With the new algorithm, getting hold of more Instagram Followers can be hard. Especially if you’re looking for instant results.

Whether you have a new account or an established one, increasing followers and eventually monetizing your blog is what every Instagram business wants.

To save you the hassle, here are 7 tried-and-tested ways to skyrocket your Instagram followers:

1. Run Paid Instagram Ads

Organic engagement is great. But have you SEEN the competition out there? There are over 25 million business profiles on Instagram! And only a handful appear on the Explore page.

If you want to reach a wider audience fast, you can simply pay to promote your best posts. That way, you get an instant edge over nearly half of your competition!

Related: gain fast and real Instagram Followers.

Here’s how you can do that. Create a post, like you normally would and then click on the “promote” button once you’ve posted it.

Instagram will already show you a “similar audience” to target your posts to, but if you’re not satisfied, you can always play around with the location, age, gender, and other variables to target your niche audience. Once you’re done, simply add a call-to-action in your caption, and boost!

2. Re-post Other People’s Content

This may seem counterproductive, but it really works! Think about it. It takes time, effort, and even money to create the perfect post – so why not borrow someone else’s? If another Instagram user’s post is getting a lot of traction and it fits in with your niche and aesthetic, reposting it on your page can get you a lot of attention. More attention = more Instagram Followers!

To find relevant posts to use, follow the most popular hashtags in your niche and see which posts are getting the most engagement.

Next, use a Re-post app, like this one, to post the content on your page, and don’t forget to give proper credit to the original account in your caption.

It’s also good practice to ask the user if you can re-post their content first. If it’s a public account, they’ll probably agree. Like this:

Pro-tip: Go for content posted by individual users instead of companies. They are more likely to share insightful and original content, and might even give your page a follow!

3. Run Contests and Giveaways

Did you know? Instagram accounts that hold contests can achieve 70% faster follower growth (a.k.a.: Instagram Followers, a.k.a.: engagement) than accounts that don’t hold contests!

Running contests can do wonders for your brand awareness. Better yet, they can have a trickle-down effect on the rest of your content. They help you get more Instagram followers and the increased exposure results in more engagement and views for your normal posts.

Related: how about implementing Instagram IGTV

Now for some contest ideas:

Have users participate in giveaways by asking them to tag their friends in your posts and follow you on Instagram.

You can even start selfie contests, photo contests, and caption contests. Reward the winner with a genuinely attractive prize and generate some content for yourself in the process – Win-win!

Don’t forget to post about your contests/giveaways in relevant groups across different social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, etc. Tell people you’re giving away free stuff and watch the magic happen!

Probably you’ll end up having not only more Instagram Followers, but more Facebook fans, Twitter followers… YESSS!

4. Collaborate and Cross-Promote with Others

Collaborating with relevant influencers helps you reach a wider audience and build credibility. Most influencers in your niche would be happy to promote your products if you give them free samples.

When reaching-out to influencers, remember: it often helps if you contact the ones that aren’t at the top. Top influencers may expect to be paid for promotions. If you don’t have that kind of money, don’t forget that even someone with 20,000 followers can send a lot of traffic your way.

Another awesome thing to do is go for a loop giveaway. This basically means you partner-up with similar accounts and all of you pitch-in to create a giveaway that has users follow each one of you.

Loop giveaways can include as many as 30 blogs, but you may want to start small, with around five blogs at most. Make sure they’re in your niche though! You want your followers to stay after the giveaway is over.

5. Unleash the Hashtags

Don’t be stingy in using hashtags. The maximum number of hashtags a post can have is 30. So go ahead and put in 30 hashtags.

Just make sure you don’t stuff them all in your caption (that’s ugly!). Put your hashtags in the first comment under your post so they are (hopefully) invisible as follower comments come in.

Be smart, though. Don’t go for general hashtags. Target your niche. If you’re a halal nail polish brand, for example, avoid using hashtags like #makeup or even #nailpolish. These are too generic and don’t really cater to your specific niche.

Plus, all the big brands, like Sephora, use it and the hashtag just won’t do much for you. Go for #halalnailpolish. You’ll face less competition and reach more relevant users. Of course, once you’ve got some traction, you can move on to bigger hashtags.

Also, do your homework and find out what hashtags your target audience uses the most in their posts. You can use these hashtags to get more Innstagram followers, more effectively!

6. Use Instagram Automation

Instagram Automation tools, like MegaFollow, allow you to automatically follow users, and like and comment on posts on a large scale. This helps boost exposure, engagement, and ultimately, your followers’ growth.

For example, if you sell books, a good automation tool will comment on posts by book lovers after locating them using popular hashtags. It will also follow tons of users at a time who are likely to follow you back.

MegaFollow will even unfollow them after a while on its own – this means you can still get a consistent stream of followers without exceeding the limit to the people YOU can follow on Instagram at a time.

Related: Instagram Automation Easy-Insta-growth

Since you can customize the comments you want the bot to post, avoid generic comments like “wow” and “so interesting” or something intrusive like “follow me!”. These are too obviously automated.

You want your bot to look human, so go for something insightful that your target audience will actually appreciate.

7. Embed Instagram Posts in Your Blog Posts

Do you own a business or a personal blog? Great, use it to link to your Instagram!

Related: this is just for Powerful bloggers

Let’s say, you’re a jewelry store. If you write a blog post about jewelry trends for this season, you can embed an Instagram post in your blog where you have pictures of trendy jewelry.

To embed, open the Instagram post on your desktop, navigate over to the … (three dots) icon and click on Embed. Then, simply copy and paste the link into your blog post’s code.

Follow the best practices above to make your Instagram feed look gorgeous and attract more Instagram Followers. Remember to be creative and add your own flair to each post!

Ready to Boost Your Instagram Followers?

The tips above will help you gain a massive Instagram following in no time – but this list is not exhaustive. Be creative and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Remember: what works for someone else might not work for you!

Did any of these tips help you get followers? We’d love to know! Leave us your comments and feedback below!