How to get Real Instagram Followers quickly for Free?

A No Bullsh*t guide to gaining Authentic Followers on Instagram

Gaining Instagram Followers is no joke!

Do you want to increase your Instagram followers?

The Instagram Auto-like service is a scam let me assure you that. It doesn't work you will come back to square one.

Sit tight! In this article, I will share legitimate tips to increase your Instagram Followers.

You will discover ways to earn authentic followers.

Okay, let's jump right into it!

Without making any unrealistic promises and cutting to the chase, there are only 3 strategies you need to gain followers at a stupendous rate. Believe me, it works, I have used these 3 strategies myself and have seen concrete results.

Consistency is the Key
Execute a solid Instagram Hashtag Strategy
Promote your Instagram out of Instagram
Craft a consistent yet beautiful feed
Get serious with Instagram Stories.
Add value by commenting on the posts catering to your Niche.

1. Consistency is the key :

Consistency is 🔑 to success. As a matter of fact, this strategy comes in handy in every facet of life, facing a real-life problem has never been easier.

With Instagram, everything is about building a reputation. Build a reputation that people can rely on. You have to Instagram consistently on a regular basis and not once a day but maybe twice or thrice a day with relevant, valuable and niche based content.

Let's say you cater WordPress Tutorial niche, there is a disproportionate amount of content that you can pump out, but how do you stand apart.

There are 1,452 posts already attached to the hashtag #WordPressTutorials plus the WordPress Tutorial posts that aren't using that hashtag.

The short answer is consistency and staying true to your niche. You have to post each and everyday posts related to WordPress Tutorials, as you do it on a regular basis people will begin noticing your posts in their post feed and story feed.

As you do it consistently on a regular basis, they cannot ignore you. 😈

You have to use hashtags (We will dive into that in upcoming point) that are closely knit with WordPress Tutorials, the only people that will see your content will be the ones that are inherently interested in WordPress Tutorials.

Keep Learning: Post to Instagram from your PC

Posting regularly twice and thrice might feel overwhelming that's for sure. It will be overwhelming if you are planning to do this manually. There are free tools, I highly recommend you to utilize these tools.

I personally use and recommend Planoly

Planoly is an Instagram Scheduling and automation tool. using this tool you can schedule posts by day, date and time. Using its auto-post feature your post will automatically be published. For carousel and video post, unfortunately, no tool offers auto post. You are gonna have to install it's Android/iOS application in your smartphone and then you can publish as the scheduling time hits.

Take a good look at this Planoly Dashboard

2. Execute a solid Instagram Hashtag Strategy:

Think of hashtags as electricity on Instagram Posts. The stipulated distance to which your Instagram posts can travel depends highly on the hashtags you are using.

Don't just put random hashtags that have very little or nothing to do with your niche and post. The painstaking mistake I see people make is seeing them put random hashtags like #InstaGood #InstaLike #Follow4Follow

Instagram Algorithm sees posts with hashtags like these as spam and penalizes their organic reach. You wouldn't wanna end up like that trust me.

As a matter of fact, a few months ago Instagram officially made a red alert that Instagrammers using hashtags like these might lose their IG for good.

Check out the list of banned hashtags here

Another mistake people often make with using hashtags in Instagram is when they use hashtags that has hundreds of thousands to millions of posts attached to it.

A hashtag that has millions of posts attached to it represents the potential competition you have to face. So in case of a hashtag that has millions of posts attached to it, your competition is against millions of Instagram posts.

Do you really think you can beat it?

I mean you can if you are already InstaPopular, but if were then you probably wouldn't even be reading this article in the first place.

For a new Instagram Business page that has relatively fewer followers can only rank for hashtags with millions of posts, if your post goes viral. For your post to go viral the quality of your content has to be impeccably good. Meme, Food, Humor, Fashion IG catering to these niches can have the likelihood to get viral.

Coming back to the example of WordPress Tutorials. Use hashtags that are in ways related to WordPress, WordPress themes, WordPress Design, WordPress Website, WordPress Plugins but also has fewer posts attached to it.

As a rule of thumb, include 2 or 3 core hashtags with more posts attached to it, this is just in case your post goes viral. You wouldn't wanna miss out the fun.

