How To Get More Followers on Instagram Who Engage and Buy

You can pay some shady company to get you 1,000 more Instagram followers in a few minutes. 

But it’s all bots, and guess what? Those bot accounts don’t engage or buy anything.

So, even if Instagram doesn’t detect your fake followers (and they are pretty good at it), you’re not going to get the engagement required to grow.

Getting More Instagram Followers: The Basics

Building a big follower count on Instagram is important. Sure, it’s a vanity metric to some extent, but more followers means more reach with every post. That’s more potential traffic to your site or online store.

So how do you build a bigger audience?

Creating an account is free and easy. The ultimate goal is obvious. But everything in between can feel like a mystery. How do you grow engagement and gain momentum?

It’s frustrating when you only have a few followers. You are putting a ton of time and effort into posts and Reels, but no one is even seeing them. 

Are you doing something wrong? Are you not doing enough? 

Relax. There’s no conspiracy. 

Instagram is simply a massive market for attention

Everyone is fighting for the same scarce resource: a few seconds of someone’s scroll time. 

The Instagram algorithm decides who gets that attention, and it rewards specific behaviors. Once you understand what it’s looking for, you can use that to your advantage.

In this post, I’m going to cover proven tactics that will:

• Make it easier for new people to discover your account
• Help you provide them with valuable content that’s worth a follow

There are now more than 3 billion active users on Instagram. Every single one of them is searching for something.

If you can create content that resonates with even a tiny fraction of this market, that’s going to result in hundreds of thousands of followers.

Ready to rock? 

Pre-Growth Checklist: Before You Try To Get More Followers

There are tons of follower growth strategies in this post, and you will find success fastest if you have a few things in place early on.

📈 Set up a professional account. With a Creator or Business account on Instagram, you can view data on your followers, when they are active, and performance metrics about your posts. This is crucial info.Creating a professional Instagram account is free.

📢 Know your audience. Every Instagram growth strategy depends on understanding your target audience and what they want. The better you know who you are speaking to, the easier it will be to provide value that’s worth a follow.

💲Map out your funnel. Having a clear conversion funnel in place ensures that when new people find your account, they know exactly what you offer, why it matters, and how to take the next step.

📬 Build out other channels. Instagram is a great way to connect, but you can grow faster and stronger with a presence on other social media platforms, using email marketing, and with a website of your own.

🤳 Get comfortable with video. Reels are the fast-track to more exposure, so being confident about shooting and editing your own videos will give you a huge advantage.

💪 Commit for the long haul. Are you ready to post 730 times this year? That’s only twice per day, which is the minimum you ought to be posting if you are trying to drive follower growth. Setting your heart on a minimal-effort, overnight social media success is a recipe for burnout.

If you stick with it, you will continuously improve your skills, refine your funnel, and better understand your audience. 

There’s no way to have everything locked down 100% before you begin, so don’t worry if you aren’t a pro videographer on day one. You’ll get there.

The 9 Best Tactics To Get More Followers on Instagram

These are currently the best ways to increase your follower count. Some of them have worked for ages, others lean into more recent developments.

1. Use AI for research

Using AI to create content is a horrible idea if you are looking to gain followers. Most humans hate AI-generated content. They don’t interact with it and that kills your engagement rate.

But using AI for research? That is a great idea.

AI tools like LLMs (large language models) are super useful for finding out what your audience cares about, what your competitors are doing well, and what types of posts are driving customer engagement. 

Think of an LLM as an assistant that gives you feedback on your ideas and helps you research massive amounts of information in seconds.

Here’s an example. I brainstormed some new ideas for a brand in the personal finance space using Claude, the LLM from Anthropic. I wrote, “What questions are people commonly asking about in personal finance? Turn each question into a simple post or Reel idea.” 

Claude thought for a few seconds and then spit out 2-3 questions with example posts and Reel ideas for 11 different topics like housing, debt, student loans, taxes, and budgets.

It’s a solid start. I’d put my own spin on the post titles (as is, they feel very AI-written, which makes sense), but they give me a good target to shoot for. As Claude reassured me at the end of its answer, all of these content ideas are “based on actual search volume and real questions people are asking.”

Silver bullet? No. 

Time saver? Absolutely.

Here are some simple prompts you can use for audience research and to generate ideas for content. Just fill in the blank with your niche, topic, or product category.

• Which emotional triggers drive the highest engagement in _______ content? Break down the top five and give me example post ideas that tap into each one.
• Create a simple buyer persona for someone interested in _______. Focus on their goals, frustrations, fears, and what influences their buying decisions
• What are the most common objections that ________ buyers have before making a purchase? Show me how to turn each objection into a helpful post.
• What are the stages of the buyer journey in ______? Give me ideas for posts that support each stage and help drive purchases.
• Give me a psychographic profile of buyers in________. What do they care about, what problems do they want to solve, and what motivates them to buy?

