When Instagram started off, it looked like a social media platform strictly for fun and nothing really serious. Fast-forward to today, it has become a platform for various marketing strategies, as well as selling, buying, promoting and the establishment of various brands. A lot of people make an honest living off Instagram, and before our very own eyes, it has evolved to be something really magnificent.

Even though it is one of the latest social media platforms, it is arguably the most popular one today with more than 200 million users making use of it, and interactions that rages to 1.6 billion in just a day. These figures are really huge when compared to other social media platform, and this is why most brands are daily utilizing Instagram for their promotions, in the stead of other platforms. Also, the engagement rate for these various brands is very huge on Instagram compared to other social media network. Research has shown that the rate of engagement for a brand on Instagram is more than 58 times that which exists on Facebook

Making use of these advantages that Instagram has on offer over most social media platform for your business operationalization will most likely do wonders. To get the best out of the engagements as a brand, you have to a make sure that you have substantial followers, as only this will do the trick for you. also, various influencers on Instagram also need these followers to be relevant. As a matter of fact, the amount of followers that you can amass on Instagram is relative to how much you can be successful with utilizing the app. Therefore, you need to find means of garnering these followers. In this article, this is our major focus, as we are going to take you through various ways of getting genuine followers for free. Emphasis must is placed on both ‘genuine’ and ‘free’, and this is because you may have a lot of followers that may not be useful for the aim of promoting your brand. This is because every brand has a target audience, and if you do not have these required set of followers, your promotion is simply a waste of time. also, there are a lot of ways to get followers by paying a certain amount of money, but why pay when you can get these followers for free with the following methods:

Cross Promoting Hashtags Offline

First of all, you should know that hashtags work wonders, and if you are fervent social media user this should not be an n astonishing piece of information. However, there are various ways to make use of these hashtags in such a way that they can earn you more followers as well as engagements. For every content that you are using for the promotion of a brand, make sure that you find ways to insert your hashtag as well as the Instagram handle. Also, make sure that the hashtags are present on your Instagram profile and that of other social media platform that you make use of. However, the best way to work wonders on hashtags, using them to gain followers is by creating an awareness offline on ads, signage, popular places where people can easily come in contact with them, and famous events. Also if you have access to telecommunications like radio and tv, you can make use of it for the promotion of your hashtag. You have to strategically make people become conscious of this hashtag, therefore devising a way to go about this is an integral plan. Now the idea behind this is that you cannot promote your Instagram handle in the same vein that you will promote this hashtag. But with hashtags, you can rest assured that a lot of people that are interested in you and what you have to offer will definitely follow you, and this is really genuine followers.

Also Read: Is there a legal way to buy active Instagram followers?

Be Very Active

If you want people to notice you on the platform, you have to make sure that you are very active and participative. Jump on the trending discussions with brilliant ideas, and if possible you can try to relate it with the kind of service you have to offer. Also, you can jump on trending hashtags and try to make use of your own hashtags too. Notice people with plenty of genuine followers and interaction, and make sure that you are really part of their activities as frequently as you can. Instagram users like really active people and if you are very interesting to go with, you will be able to amass a lot of followers.

Utilizing Link backs to for Your Instagram Page

You can make use of link backs to your page if you have websites to use for the URL, make sure that this is done with a very captivating contents that best depicts who you are, and if it’s about your brand, make sure that you do well to convince followers that you offer the best type of service that there is out there. If you can strategically post your URL on a lot of blogs successfully, then you will get genuine followers based on the fact that that will follow you must have done so based on what the read about you in the content. A good way to go about link backs is to find active bloggers and cut a deal with them on B2B services if you also own a website or a blog. You can do this with multiple bloggers, but make sure that they always have enough traffic on their sites.

Making Use of Influencer Marketing

You can target the famous influencers around on Instagram by visiting their various pages and become more interactive with their posts. A good way to go about this is turning on notifications on their posts, and make sure that you keep interaction as frequent as possible. You could become some of their favorite people, hence getting more followers from those that follow them. but if you are a brand promoter, you could advertise under their posts. These influencers usually have a high interactive rate, and as such, you can just get a lot of users interested.

Creating Your Own Strategy

You should have a plan for how you would like to go about using Instagram. Having a clear strategy will only make a lot of users admire your ways, hence earning you followers. The strategy must clearly define your goals on Instagram if it for brand awareness and promotion, or a boost in traffic for your site. whichever one it is, just make sure that these objectives are clear to your followers and do not mislead them.

Focus on Your Target Audience

You have to be able to locate posts that your target audience interacts with, most especially if your brand is consumer specific. You could also create posts that will attract the interest of your target audience from time to time. doing this will definitely earn you the followers that you crave for your brand promotion with relative ease.

Creating a Brand Aesthetic

You have to be very consistent in the way you go about using your page so as not to confuse followers, thereby making them aware of what they stand to gain from following you. be conscious of your personality especially if you represent a brand, or you an influencer. Never contradict yourself as this will make you look confused and clueless.

Promotion of Your Instagram Page on Other Social Networks

If you have a lot of followers or friends on other social media platforms, you can convince them to follow you on Instagram. If the reasons they are your followers on other social network is as a result of your posts, assuring them you are more active on Instagram with similar posts will make you follow them there. Sharing a link of your Instagram page on the social media will also make it very easy for them to click and follow you.

Share Compelling Posts

Understanding our audience is very important, and if you can share posts and contents that will captivate them from time to time, you can rest assured of gaining more followers. Make sure that everything that you post must be relatable and interesting to them in such. Also, it is important that you find a balance between the humor of the most and the message that it’s sending across. Don’t be too rigid with posts such users do not have a humorous feeling towards it. Also don’t be too lackadaisical with your posts.

Follow for Follow

This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it could be effective if you are looking to reach a certain figure for followers as soon as possible. You can get relevant genuine accounts, follow them and request for a follow back. If you get some accounts to follow you with this method, you can successfully gain some of their followers too in the process.

Posting at the Right Time

Also read: How to judge the best time to post on Instagram?

There is the best time suited for posting, where you have the opportunity of getting viewed by a lot of users, hereby getting their follows. On weekdays, research has shown that when you post around 12 pm and 1 pm, you will most likely get more interactions leading to follows.