So you want to gain
1000 followers on Instagram? Not a problem! Getting tons of followers
is relatively easy, provided you know how. The first thing you need to
do is set up a really great account, with a specific theme or purpose in
mind. Secondly, you need to start taking beautiful, interesting and
funny photographs and learn how to tag them appropriately. Thirdly - and
most importantly - you need to learn some clever tricks of the trade
which will send your number of followers skyrocketing! So start with
Step 1 below to get #InstaFamous now!
Ad
Ads by Middle RushAd Options
Part 1 of 4: Fast Follows
-
1Start liking photos. One of the best ways for you to gain followers is to start liking photos - as many as possible. Scroll down through your home feed and like some or all of your friend's photos. Hopefully the ones who aren't following you back already will now start following you.- Go to the "explore" page and take a look at the most popular photos. Like some or all of them, as these accounts tend to have lots of followers and some of them might just follow you.
- Next, search for photos of people, things or places you're interested in, using hash tags. For example, if you want to see pictures of the Eiffel Tower, type in #paris, #latoureiffel or just #eiffeltower. Like as many of the photos as possible.
- A third option, and one reserved for people who want a lot of followers fast is to search for some of the most popular tags, such as #followme #like4like or #instadaily. Now just scroll through all of the pictures in that feed, double tapping to like as you go.
- Do this with multiple tags, until you've liked about a thousand pictures. It may seem kind of extreme, but if you do this everyday you are guaranteed to see your number of followers rise rapidly - - setting you firmly on your path to 1K followers.
Ad -
2Start commenting on people's photos. Not only should you start liking people's pictures, you should also start commenting on them.- This provides more of a personal touch, and people will be so flattered with your nice comments that they'll be more inclined to follow you!
- You won't be able to comment on all the pictures you like, but try doing it for as many as possible. It doesn't have to be an essay - something as simple as "nice pic!" or "love this" can work just fine.
- However, an even more personal comment is more effective - something like "I really love the lighting in this picture - good work!" or "I love your hair - wish I could get mine to look like that!". Remember, people - flattery will get you everywhere.
-
3Add comments, questions or CTAs to your photos. Although Instagram is 90% pictures, it's important not to forget about the power of words. Captioning your photos with funny, clever or unique comments or questions can be a great way to engage with your followers and also gain new ones.- Give a little explanation of what the picture is about, or what inspired it. Or else you can simply state where the picture was taken. Keep it to a couple of sentences though - people are lazy and will probably skim over it if it's too long.
- Ask questions, as these will encourage other people to comment on your posts, which looks good to potential followers. It could be something simple like a picture of a new coffee shop in town with the question "Anyone been here yet?" Or you could post a picture of two different pairs of shoes and ask your followers which you should wear today.
- Include CTAs (Calls To Action) in your posts. For example, if you posted a picture of your cat in an awkward pose you could say something like "I want to see all of your crazy cats - use the tag #awkwardcats". This will encourage your followers to take their own pictures and use your hashtag.
-
4Post regularly - but not too often. You can't expect people to follow you if you never post any photos, so it's important to be really active on Instagram and to stay in tune with current trends.- Post between 1 and 3 photos a day, this should keep your audience engaged and make sure there is always something of yours in their feed.
- However, you shouldn't post pictures just for the sake of posting pictures - they should all be beautiful and unique in their own right. See tips for for taking good pictures in Part 4 below.
- Don't post too many pictures per day and avoid posting more than one picture at a time. This can clog up your followers' news feeds, which many people don't like.
- And if they get sick of your constant posting, they might decide to unfollow you - which is the last thing you need when you're trying to hit 1K followers!
-
5Post at the right time of day. You might take the coolest, funniest or most beautiful picture ever - but if you post it at a time of day when no one's online, you limit the number of people who get see it and significantly reduce your chances of gaining new followers.- Think about your followers and their patterns - most people check their Instagram in the morning, before school or work and in the evening on their commute home, when they're stuck on a train or in a traffic jam.
