Want to know how to grow an Instagram account from 0 followers?
Looking to start a new Instagram page for your brand, business, or other endeavors?
I’m sure you’re already wondering how you can get more Instagram followers and build a strong, solid presence on your new account.
Is this an easy endeavor? No. Is it worth every second? Absolutely.
Instagram is the authority in social media for all different types of business purposes and it’s a powerhouse for marketing; over 80% of internet users reference Instagram to learn about a brand, business, or individual before deciding whether or not to buy from them or support their cause.
For this reason, we’re bringing you a guide that will help you build a successful Instagram account from scratch.
Starting a New Instagram Account
When you start a new IG account, you’ve got to know some basics for success. The five basic rules that you should know about Instagram marketing are:
- Post great content
- Post great content
- Post great content
- Post great content
- Post great content
Catch our drift? Yes, having incredible and unique Instagram content is something that you absolutely must have if you want to captivate your target audience on Instagram and build a credible Instagram account.
In order to create content that resonates with your audience, you have to first establish some key foundational elements for your brand. How can you start?
Take a minute here to envision your brand five years from now. Really dive in. What comes to mind? Feelings? Colors? Audience? Who are the people that will help your brand shoot to success in the next five years?
Great. Now we’ve got a starting point. When you consider what a brand actually means, you may be thinking about big names such as Nike or McDonald’s. Why do these come to mind?
They have a clear presentation of who they are as a company and what their brand represents. This is something that you’ll have to do for your Instagram, no matter if you’re just a single influencer, a small business, a creator, among others.
How can we define a brand for Instagram? Google tells us that a brand should have all of the following six traits:
- Name
- Logo
- Color scheme
- Brand message
- Slogan
- Cohesive aesthetics and energy
Since you’re already checking out this article, you’ve probably already got your name or company name, logo, and the like figured out. If you’re still working on that, no problem! Keep thinking about something that resonates.
In this article, we’re going to spend a lot of time focusing on the last part— cohesive aesthetics and energy— because this is the visual element that you have to transmit through your Instagram account. All of the rest will naturally be a part of it.
After you’ve got that on lock, you can then begin to develop consistent content that will help to enhance your overall brand image and presence on Instagram. You’ll need to get your content seen by the right people, too.
We’ve got 7 of the best Instagram hacks to build a new Instagram account coming at you, and this is what you’ll discover:
- How to a brand aesthetic from the beginning
- How to your first pieces of content
- How to get your first 100 followers (or more)
- How to use hashtags for content reach
- How to branch out and make connections
- How to use filters
- Basics of being consistent on Instagram
We’re sure that once you read through these seven items, you’ll know how to grow an Instagram account from 0 followers.
Plus, you will be motivated to get this new Instagram on its feet and get it the audience it deserves. Let’s get started!
How to Grow an Instagram Account From Zero Followers
If you follow the guidelines laid out for you in the following 7 steps, you’ll have the solid foundation that you need for your new Instagram account to take off even if you have zero Instagram followers to start with.
There is a lot of competition out there, so knowing how to start off on the right foot gives you higher chances of success.
1. Build a Brand Aesthetic From the Get Go
The first thing you need to do is brainstorm the overall look and aesthetics that you want your Instagram to have. There are three primary questions that you should ask yourself in this stage of development.
What are three words that your friends use to describe you or your brand?
You can guess on your own, or you can actually ask them! How would people describe you or your brand?
Would they say that you’re silly, creative, and fun? This may be a great starting point for those looking to have an account that produces witty and enjoyable content for any niche.
Do they describe you as innovative, minimal, and sophisticated? This is excellent for a minimalist account that has a lot of color pops and content with center-focused images.
These are just some ideas, but solidify at least 3 different traits that you can incorporate into your account.
What are the voices of each trait?
Once you have the traits, you want to check out the brand voice chart from Content Marketing Institute.
This will allow you to take the traits that you have established and create a voice for your brand through your Instagram content.
What visuals represent these traits?
