Are you looking to grow your Instagram account? This may seem like a silly question— of course you are! You can never have too many real Instagram followers. Even if you’ve seen that your content is doing pretty well, there’s always a way to take it to the next level.
It can be tough to figure out the best way to get more Instagram followers. While your goals for growth, sales, and engagement are likely always at the forefront of your mind, you may feel that nothing is working.
If so, you need to consider one of the key elements that ties all of that together— Instagram content. Content is king on the platform, and if you are able to produce valuable and captivating content on the platform, you’re going to have a better hold on your audience and growth levels.
You can expect to see a lot of Instagram growth when you focus on your content strategy, so that’s why we’ve created this post: to help you take advantage of the best practices for content creation on Instagram.
We’re going to discuss some of the reasons why good content is so important, as well as the top strategies for putting out good content on Instagram. Let’s get started.
How Good Content Helps You Grow Your Instagram
One of the best things about Instagram is that it’s a visual platform, which helps you to grab the attention of your target audience in a variety of ways. Since Instagram has implemented a range of content formats, your limit is only your own creativity.
Think about the most popular brands and businesses on Instagram, even ones that you follow yourself: what does their content look like? Is it blurry? Missing captions? Posted irregularly? Lacking Instagram stories?
Of course not. All of the best brands and businesses know how important a cohesive Instagram content strategy is and they have developed content offerings that are of the best photo and video quality, captions that add more to their visual content, and post on time and with regularity.
Not only that, staying active on other types of Instagram content formats like reels and Instagram stories can be a very valuable tactic, as those formats are well received by users and can draw more people to your profile.
Brands that excel on Instagram create top-notch content daily, inspiring, educating, or informing their users— perhaps all three at the same time.
It’s really no surprise, and studies back it up: research shows that content quality is the most important factor if you’re looking to boost your engagement and follower count on Instagram.
When you use Growthoid to get your account in front of your target audience, content is of the utmost importance if you want to see substantial long-term follower growth. Because Growthoid uses organic methods to grow your Instagram account, these real users will come back to check out your profile and decide if they want to follow you or not.
Be sure to give them something to follow for. If your content is low-quality, uninteresting, or irrelevant to your target audience, you’re not likely to see the best results. This is true of any organic growth strategy, with or without Growthoid.
Posting stellar content increases the chance that you’ll gain real, authentic, targeted Instagram followers. After all, your reputation is defined by your Instagram content and how other users engage with it.
So, there you have it: good content is a non-negotiable. It’s vital, essential, and any other synonyms you can think of. If you want to give yourself the best shot at developing an effective Instagram content strategy, follow the subsequent tips. You’ll no doubt get more Instagram followers.
Develop an Instagram Content Plan
Before you start posting any content you’ve pointed a camera at, you should develop a content plan that will allow you to stay organized and post content that is actually desired by your target audience. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when developing your Instagram content plan.
Choose Your Content Theme
You should have a clear vision for your overall Instagram aesthetic, also known as your Instagram theme. What does your profile look like to viewers who land on your page? When you have a theme that aligns with your brand, you can get more Instagram followers and share your brand personality at the same time.
You may consider using a monotone theme, or using fresh and light colors that give off an air of peace and tranquility. Or perhaps you’re looking for bright and vibrant. Whatever your theme is, make sure it reads in all of your content pieces.
You want to make sure that the focal point of all of your images is also readable and produces pleasing content for your viewers. When you have a consistent theme that doesn’t jump around between visuals, you’ll have better long-term results.
Prepare Engaging Captions
Another vital element of your Instagram content planning is your captions. Captions play a huge role in what others perceive when they see your content, so it can have a big impact on what your viewers do and whether or not they decide to follow you.
Your captions will help you grow your Instagram account. They give additional insight into your content, and a good caption will always include a Call to Action (CTA).
Depending on your brand and the mood of your image, your captions may be fun, lighthearted, deep, serious, accentuated with emojis, feature mentions of other users, informative, motivational, or even humorous. The possibilities are endless.
You should make sure to include a CTA: what do you want your viewers to do after they see your content? Do you want them to visit your link in bio? Tag a friend? Leave a comment? Double tap?
Ask them to do the task of your choice within your caption— this will drive engagement rates. Emojis can also help do exactly that.
Mid-range brands (1k to 10k followers) get higher levels of engagement through using between 4 and 10 emojis per caption. Smaller (under 1k) or larger (1m+) brands should use no more than three, according to Share.
Research Best Instagram Hashtags
Instagram hashtags are also a big piece of the puzzle if you’re looking for optimal Instagram growth. Even though hashtags were created on Twitter, they are now used on all social media platforms to make content discoverable.
Hashtags have proven to be one of the best methods for getting your content discovered by more users on Instagram. In fact, even one lonely hashtag can increase engagement by up to 12.6 percent, which is huge!
You can use up to 30 hashtags, but some experts argue that using anywhere from 4-11 will get you the optimal amount of discovery without being spammy. That means you need to know exactly the right hashtags to use.