- Therefore, if you post at these times (in the relevant timezone) you are much more likely to get attention for your pictures.
- According to a survey conducted by Simply Measure, the peak time to post on Instagram is on Wednesday evenings between 5pm and 6pm, as this is when most users are active.[1]
- You can also use apps like Statigram to find out the peak hours of Instagram usage among your followers, which can help you figure out when to post content.
- Bear in mind that any post has a window of about four hours to pick up likes, comments and followers, before the post gets buried in people's news feed.
-
6Give shoutouts. Another technique for gaining followers is to get shoutouts, and the best way to do this is to give shoutouts yourself. However, a shoutout will also cause a lot of people to unfollow.- A shoutout is essentially drawing attention to another person's account by mentioning them in a post and asking your own followers to follow them. This exposes that person to a whole new group of potential followers that they would never have reached otherwise. The idea is that once you do this for someone, they will return the favor.
- The ideal situation would be for a celebrity, a major brand, or someone with thousands of followers to give you a shoutout as this can majorly increase your Instagram cred and your number of followers. Unfortunately, it's pretty rare for this to happen, however, through using websites such as QuickShouts and Klout you can pay IG celebrities to promote your page. However, don't spam or beg larger accounts for shoutouts. This is very annoying and would lower your chances of getting a shoutout.
- To give someone a shoutout, all you need to do is mention them in a comment. For example, if someone's username is "catlover" you just need to write something like "this picture is for @catlover - follow her!" in a comment.
- But if you want to give a really great shoutout, you can take a screenshot of the person's user profile and post that screenshot on your own Instagram, telling your followers why they should follow them. This is great advertisement for that user's account.
- If you want to receive shoutouts, the best thing to do is to find a user (preferably one who posts content related to your own) and comment underneath their photos. Ask for a #shoutout and say something like "follow me and I'll follow back".
Ad
Part 2 of 4: Your Account
-
1Consider choosing a theme for your account. The accounts which tend to get the most followers are generally those which stick with a particular theme. Accounts posting just about your life (a "personal") won't gain much unless you have a particularly interesting account. Consider finding a theme more people could relate to.- This is because the people who follow your account know that they are guaranteed to see pictures of things they are genuinely interested in, rather than a bunch of weird or random pictures.
- So if there's something you have a passion for, consider using it as a theme for your Instagram account. Some popular themes include food, fitness, animals, photography, fashion and inspiring quotes.
- Of course, you don't have to pick a theme. Some accounts are popular precisely because they post cool pictures of weird and random things. So if you have an eye for a good shot, you can take cool pictures that people will appreciate, regardless of the subject matter.
- You should also be aware that it's possible to have more than one Instagram account - so if you want, you could use one account for your personal pictures and one for exclusively posting pictures of your dog, or whatever.
-
2Pick a good username and profile pic. Your username and profile pic are the second thing you need to decide on when creating an account.- Make sure that your username and profile pic are relevant to the theme of your account, as this will give your followers a good idea of what to expect from your account before they even visit your page.
- For example, if your account is about fitness you could use a picture of yourself in your workout gear, or if it's about architecture you could use an artsy picture of your favorite building.
- If your account is just about you and your life, take a good selfie which perfectly sums up your personality - maybe you're wearing Mickey Mouse ears or crossing your eyes. No matter what, you should make sure to use a photo that you're audience will connect with.
- The same goes for your username - make it relevant to the content of your account. Also try to avoid having too many underscores or x's in there , as it can make your account look spammy.
-
3Fill in the bio section. Don't leave your bio empty - it's another important tool your potential followers will use when deciding whether to follow you or not.- Again, make it relevant to your account by telling users what they can expect. For example: "Beauty Junkie. Expect pictures of fun fashion, hair, nails and makeup".
- Or you can just make it a quick snapshot of your personality, for example "Chronic Giggler", "Coffee Fiend" or "Fitness Fanatic".
