Growing on Instagram has long remained a highly debatable topic on the internet. The ways to grow on Instagram have changed over the years with the inception of new features, the changing user behavior, and the versatility that it carries.
The main reason why Instagram is all the rage is that its a versatile platform. Unlike LinkedIn or TikTok Instagram doesn't cater to a specific set of audiences. I mean look around even the B2B players like General Electric are jamming the game.
Instagram is actually a place where people like to connect, engage and associate themselves with a brand. Instagram is everything that Local Business Listing sites once were, it's a goldmine for local business. Local Businesses on Instagram can switch to a business account, add their business location, their business phone number and their business/location hashtag in the bio and they are good to go with skyrocketing their Local Business on Instagram.
Take a step further, hire a bunch of local influencers to promote your local business with its location hashtag and boom, the growth is 10X now.
The key social media trend for 2020 is to figure out ways to growing Instagram without Follow/Unfollow, as a practice to grow IG follow/unfollow is officially dead
Gary Vaynerchuk said it best, the answer is almost always more content. It statistically makes sense coming to think of it. The more content you put out, the more the impressions, reach and engagement and profile visits. Profile visits give you Instagram handle its deserving exposure which increases the likelihood of gaining followers, that is provided if they feel compelled to follow you considering how well you craft your bio and design your feed.
There is a good reason why Instagram is called a microblog. What's the point, after all, you do not use the available caption area with good descriptive captions with a hook, storytelling narrative or education?
This matters because if you write lengthy engaging captions then that increases the average dwell time people will spend on your Instagram content which in turn upranks your Instagram post for the given hashtag it appeared for.
Look around, this is what Ninja Instagrammers are doing, Instagrammers like HubSpot & Foundr their captions are lengthy.
In 2019, a lot of Instagrammers have witnessed their Instagram story discovery by a lot of viewers including verified profile viewers, it has never been this huge on Instagram. Instagram is probably tweaking with the platform for the better. It's time to take advantage of this opportunity and make the most of it.
Be consistent with Instagram stories strategy, post at least 8 stories a day, engage the community with all features in Instagram stories like question sticker, poll feature, right/wrong answer sticker. Use the free available Giphy stickers to be humorous on Instagram.
Instagram is introducing something of an Image SEO on the platform. Add alt text to every image that you post. It adds context to the images, making it readable by the algorithm which will give it more reach. A lot of Instagramming pros have reported good results having incorporated this.
So, there you have it. 4 growth strategies to grow your IG in 2020 that aren't follow/unfollow. Like, seriously stay away from follow/unfollow as a strategy to grow on Instagram. Follow/Unfollow adds spam to Instagram handles practicing it. It's messes up your Instagram to an extent that your organic growth forever comes crashing down.
It's important to perform Instagram growth audit once in a while to see where you stand what steps you can take to outgrow.