Another thing that you will need to factor-in in your hashtag strategy is hashtag rotation. If a set of a hashtag in your 1 post fetched you 71% unique accounts, the same might work on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th post but it will not work forever.

The one thing Instagram Algorithm is really good at is pattern recognition. They can easily identify the malicious pattern using which Instagrammers are growing.

We use the pattern that works to tweak with the algorithm and they don't like that for obvious reason. It might be a social media platform and more importantly, it's an advertising platform. If people grow irrespective of running ads then how will Instagram benefit? duh!

The only way to overcome this predicament is hashtag rotation with permutation and combination, you will need to be able to think on your feet.

3. Promote your Instagram out of Instagram:

We are talking about omnichannel strategy here. Why just promote IG in Instagram itself, it's time to go big, let's go versatile.

View this post on Instagram

Howdy 👋 WordPress Bloggers - Did you know? Elementor (the Page Builder Plugin) works best with Astra Theme! - WordPress Astra Theme has millions of followers and Active Installations. - I use Astra + Elementor both in FREE version for my blog and it works like a charm. - Take a look at my blog to see how it looks, LINK IS IN BIO 🔗 . . . #Wordpress #wordpressbloggers #astratheme #wpastra #elementor #themebuilders #websiteui #uiuxdesigns #pagebuilder #wordpressplugin #digitalmarketing #digitalmarketingagency #socialmediacoach #socialmediaexpert #wordpresstutorials #wordpressdesign #wordpresswebsite #wordpresstips #wordpresswebsites

A post shared by Digital Marketing 📊 (@decode_digital_market) on Mar 24, 2019 at 7

:15pm PD

Promote your Instagram in your blogs by embedding Instagram posts that synchronize with the context of your blog posts.

Use Instagram clickable Social Icon in your website, blog posts, Quora profile, LinkedIn profile, Email Signature, Medium posts and practically everywhere.

If your Instagram is based on your physical store where customers come and go then I suggest you put a miniature Instagram nametag standee and encourage your customers to scan the nametag and follow you.

You would be surprised by the number of followers you can pull with this omnichannel strategy.

4. Craft a consistent yet beautiful feed:

Nailing the Instagram feed is more of an art than science. The reason why you should consider crafting a consistent feed is to stand apart with your own style that is again how you build a reputation.

The truth is that people on Instagram can get really picky about who they should follow. If your vision is to act as the sole credible voice in your industry then to do so obviously you are gonna have to step outside the box instead of blending in.

When followers see a consistent feed style that is unique in beautiful ways, then that appears as a strong signal of you being a serious Instagrammer who stays true to his niche.

People follow such Instagrammer it's tried and tested facet of the Instagram World.

Check out my Feed consistency for example.

You can see the consistency that I have maintained with blue color and how I use visual elements in post graphics. The blue thematic color is also followed in Story highlights.

If you want to take a closer look at my Instagram game then here is the link.

5. Get serious with Instagram Stories:

I mean really really serious!!

I don't just mean pushing your post as a story, even amateurs can do that. Time to get creative with action buttons.

Instagram features a myriad of action buttons using these action buttons you can elicit the desired response from your followers. That is how you engage with the community, build a reputation of making a recurring presence in the story feed.

P.S Did you know hashtags on Instagram stories work and fetches unique viewers, yeah! that happens.

I'm not bluffing, check out this snap from one of my IG

This IG Story seldom managed to pull 182 viewers from a very competitive hashtag #DigitalMarketing

I mean that is fascinating, isn't it?

The story altogether managed to gain 216 viewers if we deduct the hashtag then that gives us just 34 viewers that id if I hadn't used the hashtag at all.

That's the effect of using hashtags in Stories, you can add 11 hashtags in your story. What happens next is that if your story is captivating then that compels users to check your profile and hopefully they will follow you.

Instagram can be an indispensable tool at your disposal to initiate Social Media Optimization, design your Instagram Bio in a way that compels people to click the website URL in Bio. What better social media linking could there be?

BTW this story helped me gain 70 new followers. ORGANICALLY!!!

Keep Learning: The Complete Social Media Marketing Guide