How Can I Grow The Following On My Business Instagram?

Instagram is the home of incredible content imagery that can fill your device with targeted advertising and mesmerising content. If used correctly, it can be a great addition to your marketing toolbox. Of course, there are right and wrong ways to use Instagram; we want to show you how you can use Instagram for your business, but more specifically, how you can increase the likes and engagement you are receiving on your posts. After all, what is the point in sharing your content if no one is going to see it?

Make Your Page Public

We know this seems basic, but if your page is set on private, whereby users have to request to follow you, you are less likely to have as many followers as if your page was public, and this decrease in the number of followers leads to a decrease in the engagement you will receive. When people choose to follow someone, they will have often scouted out the brand’s page to decide if their content is something they want to be seeing in their feed, either aesthetically or in terms of the information they provide.

On the other hand, if you want to ensure that 100% of your followers are real (not Insta-bots) and people that you WANT following your brand, then, of course, you can pick and choose who follows you by keeping the page private. However we recommend maximum exposure of your content to increase the engagement on your photos, so therefore we suggest keeping your page public.

Use Strategic Hashtags

Using hashtags is a great way to maximise your content’s exposure on Instagram, especially since Instagram has recently released the new feature where people can follow certain hashtags, so when your brand uses it, it should appear in their feed. By using a community-based hashtag, you are likely to attract local engagement, whilst jumping on board a hashtag trend could also lead to a lot of likes.

The way Instagram works is that when a hashtag is searched, a grid of 9 top posts will appear which is “to show you some of the most popular posts that were tagged with the hashtag”. Following these posts are a set of chronologically updated posts; the more likes your content with the hashtag receives, the higher its chances of ending up in the ‘top posts’ grid, and therefore maximum exposure and likes!

Next week we will continue what it takes to make your Instagram content shoot up in likes and engagement!