, engage authentically in your niche, post reels consistently on Mondays and Thursdays at 8-9am, and collaborate with complementary brands once you've built momentum.
Questions this video answers
July 20, 2022.
More than 1 billion users worldwide.
71% of U.S. businesses.
Settings → Account → Switch Account Type (at the very bottom).
At least three to six feed posts.
Chapters
In this video, I'm breaking down five steps you need to do to get your first 1,000 followers on Instagram organically without buying those bot followers. These five steps are all you need to build your following fast, so make sure to watch until the end to get all of them. Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide, and 71% of U.S. businesses use their platform to grow their brand. So I'm going to show you guys how you can gain your first 1,000 followers really fast. Let's jump right into step number one, and that is to set up your account the right way. Whether you have an existing account or you're creating a new one, make sure that you switch it from a personal account to a business account. You can do this in your settings by clicking Account, then switch Account type at the very bottom. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, or you just really want to grow your Instagram following, switching to a professional account like Business or Creator will give you access to analytics, engagement stats, filtering, your Direct Message inbox, and a lot more. If you're an influencer, you'll want make a creator account since you're a content creator, and if you're a business owner, you'll want to create a business account. Both are great to stay on top of your profile's performance, so make sure that your account is switched before you do anything else. Along with turning on your professional account, you'll want to make sure that your account is optimized for search so that more people can find you. The Instagram search bar works a little bit like Google, where it delivers the most relevant profiles based on your search term. Your bio is a great place to add in informative keywords that you want to rank for, and a strong bio clearly states what you do and who you serve, so make sure that you don't skip this step. Let's say you're a salon owner. You'll want to target that as a keyword in your bio and even in your username if you can. You'll also want to include the term salon as a hashtag both in your bio and your posts to boost your content and get your account discovered faster. Make sure you're using secondary keywords in your description, like hair salon or hairdresser to better target your audience. And if you want to target your local area, make sure to include more descriptive words in those secondary keywords. If you live in Los Angeles, you'll want to add Los Angeles or LA to your bio and your hashtags like Los Angeles hairdresser or LA hair salon. This helps potential local clients find you easier in their search. The final part of optimizing your bio is adding a link. This can be a link to your site, a specific landing page, or to a different platform that you want to direct people to. By including a link in your bio, you're providing a call to action for people interested in what you're offering offering Moving on to step number two Set the stage by having content on your page. Nothing is more uninviting than a profile that has a great profile picture and a great bio, but zero posts. You want to make sure that your profile has at least three to six feed posts that users can scroll through and find value from so that you can earn their follow. These don't have to be top tier posts since they're going to get buried as you start to post more consistently, but but these posts should be high quality. Include in depth captions that tell people what your content is all about and be optimized for search. Optimizing each post looks like including a detailed caption filled with keywords, using hashtags related to your posts, tagging your location and tagging other accounts in your photo. If you're a hairdresser and your first post is of a haircut, make sure that your location is tagged, the client is tagged with their permission of course, and your caption includes the information about the photo and relevant hashtags. Next up, step number three is to engage with people in your niche and their followers. When someone follows a new account, they want to feel like they're joining a community and it's your job to create that atmosphere if you want to grow your following. This is something we cover more in depth in our Instagram Marketing Strategy course. Lesson three in this course goes over finding Instagram followers authentically and the best ways to convert your followers to buyers if you have a business Here's a clip from that lesson where entrepreneur Sue B. Zimmerman explains her approach to growing a following and the advice that she gives to her customers.
The million dollar question on Instagram how.
Do you get more followers?
You post consistently great visuals, whether it's a photo or a video and you show up and you engage in real conversation. So not only on your own feed answering all the questions and comments, but also hanging out on other accounts have a similar audience that you are trying to attract. You want to leave real comments. If you've set yourself up for success with a fabulous avatar that stands out and you write a thought provoking comment, you're going to get the attention definitely of the person below you that's leaving a comment. But people that go back to view that post, maybe they've saved it and they look at the conversation around that content. You have an opportunity for someone to discover you and come on over and start following you.
This is a free course, so if you want to take it, I'll have it linked in the description box down below. Alright, Step number four to growing your Instagram following is to develop a consistent content strategy. Instagram has shifted their focus from photo content to video content, specifically Instagram reels. This of course comes at no surprise because of the competition that they're getting from TikTok. You might have noticed the shift yourself if you scroll through the app lately where you may be seeing a lot more reels than photos. If you're creating a new profile from scratch and you want to grow your following fast, I highly suggest that you post equal amounts of reels and photos on your page. To really win with reels, you should create engaging content with a trending sound. Create videos that people will want to share with their followers, save or rewatch multiple times. Reel videos should be educational, entertaining or aspirational. I can share more on growing your Instagram with reels, but that can be a whole separate video, so if you want an in depth explainer, let me know in the comments down below. Since Instagram is pushing reels more on the Explore page right now, your chances of getting discovered will be a lot higher if reels are a part of your strategy. Something else I recommend is posting around the same time every day until you've built a couple hundred followers. Then check your analytics to see what times your followers are the most active and then adjust from there. The HubSpot course I mentioned earlier will also teach you about this and how to check your insights to see what your followers like to see from you. Our Academy professor for the course recommends that if you're just starting out, Mondays and Thursdays between 8 and 9am are the best times to post and to avoid posting between three and four. Step number five is to do collaborations with influencers or pages similar to yours. This is something that I've personally done in the past and I've seen great results from it. So I wanted to give you guys a list of a couple ideas that you can use. Take over each other's pages, make a reel together, run a giveaway together, or lastly, make an appearance in each other's photos. By doing this, you'll definitely grow your following a lot faster since you'll be getting more exposure this way. When collaborating with other similar pages, a great strategy is to partner with brands that offer something complementary but not exact to your product or service. For example, if you own a hair salon, you wouldn't really want to collaborate with a similar salon. It'd be more strategic if you collaborated with a hair extensions company or even a makeup brand. Since hair extensions are complementary to hair salons, this could be a great collab. If your company already provides products like hair extensions for your hair salon business, then collaborating with a makeup makeup brand would be a great alternative. Professional hair styling and professional makeup are great support services for each other. You could get some of their customers and they could get some of yours without competing. This collaboration strategy is step number five for a reason though. No one wants to collaborate with a profile that isn't active and isn't optimized. This has to be an equal exchange. So partner with people that have similar following sizes to yours and post similar or complementary content. As your page grows, you'll find these collaborations easier to get, but the first four steps that I covered in this video are crucial to do first. So those are five steps that you can start doing right now to grow your following on Instagram. If you guys have any questions, make sure to leave them down below. And don't forget to check out HubSpot's free Instagram course below in the description box. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye.
I can't find this client info have.
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