The average brand is pushing out 40-80+ posts per month, and using AI to brainstorm is useful for making sure that you are addressing the full range of your audience’s fears, interests, and hopes.

Based on what you discover you can start creating content that speaks to your specific audience within your wider market. The more you can make it your own, the further you get away from producing AI slop, which everyone hates, and will win you zero new human followers.

2. Reach a new audience with Reels

If you are trying to build your follower count, Reels are your ticket to getting in front of more users as fast as possible.

Your regular posts are going to be seen by like 10-20% of your followers (unless you buy ads), but because Instagram wants to compete with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, they will show Reels to non-followers.

If your average post reaches 300 people, your Reel might reach 3,000. YMMV, but why fight against the algorithm? 

At least for now, Reels are the best free way to get in front of people who don’t already follow you.

Here are some technical tips for creating Reels that have a good chance of being viewed, shared, and building your brand:

• Get right to it. Skip the “hey guys” and hook people in the first seconds by jumping right into the payoff.
• Keep Reels under 30 seconds. 90 seconds is the max, but shorter reels tend to perform better.
• Add text overlay to your Reels because most people scroll on mute.
• End with a clear next step that’s reiterated in your description.
• Get rid of watermarks if you use third-party tools like CapCut. Instagram prefers native content.
• Use 3-5 relevant hashtags. Using 30 hashtags looks lame and won’t help the algorithm as much as using few that are really on target.

One thing you will notice is that everyone who has a big following sticks to these guidelines. Here’s a screenshot from a BossBabe Reel featuring founder Natalie Elizabeth Ellis. 

The overlay text of this Reel is “Meta just quietly changed how story visibility works,” which is going to pique the curiosity of anyone who cares about their reach on Instagram. 

Notice that the Reel captures her process (filming herself) while selling the dream (making money in your sweatpants). It’s a well-lit video, but it feels more spur of the moment than overly-edited. This is the kind of “real life” content that plays well on Instagram. 

And check out the description. For people who click through and watch, there is a concise breakdown of exactly what’s offered by the overlay text: how story visibility works after the latest algorithm update. Natalie delivers on her promise, giving her followers real value.

Take a look at popular Reels from other creators in your niche. What’s working for them? What sort of themes and tactics can you repurpose?

If you have never shot video before, get ready for your first few Reels to be a little choppy. Who cares? There is no better way to reach new followers on Instagram, and plenty of creators are finding huge success with Reels that are intimate, unpolished, and raw.

3. Keep a steady posting rhythm 

Every single successful account on Instagram posts consistently. It’s not an accident.

This is important for three reasons. 

One, the algorithms that choose what to display on Instagram are driven by patterns. When you post at a consistent clip, you’re giving the algorithm reliable and fresh data to work with. 

If you let your account go stale or you post sporadically, the algorithms will be more cautious about displaying your new content. The social media management tool Sprout Social has a great post on the Instagram algorithm, how it works, and why consistency is key.

Two, regular posting keeps you top of mind for your audience and builds trust with people who discover your account. People unconsciously associate consistency with reliability, whereas sparse or outdated posts create doubts.

Three, consistent posting is how you get good. It’s what builds your muscles to create, your imagination for what to post, and your knowledge of what’s going to work. Not everything you post is going to be a banger. But you are only going to learn the game if you take a lot of shots.

To make it easy to publish consistently, plan and schedule your posts ahead of time. Build a content pipeline and editorial calendar so you can stay on schedule.

Is it ever possible to post too much?

Yes. Posting lower-quality content just to post isn’t good. If you can only put out 2-4 great posts a week, that’s better than 7 mediocre or repetitive posts.

Keep an eye on your performance metrics. What you don’t want to do is publish a great post and then undercut its performance by publishing something new. You can easily divide your audience’s attention, resulting in lower impressions and likes on both posts.

Find a sustainable, consistent rhythm, and stick to it. Missing a day isn’t the end of the world, but if you go dark for a week, you are going to have to work extra hard to get back to where you were.

4. Post when your audience is active and buying

There’s two steps to this strategy:

• Finding out when your audience is active
• Determining when the highest percentage of people buy 

Once you have more than 100 followers on a professional Instagram account, you can see when your followers are most active on the platform. Open your dashboard, go to Insights, and look for trends over the past month or two.

Figure out when the peak times are, and then schedule posts about 30-60 minutes before the periods of highest activity.

Use trial and error to figure out the best possible times based on what times give you the best engagement consistently.

But don’t stop there, at least if you care about getting more people to buy.

Cross-check your post timing with the web analytics on your site or online store. What times of day are you getting the most sales from Instagram traffic? Is it different on weekends or particular weekdays?

Engagement is awesome, but money in the bank is better, and your Instagram Insights dashboard is not going to tell you when you’re getting the highest conversion rate in your store.

