How to Gain Followers on Instagram

Create an endless stream of new audience to your account. How? Use effective methods to attract followers, grow your account, expand, and monetize it. But where to start and how to gain followers on Instagram? We’ll tell you now.

How to Attract an Audience on Instagram: Free Methods

You can grow your Instagram account and gain followers without spending a dime. Free promotion methods, like consistent posting and crafting your posts to grab attention and spark engagement, should become a core part of your strategy for managing your channel or account.

This approach takes more time and effort but does not require financial investment. Let’s briefly explore free methods of gaining followers on Instagram, examining what you need to do to grow your account for free, along with the pros and cons.

Regular Posts with Quality Content

To grow your account, boost visibility, and encourage followers to share with their friends, you need to post content that truly resonates with your target audience—consistently. When followers know when to expect fresh content, they’ll keep coming back for more.

To stay consistent, consider creating a content plan and prepping your posts ahead of time. This ensures you’re mixing up different types of content, keeping your audience engaged.

Focus on delivering valuable and engaging content. Experiment with different formats, create polls to explore followers’ preferences, and closely track your channel’s performance. This will help you identify what truly sparks interest and what’s not worth your effort.

Advantages. Constantly updating your content keeps your audience engaged, helps build loyalty, and improves visibility in Instagram’s algorithms.
Disadvantages. Requires significant time and effort to create content, especially if you need to maintain high quality. Posting low-quality material won’t help.

Using Hashtags

For every post, you should and must add hashtags — for example, #optimization, #newproduct, #tipoftheday. These can be navigation hashtags for categorizing your posts or just tags to define the topic.

The secret. Instead of relying on high-frequency hashtags with millions of posts, include medium- and low-frequency hashtags as well. These may attract fewer people, but they’re more likely to be genuinely interested in your content or product. Hashtags are a crucial tool for organically growing your followers and reaching a more targeted audience.

Advantages. Hashtags help extend your reach since they attract users looking for content by specific keywords. You can use up to 15 hashtags per post, but some popular bloggers recommend using no more than 4-5, with the first ones being the most relevant to the topic.
Disadvantages. Incorrect hashtag choices can result in low engagement. Excessive use can be seen as spam. In such cases, the platform may block your account or impose a shadowban, which is difficult to detect and remove.

Collaborations with Other Accounts

Collaborations and joint projects are powerful ways to transfer and merge audiences, boosting engagement across both accounts. When you partner with someone, their followers get introduced to your content, and many will start following you, engaging with your posts, and joining the conversation in the comments.

Advantages. Joint posts or mutual promotion help expand your reach by leveraging the partner’s audience. This also builds trust with your audience since people are more likely to trust a beloved influencer than an unknown account.
Disadvantages. You need to find suitable partners with a similar target audience and high-quality content. Collaborations require coordination and may take time.

Note. Collaborating with channels that don’t align with your target audience can be not only ineffective but potentially damaging. For example, partnering with an influencer who has recently promoted a competitor or whose followers aren’t interested in your products won’t help you grow your audience or gain relevant followers.

Reels Examples

To get started, simply register and connect your account. From there, you can set up automation, run games, and collaborate with other influencers. To help you explore all the features, get a 10-day free trial.

Get 10 Days of Access

Posting in Stories

Visual content attracts attention and makes information more accessible. Many users find it easier to scroll through short videos than read long posts or articles. Regularly posting Stories is a great way to attract followers to Instagram.

Advantages. Stories allow you to frequently and independently share updates and interact with your audience through polls, quizzes, stickers, as well as games and funnels, which can also be launched through Stories. They’re visible for 24 hours, creating a sense of urgency.
Disadvantages. Short-lived content. Not all followers watch Stories, so they need to be visually appealing.

Using User-Generated Content (UGC)

Every influencer can create content with user-generated content — texts and videos from users who talk about the product, show how it works, and express their satisfaction. This helps other followers decide whether to purchase the product.