- You can also use your bio to advertise some of your favorite tags such as #Follow4Follow (more on that later) or shout out for shout out or your own personal hashtag - like a nickname or phrase that sums you up, and which you tend to include on all your pictures.
- For example, if your name is Steve and you like to post party pictures, you might start using #partyboysteve as your own personal hashtag. If you're lucky, it might just catch on with your friends and followers!
-
4Find friends to follow. Now that your account is set up, you'll need to find some friends and other users to follow!- Go to the settings section of your user page and tap on the "Find People to Follow" option. Here you can import friends from your Facebook page and phone contacts.
- This is a good idea as it will connect you with people you already know, who are more likely to follow you back. If you have lots of Facebook friends, this could help you to get your first hundred followers with almost no effort at all!
- Next, tap on the "Instagram Suggested" option. This will give you suggestions on who to follow, based on the popularity of the featured accounts. Choose a few with content you like. You can also go to the "Explore" section and find people to follow using hashtags and usernames - this is the best way to find celebrity accounts to follow!
- Remember that your want to have a lot more people in the "Followers" tally than you do in "Following" one. If you are following too many people it can clog your news feed and you might miss the pictures you're really interested in.
- In addition, people like to follow people who have lots of followers already - so if they see you are following tons of people but are followed by hardly any yourself, they may be discouraged from following you.
-
5Sync your Instagram account with other social networks. If you are an avid user of multiple social networks, then it's a good idea to sync your Instagram account with as many of them as possible.- This means that every time you post a picture on Instagram, it will also appear on your other accounts. This will provide a wider audience for your pictures and increase your potential for gaining new followers.
- Go to the settings page on your Instagram account and tap on "Sharing Settings". This will bring up a list of the social networks you can link up with - including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr and Flickr.
- Tick the box beside each of the social networks you wish to sync with your Instagram account. You will be prompted to enter your username and password for each of them. Congratulations - your accounts are now synced!
- Note that you can undo this at any time - all you need to do is uncheck the boxes.
Ad
Part 3 of 4: Tagging
-
1Use relevant tags. There are two schools of thought when it comes to using tags - some people believe that you should attach as many tags as possible in order to maximize the amount of people who see their photo, while others believe you should stick to just 2 or 3 relevant tags.- The people who advocate the "less is more" option believe that too many tags can look cluttered, spammy or even desperate. Plus, they believe that using just a couple of the most relevant tags is enough to get all the follows you need.
- Which option you decide to go for is completely up to you, as it's just a matter of personal preference. If you do decide to go for just 2 or 3 tags, make sure they're spot-on and relate directly to the picture.
- For example, if you post a picture of a sunset, you could say something like "#beautiful #sunset and #sky"
-
2Use the most popular tags. Another important way to get your pictures noticed is to use some of the most popular tags - these are the tags that are constantly trending and which will help to increase your account's visibility.- For example, if you're posting a picture of an animal or baby your photo will probably get a lot more likes if you use #cute (one of the all-time most popular Instagram tags) instead of tags like #adorable or #sweet - although, if you want you could just use all three!
- Some other top tags include #love, #eyes, #nice, #tbt (Throwback Thursday), #beautiful, #girl, #happy, #me, #picoftheday, #instadaily and #follow.
- Another trick people use is to post tags that aren't related to their pictures at all, but which are guaranteed to get them a lot of likes. For instance, #justinbieber, #katyperry and #onedirection are all extremely popular tags which people add to their posts in order to get likes and followers - even if their post has absolutely nothing to do with these musicians. This can be very effective - but is also frowned upon by a lot of people.
-
3Use the TagsForLikes app. TagsForLikes is an extremely popular app which speeds up the tagging process and maximizes the number of likes your posts get. It works by allowing you to copy and paste a list of 20 to 30 tags which are popular and trending that day.- To use the TagsForLikes app, download the app, start it up and select "Popular" from the home menu, then choose "Most Popular". You will be presented with a list of tags which are popular that day and geared specifically towards gaining likes and followers.
