Do you want to get more engagement, followers, and sales on Instagram? Do you want some powerful growth hacks that will get quick results?

Instagram is probably the best network for marketing your business. Over a billion people use it every month and it drives a ton of engagement. But if you’re just starting out, growing your presence can be a challenge as there are 25 million other pages competing with you.

This is why I have shared some Instagram growth hacks below that will help you get quick results even if you have less than 1000 followers…

Create more stories:

There are 25 million business accounts on Instagram. Posts from these accounts and posts from the other billion users are competing with your posts in the feed. This is one of the reasons why the reach on Instagram is dropping.

One way to counter this is by publishing fewer posts in the feed and more stories. People don’t publish many stories. If you publish more of them and optimize them for sharing, you will generate more leads. Also, publishing at the right hour will increase your chances of success.

So, create more stories using great graphic design resources. Don’t stop publishing in-feed posts entirely. Just publish fewer. For example, if you publish 3 posts a day, 2 can be stories and 1 can be an in-feed post.

Don’t forget to get creative with your stories—like in the feed, you need them to stand out among your competitors. For example, using the ideas in 10 Instagram Story Ideas to Boost Engagement, but make them you’re own.

Don’t just share a poll; make it unique, funny, or interesting. Your goal is to get the follower to engage while also making the experience memorable.

Work with influencers:

There are a lot of influencers out there who have been active on Instagram for months and years before you. In this time, they have amassed their own followers and audience.

You can ride on the coattails of these users to grow your account quickly. A shoutout from an influencer can make a massive difference. You can get hundreds to thousands of followers in a few days depending on the number of followers the influencer has. Influencers can also promote your brand or products and help you get more impressions and sales.

Some influencers will also be interested in selling their Instagram accounts. This is another way to get to grow your account quickly. You will of course need to run the account separately as Instagram doesn’t let you join two accounts

Create ads that don’t lead anywhere:

If you want your ads to generate more engagement and impressions, you shouldn’t add links to them. Instagram rewards ads that focus on keeping people on the network.

So, try and create some ads that don’t lead anywhere. These ads won’t work for goals such as driving goals, but they will do well when you want to grow your following or your brand. For sales, you need to send people to a landing page. But maybe in the future when Instagram checkout is released you can create Instagram ads that promote products that are on Instagram.

Engage with other accounts through pods

Instagram has a secret that most people don’t know. This is that the amount of engagement you generate as soon as you publish a post matters a lot. If your post gets more comments and likes in the first 10 minutes of publishing, your post will be more likely to reach the explore page and generate more engagement.

One way to get these likes and comments is by having a massive following. So, what should people with small followings do?

The alternative is to join an Instagram engagement group. Instagram engagement groups or pods are communities where Instagram users with similar follow counts comment and like each other’s posts as soon as they go live. This improves their chances of reaching the explore page.

So, try and join a few of these. To get the best results only join pods for people in your niche.

Promote up and coming influencers:

One way to always be ahead of the game on Instagram is by teaming up with small influencers you see potential in. Small influencers work very hard to grow when they are in the first few months and years and they don’t know many people who they can team up with. Many of their attempts result in rejections.

If you become a big brand by following the above tips and amass thousands of followers, you should be on the lookout for up and coming influencers. And promote their posts.

If you do this now they will return the favor 10 fold. In the beginning this won’t seem like much, but as their account grows you will see the effect. So, scour Instagram looking for new influencers and promote their content. You could also publish user-generated-content from people who are already promoting your brand.

Use low competition hashtags:

One of the biggest mistakes people make is using the most popular hashtags. The hashtags can seem attractive, but they have been used millions of times. While you add it to your post there will be several others with hundreds of thousands of followers who are doing the same. Therefore, you will be competing with them in the hashtag feed. EarthWeb contains vital information about hashtags.

One way to avoid this competition is by using low competition hashtags that have been used by less than 50,000 people. You can definitely rank for a hashtag like this one. After your following grows you can incorporate medium competition hashtags and when you exceed 100,000 followers you can use high competition hashtags. So, go find some new hashtags.

Create more videos:

Videos only make up 18% of the Instagram feed, but they drive more engagement than photos and carousel posts. Most people publish more photos as they are easier to create.

So, if you want to dominate the feed you should create video posts. Something moving will naturally generate more attention and clicks than something that isn’t.

It’ll take you longer to create video content, but the time will pay for itself in the long run. Also, you can retarget video views on Instagram. This gives you extra retargeting options and can play a key role in helping you drive more sales.

The organic video will nurture the audience, while the ad will drive the sale. But make sure you set the right retargeting frequency. If you let the ad display too many times and for too long, your CPA will go up.

Conclusion:

These are the 7 top Instagram growth hacks you must know. Use them to get more engagement, followers, impressions and sales.