With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram is one of the apps that many entrepreneurs struggle with to get the attention they want from users. Being a popular app, it has a lot of competition, and for one to be successful, you have to identify the best content that can work for your business and vibrate with your audience.

Content is everything; once you have content, it becomes easier for you to build and grow the audience you want. In addition, the content becomes so engaging and exciting to the audience if it rhymes with what they want.

Related: 5 Digital Marketing Trends To Watch

In cases where you are not sure of what you have to do to grow your following, Instagram hacks are here to help you grow your page. In this guide, we have discussed measures you can use to grow your Instagram following and your business.

1. Maximize the use of Instagram Stories

In a study conducted by Instagram, it was revealed that over 500 million users view Instagram Stories every day, which is almost half of all users.

Instagram stories last 24 hours, after which they disappear. Instagram stories allow your viewers to have time and look through your photos and videos, which could earn you more followers and sales if your products and services resonate with the needs of your audience.

Instagram stories provide stickers and many emojis which you can utilize to attract engagement from your followers, like running polls, Q&A sessions, etc. Conducting Q&A sessions help you to directly engage with your followers as they get to know more about your business as you learn about their needs. Asking quizzes is one of the most exciting ways to pull up engagement and learn about your followers’ expectations.

2. Make your Instagram Account a business profile

Opening an Instagram account for your business is one of the most important digital marketing ways. Having an Instagram business account makes it easy for your followers to click on the contact button to get in touch with your business from your Instagram page the same way it happens with your business website. This allows users to easily communicate with you, creating engagement and earning you more people coming in as followers.

As a business owner, you might need to know the performance of your Instagram business account so that you can use Instagram Insights. Insights provide you with statistics regarding impressions and the reach of your posts. This helps you keep track of metrics and understand your audience more.

3. Set goals that you want to achieve from Instagram

Before opening an account, ensure that you establish a goal you want to achieve using Instagram. First, understand your business needs and then find ways to put up strategies that will help you meet your marketing goals.

Understanding your business goal helps you find your target market to market to them and get their attention directly. This means that you might need to establish how best to find the right audience by finding out who they are, where they are and how old they are. Knowing your customers helps you find strategies for driving them down into the sales funnel. Setting SMART goals and keeping track of the performance of your Instagram marketing helps to make sense of your business.

4. Maximize the use of reels

Instagram prioritizes using video content and pictures. This provides you an opportunity to market well to your customers by showcasing what you offer or what you do. Using reels, IGTV and videos give you the complete freedom to portray your products and services to your customers.

When you share reels, IGTV or conduct live stream sessions, most people get push notifications on their phones which instigates them to check and find out more on what content has been shared. This doesn’t help to increase viewership and gives you a chance to get featured on the discover page, hence reaching out to more followers.

5. Use sponsored advertising

Ads work best with Instagram. Instagram allows business users to use multiple ads; this helps business owners to increase their reach to a broader audience in a more effective manner. In addition, sponsored advertising allows all users to see all your updates and photos, which helps to improve the performance of your account.

Using sponsored ads helps boost brand awareness to your target audience through photos and videos. You can convert videos, stories, dynamic ads and photos into sponsored ads. Sponsored ads are captivating and appealing and help bring more conversions essential for the growth of your business and your page.

6. Understand your audience

Understanding your audience helps you to know what they want. You can use Instagram insights to find out who your audience is, the kind of content they could be interested in and the best times when they are constantly engaged with the app.

Instagram insights help you know whether you have gained or lost followers, where your content is trending and selling, the gender and age of your followers. This allows you plan better so that you can market to your audience what they exactly expect from you. Delivering to followers’ expectations helps to keep your audience around and interested in your brand.

7. Use influencers to grow your account

Influencers usually have a big following, so taking advantage of them could help you grow your business. For small businesses and start-ups, use micro-influencers to grow your business since influencers might charge highly and thus could affect your budget as a growing business. Micro-influencers usually have over 5000 followers, and collaborating could be an easier way of selling your business to your followers than paying vast sums of money that your business may not afford.

To figure out micro-influencers in your lane, look at the posts you are tagged to see how many have posted about your business, check out the most recommended accounts and search for familiar hashtags within your niche. Then, you can contact your influencers by using direct messages so that they can be attracted to check out if your brand matches theirs quickly. This makes advertising and marketing for your brand easier for them.

Collaborating with micro-influencers works well in cases where you also market the influencer’s content on your account to advance their brand as well. Additionally, you can use your products by sharing them with micro-influencers to help you post about your brand on their account. This helps create more awareness about your brand and gets more followers, especially where you are tagged in a post.

8. Use branded hashtags

Unique and interactive hashtags are one of the greatest ways of attracting engagement. Having hashtags to use gives a chance to customers to find what to tag when they post user-generated content. Also, using hashtags allows your following to find posts relating to your brand. Using hashtags is a form of free advertising since it will enable you easily search via photos that you may want to post and share again on your account. The beauty about using branded and unique hashtags is that whenever a follower or an influencer posts a photo using a hashtag, your brand gets exposed to followers and new people—this aids in promoting awareness and fastens the growth of your business.

9. Follow back

Following back your followers makes them feel more valued, and they are more likely to engage with your brand. Following back users keeps them interactive and more involved with your brand. This also aids you in getting more profound insights and an understanding of who they are. Feel free to like, comment and share some of your followers’ posts, especially if they relate to your business. This makes your followers accessible and relaxed and can go ahead to contact you, especially if they require your services. Mark the comments you make and ensure that the tone is friendly and calm so that you don’t scare away followers but rather make them feel comfortable.

10. Create outstanding content

Creating content that stands out from what the rest of the content creators have done sets you apart and makes your business stand out. Do not do things that seem so usual but instead find out what is unique about your business and then maximize on that as your strength.

Do more research about your competitors and see what they are doing, see the posts they put up on Instagram, those that tend to attract a pull of comments and likes and find out how they publish those posts. View their stories to see the videos and photos they post so that you can maximize on a unique angle and do content that defeats what your current competitors are doing. This will help you grow your business.