Advantages. It boosts interaction with your current audience and builds trust when users share their content. It also creates a sense of community.
Disadvantages. This approach relies on having an active audience that’s willing to create content for your brand. Motivating users to produce high-quality, positive content can be difficult, and even lower-quality content can pose challenges in terms of engagement and effectiveness.

Active Participation in Discussions and Comments

Account owners can engage with their followers by answering questions, sparking curiosity, announcing upcoming releases, and providing support for product-related issues. An active influencer or account owner plays a crucial role in building trust — people tend to trust individuals more than a brand or service.

Advantages. Helps grab the attention of potential followers, increases brand visibility, and shows your openness to communication.
Disadvantages. It can be time-consuming, especially if you interact with large accounts or respond to comments en masse.

Using Geotags

Each post can include location information. This is especially useful for sharing the location of an offline office, bar, or park where the influencer is waiting to meet the audience. Geotags can also promote specific places or establishments.

Advantages. Attracts a local audience if your business targets a specific region. Geotags can highlight your content among users in a specific area and significantly increase its visibility.
Disadvantages. Their effectiveness depends on the target audience. For global businesses, geotags might be less effective.

Note. Using random geotags to attract followers from these regions is a bad idea. People typically search for specific places nearby by geotags, so the likelihood of attracting genuinely interested followers is low. If an influencer or company starts posting content with various cities, it will first attract attention, but eventually lead to follower loss.

Posting on Popular Topics and Trends

Posts and videos on trending topics always trigger responses and discussions from followers. Trending games, new fashion collections, funny events — all of these can be adapted to your account and posted.

Advantages: Joining trending conversations boosts your chances of appearing in the Explore section and gaining more likes. Leveraging trending content helps you reach a wider audience.
Disadvantages: It demands a fast response time and quick content adaptation. It’s not always easy to seamlessly integrate your brand into trending topics.

Note. Be cautious when posting on popular or controversial topics — avoid creating posts that might upset followers or provoke scandals, as this could lead to an increase in unsubscribes. If you don’t know how to react to an event, it’s better not to post at all.

Profile Optimization

To get followers to visit and stay on your profile, they need to immediately understand what the account is about. That’s why it’s essential to properly set up your profile and provide all the relevant information that might be important to new followers. The clearer the information, the higher the chances they’ll stick around.

Advantages. A well-filled profile with relevant keywords and a catchy bio helps attract followers who are interested in your content. Having a memorable username and clear bio is key.
Disadvantages. The effectiveness depends on the overall content quality and activity on the account. Your profile needs to be updated regularly to stay relevant.

Note. Properly filling out your profile and preparing for work is an extensive topic. We’ve written about it in the article “How to Start Managing Your Instagram: Tips, Recommendations, and Key Steps.”

How to Attract an Audience on Instagram: Paid and Semi-Paid Methods

To promote your Instagram, you can use not only free methods but also paid or semi-paid strategies. Each of these has its own features, advantages, and disadvantages. We’ve compiled several popular tools to attract followers to Instagram.

Influencer Marketing

You can negotiate with an influencer for mutual promotion (where you each promote the other’s profile) or simply purchase ad content, such as a post, review, Story, or a full video with native advertising.

Advantages:

The influencer’s audience trusts their recommendations.
A viral effect through personal recommendation.
Reach beyond your usual audience.

Disadvantages:

High costs for popular influencers.
Challenges in measuring effectiveness (ROI) and controlling content.
Risk of negative reception if the influencer doesn’t align with the brand’s values.

Note. Before purchasing ads, review the influencer’s account for authenticity, audience engagement, and theme alignment. Careful selection helps you avoid unnecessary expenses.

Stories with Swipe-Up Links

Active links in Stories attract attention and encourage clicks. Users who click the link are directed to a website or group where they can complete an action or view material created specifically for them.

Advantages:

Direct link to a website or landing page.
Increased traffic and conversions.
High user engagement in Stories.

Disadvantages:

Only available for accounts with over 10,000 followers.
Limited lifespan (24 hours).
Requires appealing content creation.

