Social Media

Tips to Increase your Instagram Followers and Reach your First 1,000

Building credibility on social media can be tough for business owners. When you don’t have enough followers on your social media channels, your business may be missing out on opportunities and potential customers.


By organically growing your follower base, you'll be able to do a side gig, expand your small business, and grow your audience.


So what does getting organic followers mean? It means refraining from buying followers or employing bots to simply increase the number. 

5 Ways to Increase Your Instagram Follower Count

  1. Instagram Search Engine Optimization through your bio

It’s crucial to improve your chances of being discovered. Instagram users are projected to reach 1.2 billion by 2023. 

For your posts to be featured on Instagram's Explore page, your handle should aim to reach more than 5000 fans to increase your visibility.

Start off with optimizing the bio section of your page. Fill in your name and some keywords related to how people can find you. If you offer social media management, you can place "Social Media" on the same line as your name. If your business sells handmade toys or, say, creative light fixtures, then put that beside your Instagram business name.

In the second line, you can highlight who your audience is or share how you can add value or help your followers.  

You can also place other keywords, such as reels and views, on the next line to help people find your profile and, at the same time, quickly highlight how your page can help them. 

Here is a tip: You can go to Instagram and search for keywords related to your brand. See what comes up and what the other similar accounts look.

If you want to direct Instagram followers to other platforms, you can also add a link tree that would allow them to view other important links like a landing page for your offers, course signups, other social media platforms, or a website.

So remember, if you just put your real name, a quote, and random interests on your bio, it will be quite impossible for your audience to find you.


  1. Instagram SEO through hashtags

Let’s follow through on how to improve your chances of reaching your ideal audience. 

You’ve probably heard about using hashtags and know that they are used to place your post into a certain category. So whenever anyone wants to search for a topic, product, or service, the hashtags can easily slide your post into that category. 

It also allows users to use various keyword tags to search for articles they want to see or learn from.

In order to increase the visibility of our posts to the intended audience, we add a hashtag based on relevant keywords.

We want new visitors to love our content, learn from our posts, and find value in them so that they can make the quick decision to trust us enough to follow our page.

We want our target audience to find us when they search for a topic we cater to.

How do we find the top and trending posts that are related to our niche? Search the same hashtags and get to know who the popular and go-to Instagram accounts are.

These could be industry experts, thought leaders, research teams, or business owners who are known in the particular niche.

We are not looking for celebrities with millions of fans, but for small and medium-sized businesses or accounts similar to ours.

After tracking down these celebrities and identifying specific bulk key tags, you should start using them and continue looking at what others are posting on the same topic or hashtag.

Keep this in mind when using hashtags:

  • Don’t place hashtags that don’t have any relevance to your page
  • Keep hashtags within to 2-3 words only to further broaden your discoverability
  • Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags, but it's best to always keep them within the context of your post. If you can only come up with 5 relevant hashtags, then just place 5.


  1. Instagram SEO through consistent branding

When creating posts for your page, you should maintain the same messaging and branding every time. 

This helps new account visitors get to know what your brand is about, what the theme of your content is, and what your business can do for them. 

If your brand exudes a minimalist theme and messaging, your page should reflect a minimalist style too. This also applies to your brand voice: is it casual or formal? Your hashtags and caption will follow suit.

  1. Instagram SEO through your fan and community interaction

Write compelling and descriptive captions for your posts. Your followers will engage when your messaging is persuasive and able to elicit responses from your crafted words. One of your goals is to slowly build a community that is able to share their views, whether they agree or disagree with your message. Keywords should still be present in your captions, just like your hashtags.

  1. IG SEO traffic strategy optimization

Show authority and post content on topics that are currently buzzing. An example is if your niche is all about discovering food, then your page should be on top of showcasing new restaurants, the latest food craze or trending food items. This will give you a higher chance of being shared, and reposted, and having more people discover your page.

Even if you don’t receive any partnership offers from the other businesses, you’re sure to steadily grow your follower count as long as you’re able to be consistent with what people expect you to post. Your chances of people recommending your Instagram account will go up. 

Those who are into fashion could grow their traffic by constantly posting their OOTDs, showcasing newly launched clothing collections, or giving tips or feedback about certain clothing pieces. 

Strategize and Optimize your Instagram Account

Planning ahead is key to being able to successfully apply these methods. Focus on providing quality content, and your audience will naturally see the value, which will result in a continuously increasing follower count.

Continue to be observant of what’s happening within your niche and be consistent in your branding, frequency, and quality.

Being strategic means making each post intentional and not posting as if it’s a personal journal filled with random musings. These could probably work for famous celebrities because they’ve already built their name successfully, and random posts can satisfy their loyal fans.

Maximize Instagram to its full potential for your business, boost your income, and increase your follower base so you can continue growing to the next level in this evolving economy.


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