The 9 Tricks That Actually Grow Instagram Accounts Fast

Grow Instagram Account Fast

With over 2.3 billion monthly users Instagram is now the world’s third-largest social media platform. As much as we use Instagram to connect with friends and post photos from our lives, it has also become a great way to grow your business.

Whether you are an influencer, brand manager, or business owner Instagram is now a great option for you to grow a following.

Although it is everyone’s goal to grow their Instagram account fast, it isn’t an easy task. According to Mention, 52.35% of Instagram followers have less than 1,000 followers.

The next largest segment is 1,001 -10,000 followers at 37.41% of Instagram users. In total, less than 10% of Instagram accounts have more than 10k followers.

Now, there are a lot of pages that claim to help you grow your Instagram account fast, but the advice they offer is generic. They will say things like, 

  • “Use geolocation on your posts.”
  • “Partner with another brand”
  • “Start a branded hashtag”

While some of these can work, for most people starting out this doesn’t help at all. How many new accounts can attribute a mass follower growth due to tagging Denver Colorado on their Instagram post? Or how many new accounts can work with huge brands in their space completely for free?

I don’t know of any. Like all things, there is a hierarchy of what works and what doesn’t. We are here to provide only the best tricks out there that actually grow Instagram accounts fast.

The most important aspect of growing an Instagram account is understanding your audience. Marketing Research Samples Experts can provide insights vital to understanding your target audience.

In this post, we will cover 9 actionable strategies that actually work to grow your Instagram account.

These are the same strategies that all the major Instagram agencies use to grow their client’s Instagram account rapidly.

Whether you are a business account, a personal account, or a theme page, all of the tricks provided here will help you build a massive Instagram following fast.

1. Have A Great Instagram Theme Aesthetic

This is step one when it comes to building out your Instagram page. Your Instagram aesthetic is going to be the first thing people see when coming onto your Instagram page. Having a consistent feed that uses the same colors and theme may oftentimes be the deciding factor on whether someone will follow you or not.

How many times have you seen a page and seen some posts are selfies, others are infographics, and others are videos of cats and you have no clue what’s going on? Now, how many of those pages did you follow? Probably not too many.

Having a great Instagram theme is one of the easiest things you can take control of today that can help the overall social proof of your Instagram page. So, how do you create a great Instagram page?

Well, this will vary depending on what type of Instagram page you have. If you have a business account your theme will probably be centered around your product.

If you don’t create your own content and just repost the content of others, this is fairly simple. Your Instagram may not have all the same colors but your content will follow the same theme.

If your Instagram page posts motivational quotes, tips, or graphics, you can format your theme similarly to how we did ours.

The Success Bug Instagram Page For Growing Accounts Fast

As you can tell, our theme is simple. We only use three colors and have the same background every time. In the middle of our feed, we have quotes from successful individuals and on the side, we have general business knowledge.

If you want a list of various Instagram themes you can check out this post by Kicksta. They provide 50 great Instagram themes that you can use and walk you through how to implement them.

2. Have A Posting Schedule

It’s no secret that Instagram wants to promote pages that post consistently. The question is, “What is consistent?” At a minimum, if you seriously want to grow your Instagram account fast, you should be posing at least once a day.

It is more important the bigger you get the more you post but in the early stages, with under 1,000 followers, you should never miss a day of posting.

Now this will change depending on if you are an Instagram theme page or a personal page. If you are a personal account it is okay to go as low as three times a week. However, if you are an Instagram theme page, let’s say you post cute kitten videos, you should never ever miss a day.

The reason why you want to post so consistently is that it gives you many more chances of having a post go viral. By viral, we mean it can either show up on Instagram’s explore page or Instagram’s Top page.

The explore page appears on the same page as the search function. The Top page for hashtags shows some of the most popular posts tagged with that hashtag. See our visual of each.

Top Hashtag Results And Explore Page

Being on either page allows you to grow your Instagram followers fast. Think about it like you were playing the lottery. You increase your chances of winning the lottery the more tickets you buy.

In this scenario, consider your post to be like lottery tickets. The more you have the more likely you will win. 

In the hashtag portion of this post, we will talk more about what types of hashtags to use in order to have your content go viral.

But for now, you should get really serious about making sure you’re posting at least once a day. If you are a personal account, no less than three times a week.

The best way to follow a consistent posting schedule is to create a schedule and use a bot that posts for you. We personally use Later as our tool of choice.

Instagram only allows the use of certain bots and will punish your account if you use bots that aren’t part of their Instagram Partner Program. 

Later has been accepted in the program and allows users to preview posts, schedule posts, and do hashtag research. You can post up to 30 pieces of content a month for free through their website so it’s a very easy way to get started.

Does It Matter When I Post

It used to matter what time you posted to Instagram. That’s because Instagram used to show your posts to your followers in the order in which they were uploaded.

