As we can see here, Mr. Ronaldo has 232 million followers, but yet he’s only following 450 people.
If you think about that, that’s an astronomical number when it comes to followers vs. following, a stat that you can find using this analyzer tool.
Now before you shoot the messenger, just let me acknowledge the fact that I understand he’s uber-famous and has an enormous amount of followers in the real world.
Regular joes like you and I would never be able to pull something like that off and so we need an action plan that we can fall back on with proven strategies that can help us get Instagram followers without following anybody.
If you want as many followers as possible then you have to get rid of your private profile.
Obviously, if you’re looking for more followers then you’re not one of those people that have their Instagram accounts “just for family and friends”.
So, if your profile is private then I’m talking about you.
Why Does a Private Profile Detract Followers?
Have you ever went to view a person’s profile and saw that they were private?
What did you do?
I bet you bounced back and kept browsing.
And that’s what 94% of people do as well.
You see, in today’s world, nobody wants to wait.
So that means if you have a private profile then most of your prospective followers will simply bounce back to their newsfeed and keep on browsing.
Plus, why the private profile if you want to dominate Instagram.
How To Create The Best Possible Profile
Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that your profile has to be complete.
If you’re trying to get as many followers as possible with an incomplete profile then you’re trying to put lipstick on a pig.
All you have to do to complete your profile is tap the “edit profile” area.
You’ll be greeted with a page that displays this info:
Name: If it’s personal, well setup your personal or nickname. If it’s business, then, duh… put in your business name.
Try to keep your social channels consistent: If you use @demoofficial for Facebook then try to use the same one for Instagram, Twitter, and the rest of your handles.
Make sure you put a URL in your bio: Having a website inside your bio is literally free traffic. If you didn’t set one up then you absolutely need to. If you have no website then you can find an affiliate offer and put in your link (plus you’ll earn money)
Create a great looking bio: That means you want to have emojis and a real description of who you are and what your account is about. Include an email as well for somebody to get in contact with you
Setup your Story Highlights section: Since we’re in 2022 and Instagram released the Story Highlights area on your profile, we’ve noticed that there’s a significant increase in organic followers when that is set up properly. Categorize your stories and make them user friendly and you’ll notice you get a lot more followers faster.
Step 2: Create a Marketing Plan
Look, Instagram is no different than other internet marketing. You gotta understand who you’re trying to attract and you have to understand what you’re going to do to attract them.
Without a plan of attack, you are going to suffer when it comes to not only Instagram followers, but also Instagram engagement (which might be even more important).
Realize that by skipping this step you’ll snowball into lower productivity and wasted time because you don’t know who you want to target and what type of content to create to connect with them.
This is where research tools come in handy because they can help you research and breakdown trends and other useful information that gives you insight on what types of decisions you should make.
Understanding your audience, as I mentioned above, is crucial but you also have to learn about their demographic, what they do for a living, and the time they’re actually on the platform.
Furthermore, you need to understand how they use the platform. Are they looking at mostly stories, or do they like photos? Are videos their thing?
These are questions that will help you answer what kind of content you can create.
Step 3: Create a Publishing Schedule and Stick To It
We talk a lot about being consistent in our content and that’s no different in today’s article. Having a publishing schedule is great, but if you don’t actually stick to it then it’s about as worthless as a car without an engine.
The whole point of creating this schedule that’s centered around releasing new content is to keep things consistent with your audience.
Being consistent is a proven way to get more followers and engagement for Instagram because the algorithm likes consistency.
How To Post Consistently On Instagram
I know I sound like a broken record (if you read our other articles), but I won’t stop promoting the use of a post scheduler.
Post scheduling is such an important part of running a successful Instagram account (that’s often overlooked) and I want you to be aware of that.
And don’t expect to pay an arm and a leg for a post scheduler either because there’s tools like BigMouthPost which literally cost pennies on the dollar.
The real benefit of using a post scheduler is that you can sit down for about an hour or so per week and schedule out all of your upcoming content.
That gives you peace of mind knowing that you will be posting consistently while not having to worry about sitting there from your phone busting out content piece after content piece.
Even better is the fact that you can just hire a VA to do it all for you.
Step 4: Promote Your Instagram Account Everywhere
Do you have other social channels? Share it there.
Are you a local business that has business cards? Share it there.
Do you have a vehicle wrap? Share it there.
Promoting yourself and your Instagram account everywhere you can is integral to growing if you want to get more followers without following people.
If nobody knows you exist then how will they be able to follow you?
Another thing you can do is run ads to your Instagram account. You can purchase things like Facebook ads or other types of paid traffic sources that will allow you to reach a lot more people fast.
At the end of the day, it’s critical that you promote yourself everywhere if you want the maximum amount of followers without having to follow people back.
Lastly, an additional way of promoting yourself is by hitting the “explore” page on Instagram.
Because of the number of posts and people trying to do just that, what you need to do is research specific hashtags that have mid to low difficulty in ranking for and then use those hashtags in your content.
That’s a great way to reach the explore page for those specific hashtags.
Because Instagram allows you to post up to 30 hashtags, that means you have 30 chances to rank on each hashtag’s respective explore page.
Just remember it takes time to grow your Instagram account when you use strategies that are organic in nature. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t notice a lot of growth right out of the gates.
It will come. The main thing is to continue to be consistent and keep crushing out the content and promoting your account.
Step 5: Network with Other Influencers
This is grossly underrated when it comes to growing your Instagram without having to follow anybody.
There’s an “in” crowd in your niche and what you should be doing is making yourself known within that crowd.
Tag the big named influencers that you want to attract and try to get on their radar.
Share their images (with image credit of course) which will show them that you’re promoting their account.
Because you promote their account, they will start to slowly browse your content and can even promote you back.
One thing to know, though, is that you need to target and network with influencers that are in the same realm as you.
What I mean is that you can’t really expect somebody who has 3 million followers to tag you in their photos and share your content if you can’t provide them with a similar reach prospective.
Conclusion
As I said, it takes time to grow your Instagram account if you want real followers without having to follow anybody.
It’s completely possible to do though so long as you follow the steps laid out in the above article.
If you take the time to put in the work then the results will come because, as we know, effort equals results.
