How we grow followers on Instagram has changed this year. Its algorithm change, that similar to Facebook algorithm change in 2012 has changed the way posts reach your follows organically. You have probably noticed the reach has been less than what it once was when the changed happened.

The change is similar to Facebook, where when you posted you would reach 50% and up of every one of your followers. Come post-2012 till now your posts organically reach 1 – 3% of your followers. This is because Facebook is wanting to push you to its paid advertising.

Now its Instagrams turn. Where there pushing you to use their paid advertising. Facebook makes billions upon billions from paid adverts and Instagrams percentage of that is small. Hence for the reason of change.

This isn’t the only change though. Other changes that you might have spotted, removal of the like count on posts?! (Game changer for influencers!) There also clamping down on automation tools with Instagram, botz, people with fake engagements and those livid people who follow – unfollow.

So how do we combat this change without having to reach too deep into the wallet? below we’ve got some great tips to carry on reaching new follows and gaining likes on your Instagram page.

Focus on your hashtags!!

Use ideally between 15 – 20 hashtags on every post, don’t need to use the biggest hashtags all the time. I do recommend going over to the app store or the play store and downloading a hashtag app like “Top Tags” or ” Autohash”, there are plenty of apps that a great so experiment!.

You really want to pick 5 really big hashtags, about 10 middle-sized ones, and 5 smaller ones. You need a range! Make sure your hashtags are niche-specific or else the wrong audience will be seeing it.

Focus on good quality content

Make sure your content is of good quality. With no like counters, your audience or potential audience can not gauge the quality by tangible results. This is where your content is king, It has truly become the battle of content on this platform now.

Ensure your content is directly targeted to your niche, hence why it’s important to know what your niche is, and where you sit within your niche. So that you know who you are trying to reach out to. If you don’t know what your niche is, then your going to need to think about it. Why are you trying to start an Instagram page? Why do you want followers in the first place?

I recommend you go and find the five biggest brands or people in your niche’s market and follow them, study what makes them unique. What content to do they put out? What colour scheme do they use? And what are they not doing? Write this down. Where do you fit in within them? what are the reasons would people have to follow you and not them?

Run adverts (PAY $$)

If Instagram wants us to pay money to grow, then do it! If your listening to anyone else be it on youtube or other platforms telling you that you can grow as fast as you could last year…. well there talking crap, utter crap. They’re just telling you what you want to here. And it’s simply not true.

Ad’s can cost as little as 5 dollars per day if you run that over a week you can reach 5000 to 10k targeted people. You can even target an audience so specific that for example if you wanted to reach all Marys who live in Stewart Island that own a golden retriever called Winston with one eye. it’s that specific it’s crazy.

Here is how to run a simple Instagram ad on the app on a business page.

1. Click on the post you would like to promote. and then click “Promote”

2. Select where to send people, for this time’s sake select “your profile” that will take them to your Instagram page.

3. Select your audience.

4. Enter your budget, review and create

To get Instagram ads to help drive followers and likes you could run an ad that would target people to entice them to visit your page. Your target audience could be a look-alike that is similar to your current followers you have now.

You could also boost each post driving your engagement up that little bit each post costing you roughly 5 dollars each post, do that 2x a week. Over a month is $40, of those people who like your post will most likely follow your page and create more awareness.

Create stories

I highly recommend to run multiple stories on your account each day, stories are a great way to personally engage with your audience on a daily bases, you can ask them questions and poles. These are great for engagements. Which is highly important, its all well and done getting a 100k follows, but how many actually engage with your brand? You need to keep them interested and give them a reason to be interested in you.

Remember with this algorithm change organic reach will impact the time to grow your page organically. It’s not that it’s impossible to grow organically. Just the time to do so has grown exponentially compared to paying for adverts.

now if your thinking facebook and Instagram doesn’t work you’ve been posting and see no direct results, its probably because you haven’t gone through and paid for its paid advertising, (Not just boosting your post).

If you want help with this, contact me! I offer a free 15min consultation for your digital strategy no obligations! What do you have to lose? Also feel free to check out our Facebook page!