What’s the secret to gaining hundreds, even thousands, of new Instagram followers in a single day? Is it even possible?
The answer to your second question is a resounding YES! And the answer to your first question is this: getting on the Instagram Explore page.
The Explore page is an incredibly powerful feature of Instagram, one that can help you gain a MAJOR boost to your exposure with minimal effort if you can get one of your posts to land on it. Its main function is to show all the users of Instagram the kind of content that they like the most.
In this article, we’re going to dive into the 5 key steps you need to take in order to land your post on the Explore page, and reap the benefits:
1. Create High Quality Content (with Viral Potential)
First thing’s first, in order to get on the Explore page, your content is going to have to be up to snuff. Instagram wants to give people amazing content that they love and engage with, and you’re going to have to provide it! In order to go viral, you’ll need to compose an image or video that captures attention and gets people to click that heart button.
The best way to find out what that content looks like is to see what other successful people are doing. Look at some bigger accounts in your niche, and analyze what they’re posting. What kind of content is getting the most likes? The most comments? Which videos are blowing up and getting tens of thousands of views? You’re going to want to look for the posts that do exceptionally well in comparison to the majority, and learn from them.
2. Post When Your Audience is Most Active
Since you need a ton of engagement to reach Explore, posting when your followers are online is essential. Posting at peak times will gain you more engagement per post than when you post at times when everyone is sleeping or busy at work. Engagement from your audience is most potent in boosting your post when it comes soon after you post your image or video.
In order to find your best times to post, look no further than the analytics section of your Instagram business account. If you don’t have this yet or are looking for other options, you can use Iconosquare or Ink361 to get the job done.
3. Include a Call-to-Action in the Caption
How do you get more people to like and comment on your post? You ask them to! Instagram is all about interaction, so writing a good caption is essential to getting people engaged and enticing them to click that heart button or post that comment in reply.
By including a call-to-action in your caption, you can prompt your followers to take some sort of action. Ask them a question, tell them to tag a friend who might also like the content, or let them know that they can follow the link in your bio for a freebie.
Talk to your audience, and they’ll talk back. The more people you can get involved in the conversation, the better—this is key in boosting your engagement enough to land your post on the Explore page.
4. Use Your Best Hashtag Strategy
Posts with hashtag get more engagement on average than those without, so leave them out of your Explore page strategy at your own peril!
Since people can enter hashtags into the search bar, they are the best way to get your content discovered by new audiences. Keep your hashtags niche specific, so you only attract people interested in your topic and who are most likely to engage.
5. Utilize Your Network
Now this one’s the kicker! Of all the steps mentioned so far, this one is the most important and most powerful in getting your content on Instagram’s Explore page.
You already know that you need to get a lot of likes and comments to get on Explore. So get your friends together, your competitors, or just a group of other ambitious Instagrammers and work together to boost each others’ posts.
Success on Instagram is all about connections. I can’t stress this enough. Teamwork is key. Instagram is a social network after all, so use it to your advantage! Growing is a heck of a lot more fun when you do it along with other people, working together and encouraging each other on your way to success.
Concluding Thoughts
To sum it all up, the more engagement you get on your posts, the more people will see it and the better your chance of getting on the Explore page where even more people will see your post. This is great free advertising for you and your business, so we highly recommend aiming high and going for it! The results can be incredible, when you get thousands of new people interested and interacting with you and your brand.
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