Today, any business or expert understands how important social media presence is. And Instagram is one of the most influential social networks that brings money to brands and bloggers.
However, in 2023, it’s not enough to just make quality content on Instagram: no matter how amazing and unique your photos, videos, and texts are, without promoting your account, no one will see them except your existing followers. You should get likes, comments, and views more and more.
Even if one of the subscribers will share your content, in most cases it will be a very long promotion. Therefore, in this article, we will talk about free and paid Instagram profile promotion methods (including buying Instagram likes) that are effective in 2023.
Ways to promote a profile and gain followers on Instagram
Mutual PR
This method is not suitable for accounts from scratch: you must already have at least a small audience.
Find like-minded people – accounts that are similar to yours, or to related topics where your target audience lives, and agree on holding a joint live broadcast, marathon, promotion, guest posting, or just mutual advertising. The point is to talk about each other and recommend to subscribe.
If you have the same audience size, then it’s free. Here are some examples of good mutual PR:
- a natural cosmetics brand launches a week-long promotion together with a natural food manufacturer;
- a sportswear brand runs a training marathon with a fitness trainer;
- the cosmetologist conducts a joint broadcast with a gastroenterologist, etc.
Hashtags
Hashtags do not claim to be the main way to promote Instagram, but they may well become auxiliary. Here are the basic rules for using hashtags:
- If you have an offline business or your activity is tied to a country/city, use local hashtags in addition to thematic ones.
- Hashtags should match the topic of the post, photo or video. This will help Instagram better understand who to show the post to.
- Don’t spam hashtags. It also makes no sense to add a lot of high-frequency hashtags (more than 500 thousand publications): the chances that your publication will be noticed are minimal.
- Keep the hashtag relevant. If a hashtag was last used three years ago, it means that it is no longer relevant.
Hashtags are always random: you don’t know when and what will work. Therefore, relying only on this method is not worth it.
Commenting
Commenting means deliberate comments on the case under the posts in the accounts where your potential clients live. These can be profiles of both bloggers and brands, as well as ordinary users, if they are directly your target audience. The best site to buy Instagram comments is Poprey.com
Comments should be catchy and encourage them to go to your profile. You can show your expertise in the topic under discussion, but in no case do not advertise yourself directly – everyone will immediately understand the purpose of your comment and will not be interested.
Commenting can be used as an additional promotion method if you have a lot of free time, as it is a very energy-intensive and slow way to promote your profile. In addition, this method, like hashtags, does not guarantee anything – you can spend hours of your life and still not attract a single subscriber. It is better to devote this time to more effective ways.
Targeted advertising
Targeting is the easiest and most effective way to promote your Instagram account. This method is not so popular, because it is paid, and many are simply afraid to waste money and not get a result.
Target is an official advertisement from a social network. You set it up yourself (or through a targetologist) for the people you need. This is a huge advantage over organic promotion through reels and posts, where algorithms decide for you who to show them to.
Although this is a paid method, it pays for itself at times. If the profile is ready for promotion (properly packaged), and the advertisement itself is interesting, the target will bring customers from the very first days, and this will pay off all the costs.
There are two ways to set up targeted ads:
- in Instagram itself through the “Promote” button under posts and in stories;
- through the advertising account (Ads Manager), if a Facebook page is linked to the profile. We talked about how to do this in the article “How to link an Instagram business account to Facebook: step by step instructions”.
The only disadvantage of targeting is a long list of restrictions, especially in niches such as medicine, finance, insurance, and everything related to weight loss. For violations, they can not only stop ads, but also block the account itself. Therefore, before launching, you should familiarize yourself with all the rules of advertising activities in advance.
Promotion through other platforms
If you run TikTok, YouTube, Telegram, or have a website, encourage your audience to follow your Instagram as well. There are many examples of experts who have boosted their Instagram profile through YouTube videos.
However, users need a reason why they want to subscribe to another resource of yours. It is unlikely that they will do this if the same content is published everywhere. Therefore, for each channel it is necessary to think over its content format. For example, if you share your knowledge on YouTube, tell them that you can learn more about your life on Instagram.
Profile name optimization for keywords
The advice is especially relevant for specialists who work offline in a particular city, as well as for medical institutions and catering establishments. Indicate in the name of the profile the keywords by which users can search for you. Thus, when people write “beautician Kyiv” or “sushi Odessa” in Instagram search, they will see your profile.
Contests for subscribers
The effectiveness of competitions depends on their conditions. You should not arrange giveaways where you need to subscribe for some kind of gift. Such subscribers will only come for a gift and leave when they do not receive it. They will not become our brand ambassadors and should not be expected to be active in their profile.
But contests aimed at increasing activity among existing subscribers make sense. For example, drawing your product among subscribers for reposting in stories. This is a really effective way to attract a new audience, especially if you need to write something else in the stories, and not just repost.
Advertising with influencers
Advertising from bloggers in 2023 still works, but on the condition that we buy it from the “right” influencers – those who have a really active and loyal audience, which is also our target.
The trend of 2023 is to advertise with experts and bloggers with a small audience (up to 20 thousand subscribers). As practice shows, such accounts have a more involved and targeted audience than millionaire bloggers who are followed by everyone.
User Content
Another trend of recent years is to encourage existing subscribers to generate content with your brand’s products. This strategy is used by most giant brands. They hold contests for the best video with their product and post subscriber content on their profile.
User-generated content is not just a way to reach a new audience. This is how you build your community and certain associations with your brand. A prime example of the use of user-generated content is the giant Starbucks.
Reels
A relatively new way to promote on Instagram. If posts and stories are seen only by existing subscribers (except when posts fall into the “Recommended”), then for reels the system gives external coverage – the video of an account with only 2 thousand subscribers can gain a million views. So this is also a good method of attracting an audience. But on the condition that reels are created for your target audience. Otherwise, they will bring to your account completely the wrong people that you need.
In addition, stories disappear after 24 hours, posts are shown for only a couple of days, and reels can “spin” for weeks. And if the social network sees that one of your videos has “flyed” and is interesting to people, it can give a second chance to others that were created earlier.
Summary
Regardless of which promotion method you choose, people will not subscribe, much less buy, if the profile is not packaged. All of the above methods organize traffic to your account. But whether users stay depends on:
- profile caps;
- availability of relevant stories (frequently asked questions, reviews, service packages and other information);
- profile fullness (minimum 9 posts);
- visual;
- the presence of a built-in sales funnel in the profile.
When getting into your profile, the user should not only understand who you are and what you do, but also what your uniqueness is, why he should subscribe.
The main secret of success in promoting Instagram is to treat it like a business project. So, only free methods are not enough. The main methods of promotion are targeting and advertising by bloggers. The rest are used as extras.
Besides, a lot depends on the end goal. Determine why you want to promote Instagram, because the entire further content plan depends on it. All the tips in this article will help you quickly achieve success and not waste time.
read also: How To Use Instagram Stories To Boost Your Business