There are lots of confounding variables that influence which posts take off and generate sales. But over time, if you pay attention, you’ll start to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t.

5. Create a bio that makes next step obvious 

Your Instagram bio is your home turf on the platform. It should help a stranger understand immediately:

• Who you are
• What you do
• Why you’re credible
• What they should do next

This last step is where people really struggle. They either don’t present a clear call-to-action (CTA) in their bio, or they have too many links and it’s not obvious what people should do.

Here’s a good example of an Instagram bio from Sharron McKinistrie, a social media strategist who likely has been paid to write hundreds of bios for clients.

Short and sweet, her bio lets you know some of her accomplishments without feeling like LinkedIn. Some things she’s doing well:

• High-resolution, friendly profile picture
• Keywords “social media strategist & marketer” in the name field, which will help her show up for people that care about those topics.
• Less than 25 word bio with a clear CTA, “Follow for the tips you’ve been missing.”
• One visible link to her website
• Her highlights act as a menu for things new visitors would want to see, like Instagram tips and client testimonials

Shannon’s profile establishes who she is and offers a lot more information, yet it doesn’t feel cluttered or overwhelming.

For brands, it’s basically the same game. Here’s the bio for Quince, a wildly successful online retailer that offers premium goods at low prices.

The entire bio, links and all, is about 10 words total. It’s clever enough to be memorable, with concise copywriting that captures the essence of what they offer, “Inexpensive expensive things, accessible to all.”

The Quince Story highlights are basically a navigation menu from a website, offering visitors an easy way to explore categories like Wellness and Fragrance.

I wouldn’t agonize over your bio. Just hit the basics, keep it brief, and be sure to offer visitors a clear way to take the next step. Avoid anything that looks cringy, try-hard, or SEO optimized. 

6. Use Stories strategically

Stories are a great way to build momentum with your existing audience. They are one of the first things that people see when on their Instagram feed, which keeps your brand top of mind.

Since Stories disappear after 24 hours, there is urgency baked in. People hate missing out. It’s a great opportunity to share things that feel timely, newsworthy, honest, and especially time-sensitive deals.

There are lots of built-in editing tools, which is great, but you don’t have to turn every Story into a polished brand asset. A quick self-shot clip, a raw thought, a simple behind-the-scenes moment can help build trust better than anything that looks staged or overproduced.

Some tips for using Stories effectively:

• Post stories regularly (daily or most days)
• Reference posts in your main feed to drive engagement there
• Share tutorials, quick lessons, and other bite-sized how-to content
• Use interactive features like polls and quizzes to increase engagement. 
• Use link stickers, product tags, and countdown timers to drive people directly from the Stories to your store.

And don’t forget to save your best stories as Highlights, which are permanently displayed on your bio. That means they are one of the first things people see when they discover your account. 

You can use Highlights to showcase key content that new visitors want to see, like FAQs, product demos, or customer testimonials and other types of social proof.

7. Collaborations with relevant creators and brands

When you co-author content with a collaborator, Instagram pushes it to both of your audiences. This automatically expands your reach, and the increased engagement from both sets of followers sends a positive signal to the algorithm. 

It’s really a win-win, but only if the new audience cares about what you offer. 

The trick is selecting partners with followers that are going to find value from learning about your account. A fitness coach teaming up with a healthy meal-prep service? That’s great because there is a ton of overlap between their target markets. 

I would definitely focus on relevance over follower count in terms of finding good collaborators. 

A nano influencer (1K-10K followers) who posts about the topics your audience cares about is going to be a dream to work with. They’re probably not swamped in collab requests, which means they’ll be more affordable and less demanding to work with.

It’s tempting to try and work with big follower-count creators and brands, but it’s harder to make it pay off unless you are bringing a similar size audience to the table.

To find good collaborators, search hashtags in your niche and look for accounts with genuine engagement in the comments. You can also look at who your followers are following.

When you reach out, let them know what you admire about their work. Propose a specific project like a Q&A or joint post, and make it obvious why there is value for both of you. 

8. Create a recurring series

This is a great way to build loyalty among your followers and get them to engage consistently. I’m thinking of something like “Monday Q&As” or “Behind-the-Scenes Tuesdays.” It can be anything as long as your audience cares about it and you can sustain production.

It works because you are giving people something to look forward to. If you make the series something enjoyable and valuable, they are going to expect it and be more mindful of keeping up with your account.

The format also gives you a structure to work within, which means you don’t have to start from scratch. Take a new idea and plug it into the recurring format. This makes your life easier.

When people find your brand via the recurring series, they may follow you so as not to miss the next one. 

9. Publish content people want to share

Every share puts your content in front of someone else and their followers. And when your audience pushes something along, the Instagram algorithm sees that as a strong signal that your content is worth showing more people.

So what makes content sharable?

