Increase Instagram Followers Without Following Everyone

It’s entirely possible to grow your Instagram followers without having to follow everyone.

Let’s look at how to increase followers on Instagram without following…well, everyone!

1. Develop a Unique Style

One of the easiest ways to get more Instagram followers is to develop a unique style and aesthetic for your account.

Because there are so many people all vying for attention on Instagram, you need to stand out to get noticed. A clear visual content style sets you apart from the competition and makes it easier for people to recognize your brand.

Rosie Clayton does an excellent job with her Instagram theme of bright, color pops. And with over 100,000 followers, her style choice certainly paid off.

2. Improve Your Instagram Image Quality

Since Instagram is an image-heavy social media platform, it’s crucial you pay particular attention to the quality of your images.

Great quality images have the power to draw in tons of traffic, engagement, and followers. But photos that look thrown-together can have the opposite effect of driving people away from your profile.

You don’t need expensive equipment to take great photos for Instagram. Your smartphone camera will do the trick if you’re careful with lighting, props, and filters.

This photo shot with a Google Pixel demonstrates how smartphone photography can create some insanely good images.

3. Get Creative With Captions

Even though we’ve talked about the power of images on Instagram so far, it doesn’t mean you should ignore the words you use. Your image captions are a great place to engage with your audience and use persuasive language to encourage them to follow you.

Try using image captions as a way to tell a story about your photo. That way you can tap into readers’ emotions, and give them an interesting experience.

Chances are, if they enjoy what they read, as well as what they see, they’ll come back for more and follow you.

4. Spark Conversations With Popular Hashtags

Hashtags are an excellent way to help other Instagram users find your posts. And if you add a range of topical and popular hashtags to each post, there’s a high chance you’ll spark some interesting conversations.

For example, you can combine topical hashtags like #wedding and #weddingphotography with a few popular choices such as #Instagood, and #photooftheday to encourage more people to click through and follow you.

Pro-tip: Want more exposure for your branded hashtags? You can also use Instagram Feed Pro to display a hashtag feed on your website, just like what Fenty Beauty did below. To recreate this for your own brand, check out the full tutorial on how to add a hashtag feed to WordPress here.

5. Make The Most of Your Instagram Bio

Your Instagram bio is the most important real estate of your account. It’s from there that users get to know more about you and your brand, as well as discover your website, and the other places you hang out online.

Make your bio as interesting as you can to get more Instagram followers with some of these tricks:

• Add relevant hashtags to make it easier for people to find your profile
• Include your website URL so people can learn more
• Choose words carefully to describe your brand using as little space as possible
• Add emojis to convey emotion, character, and personality

6. Use Instagram Stories for Authenticity

Did you know that Instagram stories can help you develop a personal connection with people?

Because stories are more informal and have a shorter lifespan than typical Instagram posts, you can afford to be a little less polished. This can make you seem more approachable and authentic, which is something people love to see in brands on social media because it shows you’re human.

Even better, authenticity builds trust, which makes it more likely you’ll attract followers as a result.

7. Remember to Use Calls to Action

Next up is a trick lots of people forget about. And that’s adding calls to action (CTA) either in the captions of their posts or in the image.

CTAs tell people what action you want them to take next, so if you want them to follow your profile, it’s worth giving them a nudge in the right direction. If you don’t ask, you won’t find out, right?

In this example, the CTA is to help the author come up with a title for their new book, which shows how a clear CTA can spur people into action.

8. Display Your Instagram Feed on Your Website

Another great way to grow Instagram followers is to add your feed of Instagram posts to your website. That way, site visitors get an instant snapshot of your Instagram content as soon as they land, which improves engagement and followers.

Even better, automatically pushing Instagram posts straight to your site keeps it looking fresh and updated. And that bolsters engagement on Instagram even further.

So how about we take a look at how to add an Instagram feed to your WordPress site? Just follow the guide below.

Create Your Instagram Feed

First, get your copy of Instagram Feed Pro here. Then when you’ve downloaded the plugin, follow these instructions for installing WordPress plugins to your site.

Now from your WordPress dashboard, click Instagram Feed » All Feeds to start using the plugin.

To create an Instagram feed, click the Add New button, as shown below.

From there, you can choose the type of Instagram feed that you want to create. There’s 3 options here:

• User Timeline: Display the latests posts from your Instagram profile
• Public Hashtag: Embed photos and videos that have your selected hashtags
• Tagged Posts: Show Instagram posts that have tagged your account

Want to combine multiple feed types into one? You can just select more than one option here.

After selecting your Instagram feed type, click on the Next button.

For now, we’ll use a user timeline feed type.

You can now move on to the next step and connect your Instagram account to this feed.

Connect Your Instagram Account

To show Instagram posts on your new feed, you can connect it to your own Instagram account.

For that, first, click on the Add Source button.

You can now choose between 2 types of Instagram profiles: Personal and Business.

If you just want to show your own Instagram posts, you can connect a personal profile.

Or you can select a business profile and display hashtag feeds, shoppable feeds, IGTV videos, and more on your website.

To continue, select your Instagram account type and then click on Login with Instagram.

For this tutorial, we’ll go with a persona Instagram profile.

You can now give the plugin read-only access to your Instagram account. Instagram Feed Pro will use that access to view Instagram data but it can’t make any changes to your account.

So, it’s completely safe to use Instagram Feed Pro.

On the Instagram popup, click on Allow to give the read-only access.

Finally, click on the Next button to connect your Instagram account.

In the next step, you can use the live feed customizer to change the design of your Instagram feed.

Customizing Your Feed

With Instagram Feed Pro, you get a user-friendly live feed customizer.

On the left side of the customer, you can find the options to change your feed layout, color scheme, size, post style, button style, and more.

And when you customize your Instagram feed, you can see how it looks using the live preview on the right.

And it’s even easier when you use Instagram Feed Pro to display custom Instagram feeds on your WordPress site.

Instagram Feed Pro from Smash Balloon is the #1 highest rated Instagram feed plugin for WordPress. And besides helping you add stunning Instagram feeds to your website, it’s super-simple to set up, which is perfect for beginners with little design experience.

Last Updated by Stacey Corrin

Original at:  https://smashballoon.com/how-to-increase-instagram-followers/