How To Gain More Instagram Followers

Saturday, May 23, 2015

I often get questions about my instagram and how I got my followers. Today, I'll be sharing with you my tips and tricks on how to gain more followers using these hacks. And no, they aren't physical hacks that will increase your instagram following by a click of a button. Growing your instagram following is a slow and worthwhile process. At the end of the day, it's really all about understanding what your audience wants and ensuring that your photos are so amazing that they have no reason to not follow you. Here are my tips.

Instagram Hacks How To Gain More Followers

#1 What do you want to post? Before you can post anything, you need to know what interests you. What do you enjoy taking photos of and what things do you want to share with others? For me, it started off with beauty and all I did was take photos of things in my collection. I posted flatlays, swatches and closeups. Overtime, this progressed and I now post lots of different content but they all revolve around I guess my 'theme' or colour scheme which I'll move onto next.

#2 Be consistent. By consistency I mean, if you have white borders around your photos so you can fit in the whole picture, stick to it. Or if you use the straight up square format like I do, stick to it. If you combine the two once and a while I'm sure your audience wont mind. But if you're constantly changing up the borders, appearance, colour theme and filters, your feed is going to look very very messy and unappealing to new potential followers.

#3 It's mostly all in the photos. Okay so here is where we get a little nerdy and my crazy photo obsession comes out. I am so so so so picky with the photos I take. This really has a few subcategories so here we go:
  • Background: I opt for mostly a white background and use prompts like magazines or textured paper. Whatever background you choose, it needs to highlight what ever you're shooting. If you use a background that's too loud, your content will become lost
  • Lighting: NATURAL. LIGHT. When I first started my instagram I opted for artificial light and I originally thought it was bees knees but now I realise it's definitely not the way to go. I personally find the natural light best around 1-2pm after there aren't any more shadows. I'm a full time uni student so I try to get all of my photos for that week done on one day

As you can see here some of the colours here are washed out and
the reflecting light is pretty distracting = do not do.
  • Focus: So many people forget that when you take a photo, if you touch the screen on your main object, it actually focuses. If you take a photo out of focus, there's honestly not much you can do! 
  • Don't just take one photo, take many: Nothing is more annoying then setting up everything you want to take a photo of and later realising that something was in that photo, that you really don't want to be there. Or, that you took it from the wrong angle. You can always delete photos, so take as many as you'd like! I usually take 5-10 and review as I go to make sure I have the exact photo I want
  • Take photos in square mode: When you take your photos if you know 100% that you want that pic up on your instagram, take it in square mode. This way you know the entire picture fits and you won't have to result to cropping anything out later
#4 Edit to enhance, not distort. Editing is supposed to enhance the photographs you take. Not make the picture look ridiculously sharp or grainy. For me, whenever I edit photos I up the brightness, iighlights, contrast and lessen shadows to make the photo appear to have more depth. I usually do this through the Instagram app. I used to use many other applications to edit my photos but really now all I use is Instagram, Camera+ and occasionally Afterlight.

#5 DEM HASHTAGS. For me, whenever I post anything on instagram I chuck in the tag #bbloggersau and #melbournebloggers. This way anyone searching these hashtags will be bound to find me. A good tip with hashtags is put the most relevant ones in your actual description and then as a comment to yourself on your own photo, paste the rest of the hashtags from a list you have on your phones notes. Whatever you decide to post, suss out other hashtags that people use.
The only hashtag I used in the actual description was covergirl and the rest were hidden
 in my comments, so now if you scroll through you don't see the huge list. 

#6 Do NOT buy your followers. There are many services out there for what I like to call desperados who refuse to put in the hard work with their instagram and result to these buying services. If you ever wanted to look like a joke this is exactly the way to go about it. People and brands aren't dumb. If you have an instagram following of over 10k and you are barely scraping in 50 likes... I don't have to see a receipt about how you purchased these followers... It seems pretty obvious to me.
How have you gained more followers?
What are your Instagram tips?

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Melbourne Marketing Graduate who is in love with blogging, beauty, food, travel and everything else that you see on this blog.

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