How to Get More Followers on Instagram (Practical Proven Tips)

Before saying anything, look at my Instagram account😛

No, no, no, look again. This time, zoom in, again, and again. Ok, that’s enough. See the follower count? 

That’s 54.9k FOLLOWERS.

I didn’t show you that to dig you or anything. I just needed to show you that this isn’t one of those crappy posts written by a guy who doesn’t even have 1k followers. I’ve grown my account, as well as those of several of my clients. Now, I want to help you grow your account too.

In this post, you’re going to learn 10 tips to get Instagram followers fast. I call the first 7 the SMOKING HOT tips.

“Why smoking hot?” you may wonder.

‘Cus they’re fresh out of the oven. You guys are the first I’m sharing them with.

How many followers can you get with the Smoking Hot Tips?

Honestly, it depends on you. But if I was an A student in math, I’d say:

Each tip has the potential to bring at least 10 new followers per day. If you use all 7, that’s 70 followers per day. If you’re not too lazy to grind the Instagram app every day for one month, that’s approximately 2,100 new followers.

In a year, you’re knocking on the doors of 25k+ followers.

Amazing, right? Even Kylie Jenner would be proud of that. 

The 7 SMOKING HOT TIPS

1. Build a catchy profile and create an editorial calendar using data from competitors’ profiles.
2. Interact with people engaging with your competitors.
3. Use @Bosslist to find generic followers.
4. Use the RECENT tab to find followers.
5. Pitch pages with a similar audience size to yours.
6. Use the right hashtags (but get them from the All-Hashtag.com site).
7. Advertise your top posts.



The Extras

8. Use Instagram Reels.
9. Work with micro-influencers.
10. Create authentic, screenshot-worthy content.

My first smoking hot tip will not bring you ANY followers. 

(I can imagine the expression on your face right now.)

However, it is important because the other tips depend on it. 

“How is that so?” a curious reader might ask.

All the other tips on the Smoking Hot list expose you to a great deal of audience. But whether or not these people choose to follow you depends on what they find on your account.

This is why it’s important to learn how to build a catchy profile and editorial calendar first, before shooting for followers.

So, how can you create a catchy profile?

• Choose a fascinating profile picture – something that a first-time page visitor will fall in love with immediately.

See an example:

In the example above, that guy is a muscle builder. And looking at his profile picture, you can tell he is.

• Choose an attention-grabbing profile name – something that catches people’s attention and also tells who you are and what you do.

See an example:

• Write a captivating bio – don’t expect people to know what you do; let your bio tell them.

Again, see our previous example:

In exactly 7 words, this guy tells us what he does – “I Help Skinny Guys Build Muscle Fast!”

I remember following him immediately when I read that bio (‘cus I’m quite skinny, to be honest )

Besides a catchy profile, you also need an editorial calendar.

Once your profile lures people in, it’s the content they find inside that determines whether they follow you or not.  So, you want to ensure you’re serving the best. This is where the editorial calendar comes in.

Note: An editorial calendar is simply a WRITTEN PLAN of the kinds of content you want to be posting on your page.

How to create a high-converting editorial calendar

1. Identify and select 10 top-performing Instagram profiles in your niche.

Top-performing refers to profiles with large followings and high engagement. 

To find these accounts, go to the Instagram search bar and search for your niche, e.g., “fashion.” Afterward, click on the “Accounts” tab. This will show you the top accounts in your niche, with the highest number of followers.

2. Pull out all of the best content themes you find on these pages.
3. Either copy the videos or describe them textually in a note.
4. Use this knowledge to create your own editorial calendar.

Finally, you must ensure you have at least 9 content posts on your page before you start luring people in.

Now that your page is Smoking Hot, let’s start getting Instagram followers.

First, you want to go back to the list of those 10 top-performing accounts you visited earlier.

Your competitors, to be precise.

Once you’re in each account, you want to follow people who are commenting on and liking their posts. The reason is that these people are likely to be interested in your type of content.

How to implement this tip

1. Open the account of competitor #1 and go to their most recent post.
2. Click on the comment feed to see people who have commented on the post. Or check out the “others” in the “Liked by XYZ and others” feed to see those who have liked the post.
3. Scroll on the side of the page as shown below, and follow up to 5 persons MAX.



4. Go to competitor #2, and repeat steps 1-3 (following 5 max).
5. Repeat for the next 8 competitors.
6. Ensure you complete all of these within one hour and don’t follow more than 30 people total in that hour. ( I’ll explain why soon. )
7. Use the next 1-2 hours simply scouring IG and having fun. DON’T FOLLOW ANYONE!
8. Come back and repeat steps 1-6 for another 30 followers.
9. Repeat steps 1 through 8 until you’ve followed between 200-300 followers in one day.
10. Stop for the day.
11. Followers should start flocking in now.
12. Come back after 1-2 days to unfollow anyone that didn’t follow you back from this list.

Why shouldn’t you follow more than 30-40 persons per hour and 200-300 persons per day?

Because Instagram has a limit on the number of people you can follow per hour and per day.

30-40 is the maximum hourly limit, and 200-300 is the maximum daily limit. Anything above that will make you come off as a robot in the eyes of the Instagram algorithm, and they may flag you for that.

