How to get Instagram followers WITHOUT paying for them.

24 replies
There's no denying the fact that building up a healthy Instagram following can be hard work and a slow process. So much so that it's real common to see people upload a few posts and then give up when their followers don't grow through the roof straight away. Or worse, give in to temptation and buy followers (BIG no-no for a genuine business).
If anyone's struggling in that area there are a few things that I've picked up that are important to get people to follow you:

1) Complete your profile
Make sure that you've filled in all the spaces that give you chance to talk about your business. Your bio doesn't give much space so make sure you get all the important info in there website, or web page pointing to your latest promo, and a description about what you do. If your business name is a bit ambiguous, be sure to use your profile to describe the service you provide. This will help you show up in a search when people are searching for your service.

2) Post consistently
Posting on a regular basis helps to keep your followers engaged with your brand so yours is the first name they think of when they need your product or service. Don't wait for something interesting to happen, always have a stream of content lined up and ready to go so you're making regular posts. The more your existing followers engage with you, the more likely you are to show up in their newsfeeds which their followers will see.

3) Create good photos
It might sound obvious but while Instagram isn't designed as an app to showcase outstanding photography, it's not the place for blurry and out-of-focus photos either. There are lots of filters available for you to smarten up your pics, use them! If someone stumbles upon your profile and its full of crappy shots which are painful to look at, they wont stick around for more.

4) Have a strategy
Bombarding your followers with random posts and then giving them nothing for weeks wont help you show up on other peoples profiles. Have just one or two people in charge of co-ordinating your posts and post regularly and with strategy. Decide on the point to your Instagram account and ensure that all posts point to that.

5) Come up with good captions.
While the point of Instagram is to share pictures, it also helps to have well thought out captions which further engage your followers. Its this engagement which will see them commenting and liking and what will help you show up in their followers feeds. Always let people know what you want them to do next: Buy, Contact or enquire people need to be told what action they should take.

Buying followers is quicker but way less effective then gaining a genuine following authentically. Do you have any tips for this?
#followers #instagram #paying
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  • Profile picture of the author Don Mann
    I'm using instamate, for my Instagram.
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  • Profile picture of the author futurepocket
    Buying followers will not benefit you in the long term whatsoever .. if anything, it will skew your social media efforts. This applies to all social media networks. It's worth it to invest your time in networking with real people / followers who may actually have an interest in your profile.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattsuth
    Yeah agree completely, buying followers is a waste of time and effort. They won't ever bring any value to your brand or business and you'll only end up spamming your genuine followers and p1ssing them off in the process.
    Another valuable action to take to get genuine followers is to make sure you're active on your Instagram account at all times. By this I mean to do regular searched on who's hash tagging anything relevant to you and always make sure you reply to people who make comments on your posts. I really believe that taking the time out to do this not only increases your reach across their followers, it also shows that you're a good guy (or gal) who takes the time and cares about people who are taking the time to look at their posts.
    Hope this all goes well for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author ThoughtBrick
    I would just say, genuinely love what you post and share. I haven't had my Instagram account for that long but it's building quicker than I though it would.
    Enjoy the process, be authentic, post from the heart and others should like what you post too.
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    • Profile picture of the author angelazar7
      I agree, this was a really good post. I've also recently started with Instagram, and it's really cool seeing like minded folks follow you, and of course the chance to see what they're up to as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author adamcurran
      Originally Posted by ThoughtBrick View Post

      I would just say, genuinely love what you post and share. I haven't had my Instagram account for that long but it's building quicker than I though it would.
      Enjoy the process, be authentic, post from the heart and others should like what you post too.
      I don't necessarily think that if you're authentic and post from the heart that everyone will like what you post, but it should definitely appeal to your target market. Those people that don't like your genuine posts are never going to be your customer anyway so being genuine will only help to wheedle them out leaving you with a healthy following with buying potential.
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  • Profile picture of the author Clarence Chan
    I'm not really fond of buying followers myself. I feel like I'm spending more than earning from it.
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  • Profile picture of the author kandabrewer
    Buying followers can be risky, although some services, such as social-gear.com, seem to know what they are doing and can automate at least some of the liking and commenting while targeting your specific audience.

    Post consistently and keep the posts positive. Like 4 or 5 photos in a row of people you would like to follow you and comment to bring attention to your account.

    In any case, when you post is important, since instagram posts get the most clicks within a span of a few hours. Your audience may vary, of course, but, generally, the following applies.

