Instagram Challenge - Lesson Five: How to Gain Followers
This might be the most important lesson of this whole course because this is how you gain sales, clients, opt-ins, you name it.
There are many ways to gain followers, it’s your Instagram so you do what makes you feel comfortable! If you use all of these tips I know you will see tons of new followers rolling in!
Benefits of Large Following
You have probably heard that people judge you within the first 7 seconds of seeing you, THAT’S CRAZY! If you have ever viewed someone else’s Instagram how long did it take you to decide if you wanted to follow them? What turned you on, what turned you off? These are things you need to keep in mind when growing your Instagram. When you look at someone’s Instagram and they have 10k followers does that intrigue you? Most people would say yes, because it makes you think "there must be something good about this account if this many people are following them!"
I feel like 10k followers was a big moment in my business. Instead of reaching out to people for collabs, they were reaching out to me! Followers were rolling in with very little work and I was asked to join so many great loop giveaways. Needless to say when you have more followers you are provided more opportunity and you gain automatic credibility! I’m only going to say this once and I hope it sticks with you: NEVER BUY INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS! They are fake accounts; spam accounts, and bring your activity down on Instagram. When someone see’s your account and you have 100k followers and your pictures have 2 likes, something look’s a little fishy, don’t you agree? SO DON’T DO IT!!
Tactics for New Followers
If you want people to comment and like your photos, chances are the people commenting and liking also enjoy that. What I suggest is being active on Instagram, this means going out of your comfort zone and liking random photos that relate to your business.For Example: Say you are a fitness coach, you want to search for a hashtags like #getfit and go through a few pictures and like them. Don’t stop there you really need to comment, this is super important because if the page is popular they may not see your like! What I would suggest is going through 20-50 pictures a day using a specific hashtag, so let’s say you use #getfit and see a picture of a lady working out, you need to go to her profile, like at least three pictures and also comment on at least two pictures! I want you to do this for at least 20 people a day for at least two weeks and see if this helps you gain ACTIVE followers.The reason for doing this is because when someone likes AND comments on your profile you are normally curious to see who this person is, so we click on their profile and decide from there if we want to follow them. If you have an engaging profile then most likely they will become a loyal follower.You can also take this step a little farther. I need you to sit down and think of 10 accounts that your target market would be following. If you go to those Instagram accounts and click on the tab where you can see who has tagged them in pictures. Go through those pictures and start a relationship with those people by commenting, liking and following those accounts. These accounts are most likely your target market!
Blogger Collaborations
Collaborating with bloggers or celebrities is actually easier than you would think. I’m not saying you can reach out to Taylor Swift and get her to market your business, but some celebs check their Instagram DM’s!When you offer celebs something free (for my business it was free clothing) they in exchange will post a picture wearing your item, or promoting your service on their Instagram. This will then drive their fans to your page.If you are a big bachelor/bachelorette fan, most of those ladies love to promote products and services it just the fact of reaching out.I would also encourage you to comment on one of their pictures letting them know you sent them a DM. When you have a large account like they do, sometimes they do not see new DM’s.Once you have started collaboration, I would encourage you to be organized. Make sure you write down their: email, Instagram handle, what you sent them, and when it was mailed out. It is important to write this down because you want to follow up with them.I have sent multiple products out and made the mistake of not being organized. Since I didn’t follow up, they may have forgotten about it, lost my contact information, or maybe the item just didn’t fit. Either way it’s now wasted money on my end because I didn’t remember what I sent or how I contacted them. Don’t make the same mistakes as me, GET ORGANIZED (the worksheet below will help with this.)Grab the Worksheet Here
Having Interactive Posts
Posts in general are a good way to gain followers. Like we talked about above, people are quick to judge. Making sure you have quality posts is important. When someone comes to your page I want them to KNOW you are a business and what you sell, but I also want them to find other things.
For Example
Quotes: Everyone loves a good quote every now and then. What I have found works for my Instagram is posting one quote per every three products. I like to use funny quotes or quotes about bestfriends. I then put a call to action saying something like: “does this remind you of your bestfriend? Tag them below!”I have TONS of these pictures inside the “pre-made graphics” area in the club!
One tactic I used when I first started was TAG TUESDAY posts: I would make a graphic from Wordswag (the app we talked about in our second lesson) with a picture of one of my products that says “Win me” or “Tag Tuesday” I then put in the caption something like:
Want to win _______ Well we would love to give it to you! Once we comment “START” All you have to do is: 1. Follow us @_______ then comment with as many tags as you can (one per comment: must be actual friend, no celebrity accounts, dog accounts, no tagging back and forth.) We will comment “STOP” anytime between now and one hour! The person that happens to be ABOVE our comment “STOP” will win! *must be 18 years or older to play. We release Instagram by each entrant and acknowledge that this promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by Instagram. *VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW, NO PURCHASE NECESSARY*
(This is just the jargon you need to have when posting any type of giveaway and we will go more into that on our lessons of giveaways) I loved doing Tag Tuesday and I always ended up with tons of new followers, UNTIL Instagram changed some rules. The rules are very vague...You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content (ex: don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t in the photo).READ MORE ABOUT INSTAGRAM’S PROMOTIONAL GUIDELINES HERE:https://help.instagram.com/179379842258600With that being said, I no longer take the risk of doing Tag Tuesday because I am not 100% sure If it is allowed.Feel free to come to a decision yourself and decide if you want to take the risk for your account.I did find a way to use this same tacit without the tagging to grow my email list though. Let me say really quick, if you don’t have an email list for your business then you need to NOW! (We have an upcoming lesson on this as well) So what I did was offer an item from my store (if you are not a store, you can offer a free service.) In order to enter I created a “google form” and made the google form my main link on Instagram for an hour, while running the giveaway. I then asked those that wanted to win to first follow me then click on the link in the bio to sign up. In this form I asked for their name, email address, and Instagram handle. You can ask for the same or similar things just make sure you get an email! You also need to make sure you put in your “giveaway jargon” that by signing up for this giveaway they are giving you permission to be on your mailing list.These are just a few examples of what an engaging post can be, feel free to get creative and think of something that would make you tag a friend, or follow someone’s page and then put that to use!