Doing research will allow you to build the right hashtag strategy for your brand. Check out competitor accounts to see which hashtags they’re using; you can also do your own hashtag searches by putting in keywords in the Instagram search feature.
Alternatively, you can look to a third party tool to help you with hashtag strategy. Task Ant is widely known as the best hashtag generator around, helping you to access the most relevant and effective hashtags based on the official Instagram API.
You can search for hashtags using filters, keywords, as well as view performance and usage stats about the hashtags you’d like to use. Once you identify the ones you want, you can categorize them into sets for easy posting and organization.
Plan Your Instagram Grid
Once you’ve set your Instagram theme, you should plan out your Instagram grid. How are you going to lay out your photos, and what will they look like when they go live? When your Instagram grid is well-planned, your account will be more attractive at first glance.
You may want to use photos that coordinate with each other, create patterns, or even different “every other” effects that make your grid attractive and intriguing for your viewers. If your grid is aligned in theme and creates a cohesive visual, you can grow your Instagram followers with a professional look.
Take @halfbakedharvest and their exquisitely-planned Instagram content for the holidays.
Some brands, businesses, as well as influencers follow a specific pattern of threes — perhaps a product image, then a photo of a person, and then a graphic with a text, keeping the schedule regular. This shows symmetry and planning.
No matter your decision in terms of visuals, plan your grid in advance so you have an idea of what the end result will be.
If you’d like to plan your content in advance and want to see how it will look before your posts go live, Later is a great Instagram scheduler that can help you visualize your Instagram grid. You’ll be able to upload your content and see exactly what it will look like before it goes live.
You can then gain more Instagram followers through thorough planning and exemplary Instagram visuals.
How to Create Good Instagram Content
After you’ve set out a plan for content and established a strategy for growing your Instagram, you can put it into practice. There are a variety of Instagram tools that will allow you to save time as you prep your content to get more Instagram followers.
Here are some strategies we recommend and the tools that can help along the way.
Use Design Templates
You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create an excellent Instagram account, and in fact, there are dozens of tools out there that offer design templates for Instagram. Why would you consider using templates?
A design template does all of the hard work for you, allowing you to simply add in your image as well as customize the template through drag-and-drop elements like stickers, images, and customized text. This speeds up the process of content creation and gives you access to aesthetics you’d have to otherwise work hard to achieve.
Not only that, when you start with a basic template from the get go, your Instagram grid will have a professional and cohesive look that exhibits your brand image.
Canva is one of the best websites to use for Instagram content templates. They have thousands of ready-to-go design templates that you can use to set the standard for your content. You can customize the templates in almost every way, changing colors, adding backgrounds, adding text, inserting photos, and so much more.
They also offer tons of templates for Instagram stories, which can help you to create a cohesive look across not only your in-feed content but also in your Instagram stories. Another great template app for IG stories is Story Art, offering you a range of templates to give your story a clean, attractive feel.
Using design templates will help you to create content that captivates the user and offers an added touch of professionalism and design that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. You can grow your Instagram account using templates because your content is of superior quality.
Image Editors
Another key element of your Instagram images is the editor that you use. It goes without saying that you need to have content that is of very high quality on Instagram as well as images that reflect your brand image, and using editors can help you achieve that consistent look.
VSCO is one of the most popular Instagram photo editing apps; you can use the same filters on all of your photos as well to give an extra dose of continuity across your content. There are many other photo editors out there on Instagram, so try some out and see which you like best.
You can easily find a range of photo editing apps in the store that your device offers, either the App Store or the Google Play Store depending on which device you’re using.
Adobe Photoshop is one of the most prolific photo editors of all time, and you can get an app to help you with your Instagram content. While it can be daunting, it’s actually pretty accessible even for those without a lot of editing experience.
A best practice for content on Instagram is to edit all of your photos at once, and then schedule them to be posted throughout the week. This ensures that you remain on schedule and have consistent content coming out regularly.
Having a consistent posting schedule is vital if you want to grow your Instagram account, so scheduling in advance can help you keep things in order and ensure that you don’t forget to post when it matters most.
Stock Photos and Videos
Looking to upload photos that will help grow your Instagram account? If you don’t have the time or resources to shoot your own content, you can find stock photo websites that will cover all the bases.
The best websites to use are the ones that offer royalty-free photos, which means that you can use the images or videos without paying fees for each use. The alternative, copyrighted images, are not as effective because you technically cannot use them. You’d need permission to upload them because you don’t own them.
Some great websites are Pixaby and Pexels if you’re looking for stock photos that are safe to use and won’t get you in trouble with copyright infringement. Pixaby, for example, has over 1 million photos and videos to choose from. An alternative is Unsplash, offering creative and intriguing photos.
If you do have a budget set aside to purchase images, you may want to use a paid service like iStock, Envato Elements, or Shutterstock. The photos you can find here do have a cost, but they’re of higher quality than on the free sites.
Creative Tips for Instagram Content
Are you looking to take advantage of the power of content and grow your Instagram account in your particular niche? We’ve got some recommendations for four of the most popular niches on Instagram.