- Copy the list of tags, then open up your Instagram and paste them into the comment box when you're posting a picture. Within minutes, you should see tons of likes and new followers rolling in!
- After a couple of hours, you can go back to the TagsForLikes app and select the "2nd Popular" option from the list. This will give you a list of the next most popular list of tags.
- Copy these and paste them in a comment beneath the original tags on your picture. You probably won't get as many likes or new followers this time, but you should at least get a few.
- You should also consider going back and adding these tags to older photos, giving them a new lease of life!
-
4Create your own hashtag. If you like, you can create your own hashtag, or take one that's not used all that much and make it your own.- For example, if the theme of your account is baking and you love to post pictures of cute cupcakes and other delicious treats, you could make your personal tag #cupcakechick or something similar.
- Then you should use this tag on every single one of your photos, in addition to including it in your bio.
- If you're lucky, your tag will become popular with others and soon they'll start using it to tag pictures of their own baked goodies!
- When this happens, you're bound to get lots of new follows from like-minded people who love baking (or whatever your theme is!).
-
5Geotag your pictures. Geotagging your photos means including the location where the picture was taken in the post. Instagram can do this automatically when you enable GPS.- This is a great idea if you're taking pictures in a location that's perceived to be popular or cool, such as a hip new coffee shop, a well-known museum or a fancy restaurant. Other people who have posted pictures from these locations will then be able to see your post and maybe even follow you!
- You can also geotag pictures in more general locations, such as New York, Paris or Rome. Thousands of people search for pictures of these locations everyday, so your post will be viewable by people from across the world!
- Geotagging also helps to add authenticity to your account, making it more human by emphasizing the fact that you were really there.
Ad
Part 4 of 4: Your Photos
-
1Take relatable photographs. Try to make your photos as unique, yet relatable as possible.- This is easier said than done, but as a general rule, you should try to avoid taking photos of overdone subjects such as latte art or inundating your followers with #selfies - people are more likely to scroll over these types of photos than stop for a second look.
- Instead, aim to take beautiful pictures that contain lots of emotion and/or potential for human connection, whether it's a picture of a blazing sunset over the sea or an old lady sitting on the bus.
-
2Use natural lighting as much as possible. Natural light is the best light for showing off your pictures to the best advantage.
- Even though most phones have flashes, taking pictures indoors or at night should be avoided as much as possible.
- Try to shoot pictures outdoors (or at least beside a window) early in the morning, or in the evening before the sun sets. This is when the light is softest and prettiest.
-
3Aim for symmetry. The human eye loves symmetry - whether you're shooting a face, a building or a landscape - so aim to make you shots as symmetrical as possible.- Imagine a vertical line dividing the screen of your phone in two - now try to center the subject of your photo on this line.
- You may need to squat down or stand on something to get your perfect shot.
-
4Keep it simple. If you're taking a picture of an object - like a teacup or an old record - make sure it is set against a plain background. If the background is too busy it will take focus away from the subject of your shot. -
5Use interesting perspectives. Try to take photographs from a new or unusual perspective - maybe one that forces your followers to really study the photo in order to appreciate it.
- Play around with angles - try pointing your camera up to look at treetops, roofs, birds or just the sky.
- Or place your camera so close to a surface - the bark of a tree, the inside of a pomegranate - that it's hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at.
-
6Download some photo collage apps. Photo collage apps - such as InstaCollage or PicStitch - allow you to combine multiple photographs into a single post.- This is great if you want to post several related shots together - such as the appetizer, entrée and dessert from the same meal, or multiple shots from a single scenic drive.
-
7Pick a couple of your favorite filters. And last but not least, filters. One of the best things about Instagram is the option to add different filters to your photos to make them look more colorful, old-fashioned, exotic, beautiful or polished.- If your blog has a certain theme or style, it may be best to pick a selection of just 2 or 3 of your favorite filters and stick to using only them.
- This helps to give a uniform style to your account, making it look more professional. This can influence a potential follower's decision to follow you if they come to look at your user page.