So if you posted at 6:00 pm and someone else posted at 6:03, your followers would see the 6:03 post before yours because it is more recent.

However, Instagram has changed the way they show posts to followers. They no longer show posts to followers based on when they were posted. The order of photos in someone’s feed is based on the likelihood that they would be interested in the content.

The way Instagram gauges interest is by analyzing the user’s current relationship with the Instagram account.

If someone is frequently commenting on your posts, liking your posts, and visiting your profile, Instagram will show them your post regardless if it was posted 10 minutes ago or 10 hours ago.

This is why it’s really important to create engagement with your followers. We will talk about how to do this later in this post. But just remember that the key to someone seeing your post is how much they engage with your profile.

3. Use The Right Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the most misused tools that Instagram has. If you run a health and wellness Instagram page you’ll see a lot of small accounts, under a thousand followers, using the hashtags  #wealth, #health, #wellness, #happy, etc.

The reason why so many accounts use these hashtags is that millions of people search for these hashtags daily. 

The issue is, there are multiple Instagram pages that use these same hashtags. when you use the hashtag #health, you’re competing against Instagram Pages like WebMD and Women’s Health Mag. Each of these Pages has millions of followers and gets tens of thousands of likes per post.

Instagram can only show so many different posts on its top pages for hashtags. How Instagram decides to place posts on the top results for a hashtag is how many likes, comments, shares, and saves they receive.

So if you have a post that only has 30 likes and you’re going against a post that has 30,000 likes then it is very unlikely that you will show up as a top result for that hashtag.

On top of this, since so many other Instagram pages are using the same hashtags you immediately get pushed down in the search results.

So not only did no one see your post because you used a too-popular hashtag but it also gets immediately shoved down to the bottom of the feed because there’s a new post with that hashtag every couple of seconds.

How To Find The Right Hashtags

If you’re serious about finding the right hashtags to use for your business you should invest in a tool Flick.Tech.The tool is only $9 a month and what it allows you to do is see which hashtags give you the most probability to show up on the top page for a hashtag.

Let’s assume we’re still within the health and wellness niche. Flick.Tech will look at how many likes you get on average and suggest hashtags that you can show up for that have a similar amount of likes.

This is a great way for you to reach new audiences and make sure your content is actually being seen. For more information on hashtag research, check out this Youtube video from Sunny Lenarduzzi.

4. Always Have An Instagram Story [With Stickers]

Having a red circle around your Instagram logo is essential to establish credibility among potential followers. The red circle around your Instagram logo indicates that you have an active story. 

When someone first comes to your Instagram page they cannot see the last time you posted. They would have to click on an image to see that.

Having the red icon above your logo notifies the potential follower that you have been on the platform for at least the past 24 hours. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have been able to post a story.

What To Post In Your Instagram Stories

Now that you know it’s important to have stories, you may be wondering what exactly to post? No need to overthink this. If you are a theme page and you are posting every day one of the easiest things you can do is just reshare your post on your story.

Add some text above the story that says, “new post,” and add an arrow pointing to your post. See our video below on how you can create an engaging Instagram story in just one minute.

As you can see we used a lot of stickers in this post and did two unique things. We used three big hashtags and covered them with the sticker, “New Post.” We did this because Instagram allows you to use up to three hashtags in your story.

You can add more but Instagram will only register the first 3. Having hashtags can look spammy at times so it’s best to cover these up with a sticker.

The reason we used a big hashtag is that stories disappear in 24 hours. So if you use small hashtags, yes it is more likely to be found, but there isn’t enough traffic to smaller hashtags that can be received in just 24 hours. That’s why it’s best to use bigger ones and hope you get lucky.

We also put a big pointing gif over our text. The reason we did that is that if someone is interested in the title of the post, they will likely click on the post to read the text. Remember, Instagram shows your content to people who engage with your post.

If we just posted that story, people could read it without clicking on it. But we want to maximize as many post interactions as we can, which is why we make them click on the post to read it.

Using Instagram Interactive Stickers To Grow Fast

One strategy we found works very well is using Instagram interactive stickers. If you have ever seen a poll, quiz, or story that says “ask me questions” you’ve seen an interactive sticker. These elements were introduced by Instagram to help users engage with their followers.

You will hear in a lot of videos and blog posts that the best way to increase engagement is by commenting and liking your follower’s posts. While this is a good strategy, it is very time-consuming.

Instead of going out and engaging with your follower’s posts, give them an opportunity to engage with you.

By having a quiz or a poll on your Instagram stories you can allow your followers to engage with your post. We try to post a new Instagram quiz every single day. Take a look at some of the quizzes we post.

Instagram Story Stickers

This not only gives our followers something to look forward to, but it also allows them to engage with us on a daily basis. Guess what happens every time we post? The people that we see engage with our stories are the first ones to like our posts.