Can I use this tip every day?

Yes, you can – provided you aren’t following and unfollowing more than 200-300 persons per day.

🔥Actionable hack:

To make this tip work like magic, use this hack.

After following the people interacting with your competitors, enter their accounts to like and comment on their comments, likes, posts, stories, etc.

How does this make a difference?

Think about it. Imagine you log in to your Instagram one morning and get a follow request from someone you barely know. Then you scroll through your notification page to see that the same person has liked, shared, and commented on a dozen of your posts.

What would you do next?

You’ll most likely check the account out. And if you find it fascinating, you’ll definitely follow the person.

1. Log in to your Instagram and search for @Bosslist.
Be careful when doing this search, as there are many lookalike Bosslist accounts out there. What you’re looking for is BOSSLIST (Note: no underscore!)
2. Follow the account.
3. Then, go into the following list to see some of the biggest Instagram accounts.
4. Follow the verified accounts in that list one by one. But don’t follow more than 30.
“Why can’t I follow more than 30?” Hmmm, looks like someone hasn’t been paying attention. Go back to Smoking Tip #2 to find out why.
5. Now, wait for about one hour and then come back to unfollow all the accounts you’ve just followed.
6. You should start seeing some new followers rolling into your account by now.
7. Repeat the entire procedure every 3-4 hours but don’t do it more than two times daily.

1. Go to the search bar and type in your niche, e.g., gaming, dogs, finance, cryptocurrency, weight loss, etc.
2. You should see four tabs in the search bar: “Top”, “Accounts”, “Tags”, and “Places”. Click on the “Tags” tab.
In my example, I searched for the popular dog breed “Goldendoodle.”
3. Next, choose one of the hashtags and open its page.
You’re free to choose any one that appeals to you. ( It’s a democracy, remember. )
4. Once that page opens, you’ll see two tabs – “Top” and “Recent”. Click on the RECENT tab to reveal all the recent posts that have used that hashtag.
   
5. Scroll through the RECENT page until you find a post you like.
(Again, it’s a democracy, so feel free to choose anyone.)
6. Click the post, like the post, and follow the post owner.
7. Then comment on the post saying something like:
“Hey, what a blast you’ve got going on here. I really like your content. I post similar stuff on my account too, feel free to check it out and follow me if you like my content.”

8. Repeat the procedure from Steps 1 through 7 to find about 10-20 posts daily.

1. Go to the search bar and click on the Account tab.
   
2. Then enter your niche, e.g., sports, tech, gadgets, etc.
3. Go through the list of displayed accounts and find pages with a similar audience size to yours.
“Similar audience size” means that if you have 1k followers, you’re looking for pages with around 500-2k followers. If you have 5k followers, you want to look at accounts with 4k-7k followers, etc.
4. Once you find someone, like and comment on their posts, and then follow them.
5. Afterward, send them a DM saying:
“ Hey, your Instagram feed is a bomb. I’m so in love with it. Specifically, I love that post on [describe one of their posts you like]. I have a similar page to yours where I post about [describe what your page is about]. I was wondering if you would be interested in giving us a shoutout in exchange for a shoutout from us. Since we target the same type of audience, it will benefit both of us.”
6. If they give you a shoutout, you can expect to have many of their followers flocking to your page.
7. Repeat this for about 10 pages every day.

• Go to Ingramer.com.

• Click on “User Search.”

• Once you’re in, enter your niche/keyword (say, fashion) and the range of followers you’re targeting (1k to 5k).
  

• Click on Search.

• Ingramer will display all the Instagram accounts that fall in that range.

1. Open your Safari or Google Chrome.
2. Go to All-Hashtag.com.
3. Scroll down the homepage till you see “Hashtags for Instagram.” Then click the “Hashtag generator” button below it.
4. On the opening page, scroll down till you find “Top Hashtags,” then click on the “Try it” button.
   
5. Once the page opens, keep scrolling till you find “Follow hashtags.”
   
6. Copy these hashtags and paste them as a caption on any of your soon-to-go-live posts.
7. In no time at all, you’ll start getting notifications of followers from far and wide.

1. Go to your profile.
2. Tap the “Insights” action button.
3. Tap the metrics under the “Overview” section or specific content you’ve shared for a more detailed breakdown.

Extra tips to get Instagram followers

• Designed to help people gain exposure: Reels were specifically made to give creators a shot at going viral. Just like TikTok videos.
• Reels have all the tools you need to go viral: You have a plethora of visual and audio editing tools to create, edit, and give life to your content – far greater than what you have with Stories and Feed posts. With these tools, you have an opportunity to create the perfect content worthy of going viral.
• Reels exposes you to a far greater audience : You can share Reels to your feed and the Explore page just like Stories and Feed posts, but unlike those two, Reels aren’t visible to your followers only. Even people that aren’t following you will see your Reels.
• Still relatively new: Reels is still a new feature. As such, not many people have hopped on the train yet. 

• Instagram’s baby: Since Instagram is giving extra prominence to Reels on users’ main feed and the Explore page, creators of Reels have a far better shot at getting seen on the Explore page than Stories or Feed post creators.

🔥Actionable hack: