Instagram recently announced that they have reach 500 million users on their platform. That makes Instagram one of the largest social networks and represents incredible market potential just waiting to be tapped. Even with such incredible marketing potential, businesses are still avoiding the network entirely or are struggling to make inroads on Instagram because they aren’t sure how to build a list of active, engaged followers. Take a look at this presentation to help you get started with building a following on Instagram. Having an established Instagram profile with a lot of followers can open up opportunities to establish and build brand awareness, increase your sales and even catapult your brand into fame!

1. How to Get More
Followers on
Instagram

2. Set Goals

3. • What will you be using Instagram for
• Understand your target audience
• Determine the type of content & story you want to tell
• Research competitors
• Test,repeat,& optimize to build your Instagram following

4. Optimize Bio

5. • Bio chance to capture the attention of users unfamiliar with brand
• A good bio consists of:
• Profile picture that clearly identifies brand,typically logo
• Brief description (only 150 characters) – consider utilizing
emojis
• Call-to-action (examples: click here,contact us,shop our feed,
etc.)
• Link (only place for clickable link)

6. Post Consistently
and Frequently

7. • If you don’t build it,they won’t come!
• Posting consistently ensures fans keep checking you out
• There’s no penalty/fatigue from posting multiple times
within a day – just make sure you can stick with this type of
frequency
• At least try to post once a day for top of mind (according to
Union Metrics,,top brands post on Instagram an average of
1.5 times per day)

8. Aweber Instagram –
infrequent posting schedule
which can hurt engagement
rates and following on
Instagram

9. Mailchimp Instagram – more
frequent posting schedule –
better engagement rates
(likes,comments) and more
people willing to follow on
Instagram

10. Create Great
Posts

11. • Instagram turns brand from conversationalists to visual storyteller
• Build content themes and content calendar
• Decide on content & ratio (photo, video, gif – what percentage do
they make up overall content on your Instagram account?

12. Visuals
• High quality visuals
• Photographer/videographer first,
marketer second
• Appeal to emotions and desires
• Calibrate look & feel through post
production
• Be aware of copyright issues when
using visuals from someone else

13. Captions
Deliver compelling copy to increase
value of post and engagement by
• Challenge post
• Emoji
• Hashtags
• Mentions
• Location tagging
• Call-to-action

14. Connect With
Social Influencers

15. • Social influencer - a trusted and active social media user
with a large group of active followers in your target market
• Augure revealed that 84% of brands planned to include
influencer targeting & 93% of those surveyed felt influencer
marketing was effective for building brand awareness.
• Tomoson found on average, businesses generate $6.50 in
revenue for every $1 they invest in using social influencers.
• Social influencers are a great way to build your Instagram
following!
What and Why

16. • Shoutout for Shoutout
(unpaid) – great if you don’t
have big budget – works
best when you are looking
for allies who have similar
following sizes as you.
• Shoutout (paid) – get
influencer to mention
brand
How

17. • Instagram takeover – cross promote content by
having social influencer in related niche take
over brand’s Instagram account.
How

18. Hashtags

19. • Hashtags allow discovery
• Hashtag limit 30
• Most interactions at 11+ hashtags for
brands with < 1k followers

20. • Make sure hashtag and caption related
• Don’t use too many hashtags once you have a decent
amount of followers - even though no
penalty/saturation point,too many hashtags = too wide
net
• Don’t make caption too short when using hashtags or
it’ll look spammy
A few things to take into account when using
hashtags, such as:

21. “Steal” From
Competition

22. • Leverage your competition’s Instagram accounts to
target followers already interested in your
product/service.
• Create list of competitor’s
• Find their followers by using Crowdfire
• Engage with followers by liking,commenting,
following

23. Contests

24. • Capitalize on the Instagram users’ “whoa-that’s-cool”
mindset by creating a giveaway
• Several types of contests to run – like-to-win,
comment-to-win, photo challenge, repost, tag-a-
friend,email gated

25. • These types of contests
typically have highest
engagement due to lowest
entry barrier – because of this
you can expect to also get
people who aren’t very
interested in your brand
• Users ‘like’ or ‘comment’ to
enter
Like-To-Win and Comment-To-Win

26. • To enter, users must post a
photo to their feed
according to your
instructions. They then need
to include the relevant
hashtag that you tell them
to use.
Photo Challenge Contest

27. • Participants must make a
comment within your
post and tag another at
least one of their friends in
the comment section
Tag-A-Friend Contest

28. Remember: To
Increase Instagram
Following - Invite
Engagement

29. • Follow,like,comment,regram (with permission)
• Build relationships with influencers
• Shoutout for shoutout
• Instagram contests
• Use call-to-action on posts
• Use hashtags

30. Selling On
Instagram

31. Now that you have built Instagram following it’s time to
sell. You can use Soldsie or Have2Have.it
• Soldsie – comment selling. Followers
leave a comment such as ‘sold’ which
generates an invoice.
• This also makes use of social proof –
followers see like minded individuals
making purchase via comments, which
makes them more likely to make
purchase themselves

32. Now that you have built Instagram following
• Have2Have.it – make Instagram
account shoppable
• User click on link in bio which takes
them to page that looks/feels like
Instagram
• This new page takes users directly to
product – increase sales/conversions