After establishing a voice for your brand and understanding the foundation of your traits, you can move to visuals.
Use Pinterest to create a mood board that will visually define each trait. If your friends described you as funny, what does ‘funny’ visually look like to you?
What does ‘passionate’ look like to you? Quirky? Adventurous? Professional?
These mood boards can help you to get an idea for color schemes and visual aesthetics that you can implement into your content when you begin to post it on your account.
2. Get Some Content on Your Account
While you don’t want to load your account with too much content just yet, you do want to have something on your Instagram so that followers know it’s not a spam or bot account. Consider all of the three questions and reflections from section 1, and make a few pieces of content.
Over the course of a few days, upload the content one by one. That way, when you get visitors, they’ll have an idea of what your content is about and what they can expect to see more of in the future.
If you decide later that this content isn’t up to par with what you develop in the future, don’t worry— content can be archived on Instagram so that users can’t see it. It won’t be deleted, and you can repost it at any time, but you can hide it so that you can create something new from scratch.
This is also a great strategy for creating campaigns and specific aesthetic changes on your Instagram account later down the line.
3. Get Your First 100 Followers
Alright, now that you have a voice for your brand with some content live, you want to consider your audience and what kind of follower base you want.
The key to Instagram follower growth is to build a following of niche-specific followers that will actually care about your content, want to see it regularly, engage with it, and even convert to customers, sponsors, or collaborators.
You have to understand your niche so that you can get the right followers from the very beginning. This will help your engagement levels and keep your posts gaining traction.
Here are some strategies to consider when defining your target audience:
- Check out the competition: look at accounts in your defined niche that are doing well, even accounts that you aim to be like. What kind of people follow them? You can even engage with their followers through liking and commenting on their content to generate interest in your account.
- Hashtags: search hashtags that are relevant to your niche, brand, and content, so that you can see what types of content are used with these hashtags and what users typically engage with it.
- Locations: search for locations that are connected to your brand. If you want your user base to be from a specific area, let’s say Chicago, search for users that are active in that area.
- Mentions: you can also start to mention users in your content and tag relevant Instagram accounts in order to gain attention and perhaps even get features as user-generated content, which will help you get exposure and more followers.
Hashtags are vital in getting your content discovered and you have to know exactly which ones to use so that you get targeted followers and not just any random Joe viewing your content.
Hashtags are the # symbols that you see on pretty much all Instagram content; when you use one on your post, it categorizes your content into that hashtag feed so that Instagram users can find it and see content relevant to their interests.
Users can also follow hashtags, meaning if you use a particular hashtag consistently, you’re likely to appear more often in the feed of users that follow the hashtag.
How can you know which hashtags to use?
Many users just go off of what is the most popular on Instagram such as #beauty, #love, #nature; these are too generic and won’t get your results. There are too many posts with these tags, pushing your content way down the feed until it’s invisible.
Also, these tags are used on content of any type, from any niche. You want niche-specific hashtags that get you seen by people interested in the type of account you have.
Using a hashtag generator can help you tailor your hashtag strategy to your particular niche through hashtag searches and generation; you can also see how hashtags are performing and choose ones that are likely to get your content seen by more people.
Once you know which hashtags you want to use, a tool allows you to create hashtag sets for easy reference and posting. This is a vital feature if you want to have a successful hashtag strategy from the get-go that actually gets your content seen by more users.
Here are some other general rules about hashtags:
- Can use up to 30 on your posts
- Can post hashtags in your caption, after your caption, or in the first comment of your post
- Hashtags must be one word, no spaces, no special characters (numbers allowed)
- Some hashtags are banned and no content will appear in these hashtag feeds
These are just some hashtag basics; remember, using 30 hashtags may look desperate and spammy, so it’s better if you distribute your hashtags throughout your caption or even post some in the first comment to hide them.
You can check out our article about hiding Instagram hashtags for more tips on this.
5. Branch Out and Make Connections
Even though your account is just getting started, it’s never too early to make connections and talk to relevant accounts and influencers in your niche.