For instance, a Story or Reel can include a code word that users send to your direct messages or comments to receive a lead magnet. A chatbot checks subscriptions and distributes the lead magnet — working 24/7 to ensure no messages are missed and that all followers are satisfied. You can set up such bot via ChatPlace.

To help you understand the service features and create your chatbots, we’ve created a free mini-course with step-by-step tutorials on checking subscriptions, launching, and setting up automations.

Access for 10 days

Content Seeding in Themed Communities

A powerful way to promote your account, attract a target audience, and increase followers on Instagram. Find groups or channels with your target audience, prepare a post or video that will interest them, and arrange a publication with the administrators. With the right approach, your target audience will follow your account when they see engaging content.

Advantages:

Access to a target audience via interest-based groups.
Brand positioning among experts.
Viral effect from sharing valuable content.

Disadvantages:

Difficulties in quality control of placements.
Potential for negative feedback.
Low targeting accuracy.

Promotion Through Contests and Giveaways

Everyone loves to win and participate in activities with the chance of a prize. Contests, giveaways, marathons, and games can significantly boost reach, reactions, and follower’s count on Instagram.

Advantages:

Quick increase in reach and engagement, with requirements (like reposting or tagging friends) that expand reach.
Attraction of new followers and participants.
High activity in comments and reposts.

Disadvantages:

Often attracts non-target followers interested only in the prize.
Risk of follower drop-off after the contest ends.
Need for significant prizes to spark interest.

A well-thought-out prize will appeal to your target audience.

Promotion Through Affiliate Programs

You can collaborate with influencers, services, or companies to create partnerships where they promote your account or product in exchange for discounts on your products or a commission. This approach benefits everyone.

Advantages:

Attract affiliates who are eager to promote your brand.
Pay only for actual results (CPL, CPA).
High return on investment with minimal expense.

Disadvantages:

Needs time for program setup and ongoing management.
Risk of working with unreliable partners.
Harder to ensure consistent traffic quality.

These methods help achieve various goals, such as increasing followers, enhancing engagement, or boosting sales. It’s essential to combine them based on your business specifics, goals, and available budget.

Should You Buy Instagram Followers?

Buying Instagram followers is a controversial and potentially harmful practice with both pros and cons. Let’s analyze whether it’s worth artificially boosting your audience.

Advantages of Buying Followers

Rapid audience growth. A visible follower increase can create an impression of popularity and authority, attracting real followers.
Social proof. People tend to follow accounts with large audiences, as it creates an illusion of popularity and trustworthiness.
Brand appeal. Brands looking for ambassadors often consider audience size and engagement.

Disadvantages of Buying Followers

Low engagement. Followers may arrive but won’t interact with posts, buy products, or even register for a free product, making the account look empty despite high follower numbers.
Risk of Instagram sanctions. Instagram fights against fake engagement, and accounts may be shadowbanned or blocked.
Loss of trust. If followers or brands discover that an account has inflated numbers, it can damage its reputation and trustworthiness.
Skewed analytics. Metrics like reach, engagement, and conversions will be inaccurate, making it hard to build and adjust strategies.
Unsuitability for long-term growth. While follower numbers may increase, this doesn’t translate into real customers, ultimately reducing account value.

Consequences of Buying Followers

Reduced organic reach. Instagram’s algorithms consider engagement levels to determine reach, and fake followers can lower content visibility.
Risk of being banned. Instagram actively removes fake followers, and accounts using such practices may be fully blocked.
Loss of potential clients. Real users may notice a large number of inactive or fake followers, which can appear suspicious, leading them to buy from competitors.

We recommend growing your Instagram followers organically, as buying followers may provide quick results, but it can lead to negative long-term consequences. True growth and engagement come from attracting genuine followers and nurturing authentic relationships with your audience.

For instance, focus on building your channel with interactive games, consistent quality content, and engaging directly with your followers. Grow alongside your audience with ChatPlace.