There is no exact science to it, but shareable posts tend to have some common characteristics that hold true across different niches. They are clear, helpful, relatable, and bite-sized. 

Think: quick tips, cheat sheets, checklists, tutorials, memes, and motivational or inspirational quotes.

I used to work for Ramit Sethi, and he and his team have mastered shareable content. People want to share what he posts because he uses clear language, has strong opinions, and delivers instantly usable insights.

Ramit puts a ton of time and effort into creating content that feels vital, exciting, and valuable. Consider this post with more than 15,000 likes and hundreds of comments.

It’s direct, crisp, visually appealing, and aspirational. These are his money rules. You’re not going to find them anywhere else. Originality is another key aspect of shareability. Why would someone share something that’s everywhere already?

Here are some tips for crafting content that’s shareable:

• Say something relatable. Posts that get shared make people think of themselves or someone they know who needs to see it.
• Provide something useful. When you give people a trick, hack, advice, or a simple checklist, they’ll feel like they are helping someone else by sharing.
• Take a stand. Bold, honest opinions that make people stop and think are worth passing on to other people who might agree or disagree strongly.
• Use bright and clean visuals. Don’t make people squint if you want them to share. Large text, high-contrast colors work well in posts. Good lighting and uncluttered backgrounds are perfect for Reels.

Standard Instagram Best Practices for Driving Follower Growth

Let’s go over the basics here. These tactics have worked for years, and while you probably already know most of them, they still matter today. 

Consider this a quick checklist to make sure your Instagram account is covering all the fundamentals.

• Put your Instagram handle everywhere: On your site, email signature, packaging, receipts, newsletters, business cards. Anywhere a potential follower might find you is a good spot.
• Engage on the platform: Like, comment, share, and reply. Be a good community member. Instagram rewards accounts that participate.

• Encourage testimonials: Ask customers to tag you when they purchase. User-generated content is a strong signal for the algorithm and a powerful example of social proof that makes prospective buyers feel confident. 
• Lean into new trends: Participate in trends that fit with your niche. Stay culturally aware and use trending audio when it makes sense. Social listening tools can help you see what’s hot to ensure that you aren’t late to the party.

• Go live: Instagram Live is a great opportunity to answer questions, demo products, and connect with your audience in real time. Once you have 1,000 followers, this is a fun way to build engagement and get pushed to the top of your follower’s feeds. 
• Run contests and giveaways: You don’t want to overdo this (and wind up with an audience who will never buy), but a simple, low-barrier sweepstakes can help you win followers quickly.
• Spur engagement (without begging) Use prompts, questions, and compelling takes to get people to engage. Skip all the desperation plays, like “comment below!!” and let your content naturally invite a response.
• Use Meta Ads: This is the fastest way to get in front of fresh eyes and promote your posts. As long as you have a compelling lead magnet, you won’t need a huge budget to get real results. 

Bad Ideas That Kill Your Follower Growth

Here’s a few strategies that you should stay away from:

• Buying followers: This is against Instagram’s Terms of Service, and you will be penalized if they catch you. Obviously this happens, and some people can get away with it. But it’s not a solid long-term strategy for growing your account, because you live under the threat of being banned. And, let’s be honest, most users can spot accounts with fake engagement. 
• Follow for follow (F4F): Following people so they follow back is a classic trick to inflate your follower count, but it actually kills your account’s potential. Your followers are likely to be random and they’re not going to engage. A low engagement rate is a bad signal, and so is a lower follower-to-following ratio. All of this is going to hurt your performance down the line.
• Copycat content: You should absolutely put your own spin on successful posts you find, but outright copypasta is lame. If you gain any traction with a stolen post, you are likely to get called out, which is not going to help you build a brand or your own reputation.
• Scattered themes: You don’t have to “stay in your lane” 100% of the time, but if you don’t focus on a few major themes in your content, it can confuse both the algorithm and your followers.
• Hashtag overload: When you use a dozen hashtags, it looks silly and spammy. It can also send conflicting signals to the algorithm, which won’t help you increase your reach. 3-5 hashtags max is a good rule of thumb.

These shortcuts and spammy tactics won’t get you where you want to be. 

Getting More Instagram Followers Isn’t Enough

Followers are great, but you could hit a million without ever seeing a dime.

For most creators and brands, Instagram is an amazing channel that puts them in front of new potential customers. It’s the first step in the customer journey where a person becomes aware of their brand and why they should care about it.

Getting followers to take the next step is critical. You need to encourage a meaningful fraction of your followers to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, or make a purchase in your online store.

Instagram follower growth matters, but only when it plugs into a larger system that turns the attention you’ve won into an outcome that impacts your brand’s bottom line. 

Whether Instagram is the top of your ecommerce funnel or the way you generate leads for your business, understanding that entire customer journey will help you craft posts that build the right kind of audience to really grow.