Shop Share/Shout Outs
I touched on this in Lesson Three ( Inside the InstantBoss Club only members can see this(but you can always join the Club) , but I did want to quickly talk about it because it is a great way to gain followers.If you are a shop that sells women’s clothing, I would encourage you to reach out to similar shops or even some different shops. Make sure you reach out to Instagram accounts that have followers you think would like your product/service. Reach out to these accounts via DM and ask them if they would like to do a “shop share” (if you sell product) or a “shout out” (if you sell a service.)Make sure you are reaching out to accounts with similar follower accounts to you. You want this to be beneficial for both parties. So for example If I have 10k followers I would want to reach out to someone with 8k-13k followers, not accounts with 50k followers. Typically larger accounts won’t share unless they see you have a very active feed.After you have reached out to someone asking if they would like to do a shop share/shoutout, and they agree. Send them a picture and caption you would like them to use (along with your important hashtags.) They in turn will send you a picture/caption/hashtags.You will then both agree to share at the same time for a specific time limit. So for examples I may reach out to @____ send my caption/picture/hashtags and say “I am posting now and will take down in one hour.” Some accounts even like to do what is called an “overnight share” where you both post a picture before bed and delete in the morning when you wake up.Shop shares are CRAZY AWESOME. Make sure you join the Club to read Lesson Three!
Giveaways
Giveaways are the biggest way to gain followers, and FAST. When I say giveaways I specifically mean LOOP GIVEAWAYS. Watch this video below to see how Loop Giveaways work!
[embed]https://youtu.be/eZhcYsOaFqY[/embed]With 30 different accounts coming together and tagging each other encouraging their followers to go through the whole list to follow. Let me just say, it works. You will see tremendous growth when doing these types of giveaways!On days that I have loop giveaways, depending how good the giveaway is, I can normally gain about 1,000-2,000 new followers for my account in the span of 2-3 days!! Craziness, I KNOW! I will say that I would not try to join loop giveaways until my account hits 1,000 followers.So if you are still below 1,000, don’t get discourage, because we have loops OPEN TO ALL inside the InstantBoss Club!If you are first starting out and are still a little small, your first giveaway might send 100-300 new followers your way. HEY, let me be clear, even just ONE new follower is something to be proud! Another thing to understand during loop giveaways is that you will have people unfollow you after you announce a winner, and that’s OK! Don’t get down on yourself, if someone unfollows you, be happy because they aren’t your target market anyways and they are taking away your activity per account percentages!I wanted to give you a quick run down on what loop giveaways are and how they work, we will have a whole lesson on this topic inside The InstantBoss Club along with a calendar FILLED with giveaways you can join! Here is a sneak peak of what the Calendar looks like!
Following
Following similar Instagram accounts followers. As this is a great way to gain followers, some do not like the idea of following someone else’s followers. If you feel this way, go with your gut. If you do not want to follow similar accounts followers, then make sure you are still actively following new Instagram accounts through Instagram by selectively choosing who you want to follow. You need to understand that following other Instagramers that may be your target market will only grow your Instagram. Something about following someone makes them so curious to see who you are, and in turn they follow you back.When I first started my accounts I was following new people every hour of my day… then I got my Instagram account blocked from following for an hour. Instagram only allows you to follow 60 followers per hour (and they change this up a lot so make sure to do your research) DO NOT FOLLOW MORE THAN WHAT IS RECOMMEND.You also need to know that Instagram only allows you to follow a max of 7,500 people total. That means if you are following 400 accounts a day, in 18 days you will be at your max. At this point you will need to spend a few days Unfollowing account that are not following you back with the same method as following * -400 accounts a day.I will say this is a big reason my account grew so much in the beginning, I don’t use this method as much as I used to but I know if I did I would only continue to see my account grow.Join the Club
Make sure you join the FACEBOOK GROUP(it does require purchasing the hashtag library ($12) or an InstantBoss Membership)–But keep in mind this isn’t a requirement for challenge, just an option
- I want you to download the worksheet for today which is actually a monthly goal calendar. I want you to review what we have talked about today (subscriber = mailing list)
- I want you to reach out to 3 people via DM for a collaboration. This can mean a blogger to send your products, a promo account, or a shop share/shoutout. Write their info down in your goal calendar so you can keep it organized this month!
- Like at least 25 pictures and comment on at least 15 pictures on Instagram. (make sure every comment is different, as Instagram blocks users that use the same comments over and over again.)
- If you have decided to follow users, go ahead and follow 60 Instagrams now. Once you wait an hour then follow at least 240 accounts today. If you do not want to use this method(that is fine) but I want you to go through Instagram and follow, at least, 60 accounts you think would like your product/service.