5. Work With Micro-Influencers To Reach A Larger Audience

The keyword here is “micro.” If you are trying to grow your motivational speaking brand through Instagram, do not reach out to Tony Robbins asking him to shout out on your Instagram page.

Not that he doesn’t want to support you, he just doesn’t have the time. He also probably doesn’t even manage his own Instagram page at that.

The trick to getting influencers to give your post a shout-out is finding those below a hundred thousand followers but over ten thousand followers.

Within this range, accounts are big enough to have a decent following, but not so large that they’re going to charge large sums of money for a shout-out.

One thing you’re going to want to be looking for when deciding which micro-influencers to work with is their engagement rate. The way you can calculate this is to look at how many followers they have and look at how many likes they receive on each post.

You want to find people with an engagement rate of at least 10%. 

If they have 10,000 followers they should be getting at least a thousand likes on their post. Anything less shows that they don’t have an engaged following.

Once you found an Instagram influencer that you want to work with, DM them and ask them how much for an advertisement. The rates will vary depending on which niche you’re in.

The best way to figure out a good price is to reach out to multiple influencers and see what the average costs are. 

However, if you’re going after someone under a hundred thousand followers it should never cost you more than twenty bucks for them to repost your content onto their page.

Allow Them To Give Away Something Of Yours To Get More Followers

A common question we get is, “Can I work with micro-influencers for free?” Usually, the answer is no. Listen, if someone put in the effort to build a big following it makes that they wouldn’t want to give it away for free.

However, if you’re going to ask them to give you anything for free you have to come at it with this mindset: What can I give them that is 10 times more valuable than what I’m asking of them?

Most people won’t do things for you out of the goodness of their hearts. But they will do something if there is an incentive for them to do so.

Do you have an ebook that you charge for that you will give away for free to their followers? Will you offer a free consultation to their followers if they let you post something on their page?

Running giveaways are great but they usually only work for Instagram pages that have an established following. By letting them use one of your products or services you can let them offer something to their audience which helps them build engagement while also helping you get more followers.

This can be seen as a win-win scenario for both parties. Just make sure that you are providing more value to them than you are asking to receive.

6. Use Follow For Follow To Grow To 1k Instagram Followers Fast

This strategy has a lot of controversies. People say this strategy doesn’t work because people don’t follow you back or they don’t engage with your account. The issue isn’t that this strategy doesn’t work, but that most people do it wrong. 

The follow-for-follow method was introduced as a strategy to help you gain more followers. The theory behind it was the more people you follow the more likely it is some of those people will follow you back.

The more people that follow you back leads the more potential likes and comments you can get, which in turn helps you grow your Instagram account fast.

Where people go wrong with the strategy is that they just go follow any and everyone. This is the wrong way to go about it. If you’re going to use the follow-for-follow strategy, you need to make sure you’re following people who already engaged with content similar to yours.

Let’s say you had an Instagram account in the workout niche. Find someone else within that niche with a similar to slightly greater follower base than you.  

Go into this person’s Instagram account and follow everyone who has liked their photos. This assures us of two things. 

  1. The people you’re following already like content similar to yours
  2. It shows that these followers are okay with following accounts of a similar size to yours.

If you are in the entrepreneurship space it wouldn’t be smart to do this strategy with Gary Vees Instagram. Gary Vee has over 10 million followers. Odds are there are people who follow him simply because he’s an influencer. Not because of the content he puts out. 

You should use this follow-for-follow strategy to get your first thousand followers. Before you hit a thousand followers Instagram will usually let you follow anywhere from 200 to 400 people a day.

Assuming that about 10% of people will follow you back, you should be able to get 1000 followers within two months.

When To Unfollow people

Instagram only lets you follow up to 7,500 people. However, you should make sure you never even get close to that number. To manage your followers you should use an app like Instaclean. Instaclean allows you to mass unfollow all of those who never followed you back.

If your account is still below 1000 followers, you should never unfollow those who have followed you back.

You also should never unfollow someone right after you follow them. Only use the Instaclean app after giving yourself a 24-hour period of not following anyone. This assures that you are not unfollowing people that you just followed. 

Unfollowing works very similarly to following. You can only unfollow anywhere from 200 to 400 people a day. Do not try to exceed this amount ever. Instagram will start to notify you if they feel like your account is committing suspicious behavior.

Although these warnings are harmless, enough of them could result in Instagram blocking your account temporarily. That’s why if you ever get a notification from Instagram saying you’ve exceeded their following limits, stop following/ unfollowing for the next 24 hours.

When To Stop Follow For Follow 

You should stop using the follow-for-follow strategy at around 2,000 to 5,000 followers. This is because in this range it becomes possible for one of your posts to go viral.