Instagram influencers became a big deal in 2018 and are still one of the biggest moving parts of Instagram marketing in 2021. It’s likely they will continue to hold strong for years to come.
You can get on the good side of Instagram influencers and use their high follower counts to draw in more viewers for your own content in a natural way, creating more brand awareness and a stronger reputation.
If you have any influencer friends, ask them first. They already have access to a large audience and probably care about your success. If you don’t know any influencers, you’ll probably have to work to build a relationship, but that’s okay— it can pay off.
You can find influencers using Instagram itself, or even third party tools like Buzzsumo; this allows you to know which influencers may be most beneficial to your particular niche and content type.
After you’ve got an idea about who’s out there, you can narrow it down to about 5-10 influencers that you may want to work with. You want to ensure they have access to your particular target audience and that they align with your brand image and values.
Once you’ve got some candidates, you have to then build a relationship and convince them that you are worth their time. Here are some ways you can show them that.
How to Show your Value on Instagram for Influencers
Send your chosen influencers a DM or demonstrate the following elements to them via Instagram or Buzzsumo.
- Loop Giveaway: you can start off strong by gaining more followers through a giveaway. Message some other people in your industry to do a partnership giveaway. Offer a prize that is desirable and in order to win it, users have to follow your account. This will give you a solid base and show influencers that users engage with your content.
- Education: leave comments on your chosen influencers’ posts with valuable tips or commentary so that they can see you’re an expert and knowledgeable in the niche.
- Samples: if you want an influencer to help boost your exposure, you can send them free gifts or products so that they can feature them. You’ll have to run the risk of them doing nothing here; let them know that there are “no strings attached,” and if they love what you offer, they can feature it. Many influencers are loyal to their brand and their image and only feature things they really love.
- Hires: If you have a budget, you can even contract influencers and pay them a stipend for their services.
Using influencers and popular accounts on Instagram to feature you is a surefire way to get more exposure.
6. Use Filters
In the early days of Instagram, filters were really fun and people had a blast using them. They can still be fun, but keep in mind that they are more than that— filters affect your follower growth and engagement levels.
Studies have shown that filtered photos have a 45% higher chance of being commented on and a 21% higher chance of just being viewed. This is a big deal and you shouldn’t take it lightly. It can have a big impact on your content and your performance!
What’s more, content that is lighter versus darker receives 24% more likes. There are plenty more stats out there like these that can help you understand your content.
In addition, filters have better performance when they are:
- High exposure
- Warm temperature
- High contrast
Filters are just the tip of the iceberg. When you know more about what type of content performs best in your niche and what kind of content your followers want to see, you can then emulate that content with your own personal twist.
Content strategy is the #1 factor in having a successful Instagram account; make sure you know your stuff and always give it your all.
7. Be Consistent
If you are serious about your Instagram growth and want to get more Instagram followers, you should keep in mind that consistency is key. You’ve got to have new content coming out if you want followers to engage, which will then boost your content’s reach and appearance in feeds.
You should aim to post at the minimum a few times a week; perhaps even once a day. Always have an Instagram story active on a daily basis to build up content for your Instagram story highlight albums and to encourage Instagram story engagement.
In addition, consider your optimal posting times; when are your followers most active on Instagram and when are they likely to see your content as soon as it’s posted? This can also increase engagement levels.
You can gage this over time through viewing your Instagram analytics and studying your results over time. Make sure your account is set to business or creator so that you can have access to these free features.
Final Thoughts: Building a New Instagram Account
It’s a daunting task to build a new Instagram account especially considering the saturation in each niche. At the end of the day, staying focused and producing top-quality content is what will set you apart.
Continue to engage with your target audience and do market research to understand what kind of content is performing best. Stay connected to your brand image and aesthetics and offer Instagram users something unique and worth following.
Don’t forget your hashtags so that your content can be discovered by new users. Hope that now you know how to grow an Instagram account from 0 followers.