    Best days, with best first: Wednesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday

    Best times to post:
    Sunday 5 pm
    Monday 7 pm and 10 pm
    Tuesday 3 pm and 10 pm
    Wednesday 5 pm
    Thursday 7pm and 11 pm
    Friday 1 am and 8 pm
    Saturday 12 am and 2 am

    Don't forget time zones!
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  • Profile picture of the author mikeyman120
    You can do shoutout for shoutout once you get about 10k followers easily by using a site like shoutoutpost.com. Shoutout for shoutout is very similiar to adswaps for list building and it's free. If you don't have 10k followers which I think you need to use that site you can use the Instagram search feature and find accounts with similiar size followings to you and contact them for a shoutout for shoutout.
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    • Profile picture of the author grvela10
      I use www.jatchme.com it's not like those buy likes and followers this is an automated system that will post comments, likes for you and it can message your followers as well. With this system you have you Instagram on autopilot, I started with 129 followers and now I have 600 that's in 4 days not bad right. It will interact with your followers so they follow you automatically.
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  • Profile picture of the author JennyRoberts
    Be active, follow other users and interact. Using hashtags could help too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexandra Milo
    yes stop buying followers, let's engage with them, I use organic tool Combin for it, it helps me to build a community around my IG account (brand). Also I track the following ratio:

    - How many people from all my followers watch my stories? I guess bots will not do it!
    - How many likes I have per post?
    - How many individual comments I have?

    It helps me to understand does my account going well or not.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wilsjac1
    I am using kloudflow.com, it has a free option for 1 account, it builds real followers and I have never had an account banned, I like it for what it is worth
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  • Profile picture of the author Rajeev Gaur
    Hi there,

    Follow those who are related to your sphere.
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  • Profile picture of the author wondercoder
    I do not prefer buying audience. I follow the strategy of posting regularly, including good images, catchy headings and good has tags.
    Have seen people using shoutouts and get around 10k followers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Careyrussell
    use kloudflow.com or instamate...this will help you..
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    • Profile picture of the author Charley06
      When will Instamate reopen their site for new users to purchase the system?
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  • Profile picture of the author cearion
    Banned
    There are lots of ways to do this, I use a free tool to collaborate with other influencers, and have me a boost on my IG. Buying followers is a no go!
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBonilla
    Banned
    to achieve that there are many free tools are also available you can go for that..
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  • Profile picture of the author techwiiz
    To get followers, you need to put out interesting content. The test followers or the followers you buy will unfollow you sooner or later.

    Even if you spend money to get followers most of them would be spambots. You dont want some bots to follow you.
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  • Profile picture of the author conchitaaragon
    Banned
    adding in followers that don't interact with your account reduces the percentage of engagement you will get. On some platforms, like Facebook, this will work against you. Facebook has a fancy algorithm it uses to decide what brand content it will filter to the news feed. Having a dwindling engagement rate tells this algorithm that your followers aren't interested in your posts.
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    • Profile picture of the author NH1214
      Dude I totally agree. Facebook and Instagram both now have engagement based algorithms, so having a high number of followers that don't actually like or comment on your posts is actually hurting your account's growth. I see so many people on these forums saying "Follow me for a Follow Back, let's support each others' growth," but being a ghost follower is actually dead weight. Low engagement slows Instagram growth because the algo sees you have a high # of followers, but a low # of likes and comments, so your content must be low-quality. It is better to have 2k followers and 500 likes per pic than 15 or 20k followers with the same number of likes. For this reason, blocking ghost followers is incredibly important to keep growing quickly. It can be done manually, but taking the time to compile a list of all your ghost followers is hard. Then actually blocking all of those ghost followers can take weeks, almost isn't humanly possible. The only service I found that actually does both of these things for you is EngagementGenie.com. So far so good. I'm about a week in and I'm getting more likes and comments on all of my posts and the new followers I do gain are only those that show active interest in my content by liking or commenting. Highly recommend not neglecting ghost follower maintenance in the process of growing a following!!
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    Solid tips here.

    I'd add; give whatever you want. So....follow other folks organically, Like updates and comment on updates. Being social and helpful on IG helps you gain human, quality followers. The formula is simple but requires patience, and most folks bail on this simple, powerful strategy due to impatience.
    Signature
    Ryan Biddulph helps you to be a successful blogger with his courses, manuals and blog at Blogging From Paradise
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  • Profile picture of the author Shin Wilson
    1. Cross-promote your dedicated hashtag.
    2. Get creative with hash tagging.
    3. Participate in massively popular conversations.
    4. Make the most of your bio URL.
    5. Get descriptive with your captions.
    6. Go all in on influencer marketing.
    7. Remove unwanted tagged photos of you from your profile.
    8. Approve photo tags before the content shows on your profile.
    9. Develop your own Instagram style.
    10. Get local.
    11. Remember your calls to action!

    If You Follow these 11 steps then you can surely get man Instagram followers without paying for them...
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