Also, if you aren’t unfollowing those who follow you back, by the time you get 5,000 followers you will also be following around 5,000 people. This is very close to Instagram’s 7,500 limits and it also just looks unprofessional.

Instagram will also cut back on the number of people you can follow and unfollow a day after you have over 1,000 followers. After your first thousand, Instagram limits you to follow and unfollow only 100 to 200 people a day.

When this happens, you’re going to want to change your follow-for-follow approach. You no longer are going to just follow those who like posts of similar content. You’re going to want to follow those who like similar content, as well as like and comment on their most recent post.

The reason for this is that the more engagement you give someone when you follow them the more likely they will follow you back. In the beginning, we don’t care about this because we can follow hundreds of people a day.

Once you go above 1000 though, we need to increase the likelihood that the people that we follow will follow us back. That is why we start to engage with them more.

Once you get above 10,000 followers, that’s when you can start unfollowing those who have followed you back. At this point, you should have a large enough audience who will follow you regardless if you follow them back or not.

7. Be The First Comment On Large Accounts In Your Niche

Have you ever looked at a big account in your niche and seen a comment that had hundreds of likes on it? Not by a celebrity but by a regular person. Usually, the reason why you’ll see comments with very high likes on a post is if they are the first comment on that post.

By being one of the first comments, you’re shown to everyone who clicks into the comment section of a post. If the comment is a good and substantial one it will usually get a lot of likes.

These likes usually mean nothing as it doesn’t help your Instagram account grow fast. However, it does give you a perfect opportunity to follow people who have already engaged with you.

If you start becoming the first comment on popular Instagram pages and getting a lot of likes on your comment, you can go in and follow everyone who liked your comment. This will increase the odds that they follow you back. How do you become the first comment on large accounts?

How To Set Post Notifications On Large Instagram Accounts

To become the first comment on a large account you need to set up post notifications for that account. This is very easy to do. All you have to do is go to a large account profile, click on the following tab, click notifications, and turn on post notifications.

Every time they post something to their Instagram you will get a notification on your phone telling you they posted. Make sure that you leave a comment that isn’t just an emoji, but actually has some thought behind it.

8. Use Story Ads To Grow To 10k Instagram Followers Fast

Once you hit 1,000 followers your next big milestone is going to be 10,000 followers. This milestone comes with the tangible benefit of allowing you to have a swipe-up feature on your stories.

The swipe-up feature is the only way to get a direct link from your Instagram to your website.

So, how do you get your first 10,000 followers on Instagram fast?  The keyword here is fast. If you follow all the steps you use to get 1000 followers you will still eventually hit 10,000. However, we want to do this in the least amount of time.

If you really want to do this in the quickest amount of time you have to invest some money. This should cost no more than $5 a day.

The best way to go from 1000 to 10,000 Instagram followers is by using Instagram story ads.

Instagram story ads are a perfect way to reach a new audience and show your Instagram page to potential followers. As we said before, Instagram stories already have high engagement rates. If you can create an enticing Instagram story, you can see high conversions of people following you.

The best Instagram story ads are in the format of a 15-second video. In that video, you should briefly introduce your business, introduce what type of content you post on your Instagram, and then finally a call to action telling them to follow your Instagram page.

To see a video of how this is done, check out this video by Jordan Platten where he walks you through how to create a successful Instagram story ad.

9. Use Instagram Analytics To Optimize Engagement

Which of your posts get the most engagement? Do you know? If not, it’s really easy to figure out. All you have to do is go to your home page and click on insights.

From there, click on content interactions. Under content interactions, you will be able to see which posts get the most likes, comments, shares, and saves.

What you want to be looking for is what are the recurring themes? Do posts with your face in them do better than posts without? Do post with long captions do better than a post with short captions? Is there a certain post that does best when you use a certain hashtag?

These are all the things you want to be looking at when you start looking for themes in your best-performing posts.

Once you find out which posts are doing the best for you, you want to double down on those. If posts with your face do better than screenshots, stop putting screenshots on your Instagram page.

Which Instagram Metrics Matter Most To Grow Your Account Fast

There are only 4 metrics when it comes to Instagram engagement: Likes, comments, shares, and saves. The two metrics that should matter most to you are shares and saves.

Instagram values these two the most as they have realized that the people who share and save content do that much more infrequently than like and comment. 

So, if people are sharing and saving a post that indicates to Instagram that that is a good piece of content. This goes into Instagram’s algorithm for deciding what to show on the explore page and hashtag Top page.

Key Takeaways

With these 9 tricks, you are more than ready to grow your Instagram account fast. Regardless of what type of Instagram page you have, if you follow these 9 steps you will see massive changes.

We made sure not to talk about generic advice that doesn’t really help you grow. Everything we provided here if used properly will help you not only increase your engagement but increase your following.