In the new online age of marketing having a professional online presence on social media platforms such as Instagram is extremely important. Instagram is the best social media platform to reach new audiences, and potential clients. But with so much content being put out on the platform daily it can seem almost impossible to stand out. Here are a few ways that you can put yourself ahead of your competition and grow an Instagram following.

High Quality Content

The number one thing when it comes to Instagram is high quality content. First and for most you have to provide something of value for people to follow you. What things are you posting that would make people want to engage on your account? One quality post, with the right promotion, can garner more engagement than ten posts of lesser quality. There are two major ways to grow on Instagram organically and that is with the explore page and through hashtags. High quality, curated, content is the only way to make headway through these two mediums.

Collaboration and Networking

The next biggest thing when it comes to growing your Instagram audience is through collaboration and networking. Reaching out to accounts with a similar target audience you are trying to reach can be a great way to grow your account. Things such as promoting each other’s pages, products, or campaigns, can help you reach a larger audience, for free, by leveraging the existing followers your account already has. This ties in with one of the most well-known Instagram growth tactics referred to as “DM Groups” or “Pods”. These are created through networking with other accounts. Once these groups are built, exchanging likes and comments on each other’s posts can benefit everyone who is involved.

Networking on Instagram can seem like a daunting task for someone new to the space, but is actually rather easy. Firstly make sure your profile looks professional. Before reaching out to any fellow accounts big or small, make sure your bio, profile picture, and feed all have a professional feel to it. Then simply send DM’s to accounts that are in your niche, or share a similar audience base as you. Networking goes much deeper than just building DM groups, or exchanging shoutouts. This can lead to new opportunities, other possible collaborations, as well as other people to share and gain insight from.

Targeted Hashtags

Almost everyone trying to grow an Instagram audience uses hashtags. But more often than not these are done poorly, and can sometimes even hurt your account. Keeping around 4-6 hashtags per post is a good sweet spot. The more hashtags you use the higher the risk you run of Instagram viewing your account as spam, and not promoting your posts. When you are picking hashtags to use on your posts do research. Does the post you are making fit what is trending at the top of those hashtag results? Finding and matching the best hashtags for your content is crucial in organic growth, especially when just starting.

It is also possible to buy real Instagram followers to give your account a little bit of a boost if you are having trouble gaining traction.