Post consistently (at least once a day)
Visual marketing tool Tailwind studied more than 100,000 Instagram profiles in 2017 to understand how posting frequency affects follower growth and engagement rate.Try videos, live videos, and Stories
While Instagram started as a photo-sharing network, it has grown beyond just photos. With features like videos, live videos, and Stories, brands can now create many different types of content to engage their fans and grow their followingStudy and use quality hashtags
We’ve explored hashtags a lot on the blog, but it seems that nowhere on social media are they quite as important as on Instagram. The right hashtags (and location tag) can expose your image to a large and targeted audience, and Instagram users don’t seem to get hashtag fatigue in the same way they might on other networks.Share user-generated content
In a year, we grew our Instagram following by almost 400 percent – from 4,250 to 21,000 followers. And a large percentage of this growth was a result of us embracing and sharing user-generated content.
The easiest way to think about user-generated content is this: brands taking the best-of-the-best user content from around the web and featuring it on their own social media or other platforms while giving credit to the original creatorCollaborate with others
Another great way to extend your Instagram reach and grow your following is to collaborate with others, either through partnerships or sponsorships.Post at your best times
After looking at more than five studies on the best times to post, I learned that there isn’t a universal best time to post on Instagram Instead, every brand has its own best times to post. You have yours, too!Use your analytics
One of the key ways to grow your Instagram following is to post high-quality content that your followers like and would engage with. How do you know what your followers like? Again, Instagram Insights provides the data for you to understand which posts your followers like the most.Engage your fans
In the the Explore tab, reaching even more people. And possibly gaining more followers.
A great practice is then to engage your followers by liking or replying to their comments to your posts. Since they took the effort to check out your posts and commenting on them, it feels great to reciprocate by continuing the conversation. Here at Buffer, we use Buffer Reply to easily and quickly reply our fans on Instagram (Facebook, and Twitter).Host contests
Our most commented-on Instagram posts are all contest posts, where we gave out Buffer swags as the prizeCross-post
Finally, make sure your existing fans know you’re on Instagram through cross-posting. Instagram makes it simple to share your posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, which could be a great tactic to get some extra exposure
