In 2025 instagram is among the most competitive platforms with more than 2 billion MAUs (Monthly Active Users), approximately 51.8% of users are male and remaining 48.2% are female users. It is challenging to grow followers on this platform because of the high competition and content saturation. But with every challenge comes an opportunity to grow, learn, and surpass your competition.
Gaining authentic followers and engagement on instagram goes way beyond just posting content. Today I’ll introduce you to the strategies to gain real instagram followers. These strategies will explain how to strengthen your profile starting from your username to the content you post. Let’s dive into the details.
Top 12 Strategies to Increase Instagram Followers
The top 12 strategies you must know to gain real instagram followers are as follows:
- Keyword Optimized Username
- Optimized Bio
- Keep Experimenting with Your Content
- A Captivating Caption
- Use of Relevant Hashtags
- Choose the Right Time to Post
- Engage with Your Audience
- Collaborate With Other Influencers
- Instagram Marketing Strategy
- Get Verified
- Understand Analytics
- Cross Promotion on Other Social Platforms
Let’s explore the details of all these strategies to ensure you are not missing out on anything.
1. Keyword Optimized Username
Embedding keywords into username is a great way to optimize your profile.Instagram algorithms prioritize the profiles that target keywords in usernames. Username is your instagram handle, more like your social identity on instagram. To make your identity easy and credible, use a name similar to the one you have used on other platforms or use your company or brand name.
For Example if you are a food creator on instagram, using “cookbook” or other relevant terms in your username will enhance visibility when someone searches for food or a recipe. Adding keywords also helps in conveying the idea about your business like what you are selling or how you are helping others. A username works like a root for your profile as it is the first thing someone will see on your profile.
2. Optimized Bio
A precise and clear bio is what makes your profile meaningful and business-driven. Now, the question is how can you write an optimized bio for your instagram profile or business. While writing your bio watch out for four elements to help you grow followers and engagement on Instagram.
- Short yet meaningful description of your expertise.
- Reflect your brand vision.
- CTA (call to action)
- A link for details
Your instagram bio is not only 150 characters, it is the part of your profile that lets people know about your business and helps them learn more. It’s your first impression on potential followers and customers.
The logic behind Instagram bios is to make them creative, clear, and complete. Anyone reading it should instantly know what your company does, how it can help them, and where they can learn more.
3. Keep Experimenting with Your Posts
If you ask me what is the key to gain instagram followers, my answer is “Keep experimenting with your posts.” People love to see different styles of posts and engage with them. Instagram has introduced several other formats for posting other than images. Instagram Reels, pinned posts, Story Highlights, and carousel posts are the major types of posts you see nowadays.
You can find out the format that suits your business by experimenting. General statistics show that more than 91% of the active users on instagram consume video content. But this could and could not be true in your case, depending on your targeted audience a carousel might work better. So do some experiments and learn.
4. Write Captivating Captions
When you fit your content in the perfect format it’s time to write a caption that adds value to your post. Instagram captions matter a lot as they will make someone engage with your post or just scroll it. While you write a caption keep your post intent in mind.
Instagram captions vary between 20 – 2,000 characters. If the focus of your post is aesthetics, you should avoid long captions. On the other hand, if you are posting for educational purposes, a long caption explaining the details of the post will be helpful.
To master the skill of writing a great caption is to understand the interest of your audience. Your ultimate goal should be educating your audience and not just hitting the word count milestone. Don’t mistake long captions for better.
5. Use of Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are used to give your post better reach by exposing it to a larger targeted audience. Instagram has given you a limit to add up to 30 hashtags but also recommends adding only 3 to 5 hashtags.
People often use hashtags to search for a topic or event on instagram. You should focus on adding fewer but relevant hashtags to let that post reach the right audience. It’s always quality over quantity. Moreover, hashtags play a significant role in ranking your posts.
6. Choose the Right Time to Post
The most frequently asked question regarding posting is “What’s the best time to post on Instagram?” The right answer is “Whenever most of your audience is online.” There isn’t any standard or universal time to post on instagram.
To know when your audience is online follow the simple steps given below:
- Go to your instagram profile and click the three horizontal lines on the top right.
- Tap on ‘Insights’.
- Next, click on ‘Total followers’
- Scroll down the page and Tap ‘Most active times’.
- You’ll get the details of the hours of the week or a specific day.
7. Engage with Your Audience
Engagement is the key factor to increase instagram followers. Your engagement will not only keep your current followers stable but attract more. Understand the pain of your audience, solve their problems, answer any query they have, and ask about their likes and dislikes to get ideas for content.
You can talk with your instagram followers through your posts, responding to comments, replying to DM’s, and answering queries from any potential customers.
8. Collaborate With Other Influencers
Collaboration on instagram is a great way to reach new people. It will give you and the other party exposure to a new community. It is always great to collaborate with small businesses or other creators when they align with your values and interests.
You can search for influencers through Google or using hashtags. Don’t restrict yourself to collaborating with individual creators, it might limit your potential to thrive and connect with new people.
9. Instagram Marketing Strategy
Making your instagram strategy will have a huge impact on how much business you get from instagram. Having a strategy on hand will keep things aligned and help you track your goals. Here are steps for you to create a marketing strategy for instagram.
- Solidify your goals.
- Define your brand voice.
- Create content pillar themes.
- Get a 360-degree view of your audience.
- Create a content calendar and stick to it.
10. Get Verified
A blue badge right next to your profile makes you the valued one on instagram. It increases your credibility and plays a pivotal role in gaining real instagram followers. You will stand out in search results, get a high engagement rate, and avoid impersonation by getting verified. If you want to boost your growth on instagram consider getting verified.
11. Understand Analytics
Instagram analytics helps you understand what kind of content is working for you. You can figure out what kind of content on your page is being consumed by the audience and which one is getting ignored.
Moreover, you can also find out which format is working best for you. Understanding these analytics is important as it will help you track your goals. It also works as a motivation for you when you see the graph going up and your hard work paying off.
12. Cross Promotion on Other Social Platforms
One of the easiest ways to grow followers on instagram is to do cross-promotion on other social platforms. It will make you more discoverable and give a boost to your following. You can also add your instagram to your blogs, product packaging, marketing emails, website footer, and social media posts.
Final Thoughts
Growing your instagram followers is not a one-day task. It is a continuous process to gain and then keep your followers stable. Posting regularly, creating quality content, engaging with your audience, and experimenting are some ways that will help you to grow followers.
Managing content, tracking the progress, keeping pace with competitors, and following the content is a hectic but great way to get authentic instagram followers. If you are having difficulty managing all this and looking for a simple way to gain followers, contact us. We will provide you with real instagram followers that will bring engagement to your profile and add value to it.