Even if you don’t find yourself a part of one of these niches, there are still excellent tips here that can help you to get the results you’re looking for in terms of Instagram growth.
Food
The food niche is tremendously popular on Instagram and prominent figures range from food bloggers, to restaurants, to brands, manufacturers, and more! If you find yourself in the food niche, there are a couple standout things you can do to make your feed stand out among the crowd.
The first thing to note about food is that you must have high-quality photos. Remember, who wants to eat something if it looks dark, muddy, and unfavorable? You need to make the food the star of the show and feature it through natural light and backgrounds that don’t clutter the frame.
In addition, people really enjoy humor when it comes to foods, as shown by many fast-food restaurants that have embraced the strategy. Wendy’s, for example, has found a lot of success by implementing humor on their social channels. They have 952k followers on Instagram with an engagement rate of 1.85%, which is above average for big business.
Lastly, food ebbs and flows throughout the year with different holidays and events like the super bowl, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and other popular holidays throughout the year. Consider seasonal flavors like yummy popsicles in summer or pumpkin spice in the fall. @daiyafoods has a great example here of a nice, refreshing dish that can be a great dessert anytime of year.
Food is a necessity, but if you can implement the tips above, you’ll have people dying to try yours!
Fashion and Beauty
Fashion abounds on Instagram and you can find it at almost every turn. Even meme pages have started to work together with fashion brands for promotion — you can find @FashionNova advertised on many meme pages. An unlikely combination, but these meme pages have millions of followers, which makes them a great place for brands to advertise.
In any case, how can you make your fashion content stand out amongst the millions of fashion-related posts on Instagram? How can your beauty tutorial take your viewers by storm and help you to get more Instagram followers?
Instead of just posting photos of your products, use shots from events, feature user-generated content, highlight your employees through spotlights, show your behind-the-scenes, and more. There are many ways to “model” your clothes on Instagram, and you can even make those posts shoppable.
If you sell physical items or are promoting brands that do, you can take advantage of the shoppable feature on Instagram. This allows your followers and viewers to conveniently view and purchase the item from directly on your post.
No more clicking the link in bio— they can buy right from the Instagram content, which is huge for many brands in fashion. Of course, you should still keep your link in bio available in case someone wants to view your external sites or products from there.
Here’s an example from Old Navy that used shoppable tags for their sweatpants collection.
Travel
Travel remains one of the most popular niches on Instagram, and travel influencers boast an industry of roughly five to ten billion dollars annually. That means there is a lot of potential for monetization of Instagram, so you should start producing high-value content on Instagram and increase your follower count. There’s no better time than now to boost your content creation in the travel niche.
Traveling makes taking great content very easy because there are tons of opportunities to take great photos naturally. Some ideas for your travel-related content include:
- Giving your followers an insider’s view of a location by filming the whole journey
- Take advantage of user-generated content to feature destinations you love and have been to
- Highlight the architecture in a location
- Take photos of beautiful natural scenes
- Feature the locals of a place and emphasize community
- Give your followers and viewers a look at the places you stay and eat
Remember that content with people in them tends to perform better on Instagram, so it’s a good idea to do some A/B testing and see which type of content performs better on your particular account.
Looking for some inspiration? Airbnb has an incredibly popular Instagram account, boasting over 4 million followers. They post every day to show their followers incredible Airbnb locations around the world, introducing it and describing it in more detail through the captions.
Matador Network is also a very popular account for adventurers, and while they have fewer followers than Airbnb (366k), they’ve got excellent travel-related content with an engaged community.
Sports
Storytelling is huge in sports, and you see that many sports brands including Nike, Adidas, Puma, and more have embraced this. Many athletes are glorified as figures of the sports that they play, but we don’t get to see the inspiring stories and journeys behind them.
People love to hear that— there is more than just the thrill of the game, but also the motivational stories of the players who are a part of that game. The best campaigns for sports accounts on instagram are campaigns that feature athletes.
You can include content that is interactive, such as a day-in-the-life Instagram story takeover by a pro athlete, or simply partnering with athletes to tell their story and then engage your followers through calls-to-actions in captions and Instagram story stickers.
Influencer marketing is also great for sports to get your content out to more people in your target audience, and when you partner with athletes, you’ll give yourself a better chance of growing your Instagram account.
Here’s an example from Nike featuring @reneemontgomery, WNBA player.
How to Grow Your Instagram Account with Good Content
The most important focus for your Instagram efforts should be on content. If you don’t have a solid content strategy, whatever else you attempt on the platform will simply fall flat. For best results and the chance to grow your Instagram account, invest time and energy in developing a strong plan for your content.
Go through the above list and apply the tips that we’ve laid out for you as you create your content. Once you begin your implementation of the Instagram content best practices, you’ll notice a difference in your follower count as well as engagement rates.
Don’t forget that when you grow your Instagram account organically, either on your own or with a service like Growthoid, putting out high-quality content that attracts your followers is the most important thing you can do if you want to see real, long-term results.
So, that said, happy creating!
