Get Followers on Instagram

How to Get Followers on Instagram in 4 Easy Steps

There’s a reason why so many people are hooked on Instagram and on growing their following. It feels like a game, trying different tactics and watching that number of followers tick up and up and up. It’s a confidence boost, and those Instagram followers can bring financial benefits too, whether you’re marketing for a business or establishing yourself as a paid influencer.

Everyone hits plateaus from time to time, though, or maybe you’re struggling to gain a foothold. How do you grow your number of followers, and, just as importantly, how do you make sure those new followers on Instagram are real followers? Use this tested and trusted four-step method to send your follower stats soaring.

Online Instagram tool for individuals and professionals that will help to significantly grow your followers

Table of Contents:

Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience

Getting more followers, at its core, comes down to putting out the content that people want. Tricks and hacks might help here and there, but it will always come down to content quality above all.

To create content your target audience will love and want to follow, you need to start by defining who your target audience is. Who do you want to appeal to? Who do you want to add as followers?

You can define your audience by factors like age, gender, location, and so on. For example, maybe your target audience is women in their 20s or men in the US who have kids. You can be as broad or specific as you want, but you want to find the sweet spot for your brand. Going too broad means you’ll have a hard time appealing to such a wide range of people, and going too narrow means you’ll limit your growth because there are only so many people who fit those criteria.

From there, go a step further. Browse Instagram and look for accounts that seem to fit into your target audience – women in their 20s or dads in the US, for example. These can be people who already follow you or people who don’t. The more of these accounts you can find, the better – a few can help but, ideally, find up to 100 of them. Keep that list of accounts handy because we’ll use it in the next step.

Snoopreport allows you to get data about what someone likes on Instagram

Step 2: Set Up Snoopreport

Now that you have a picture of who you’re trying to appeal to, kick it into high gear by using a tool called Snoopreport to learn more about these people.

Snoopreport is not your standard Instagram growth service that uses mysterious tactics to rack up followers for you (spoiler alert: those “mysterious tactics” often involve giving you fake followers). Instead, Snoopreport is a tool that lets you track Instagram followers and other Instagram accounts.

In a nutshell, Snoopreport gives you a detailed report of the content that an Instagram user likes. It includes data like the posts they’ve liked, the accounts whose posts they have liked the most, the hashtags that are most common in their liked posts, and the topics they appear to be most interested in based on their Instagram activity. You’ll also be able to see how active the person is on Instagram.

Snoopreport is cost-effective and, just as importantly, quick and easy to set up and use. Follow these steps to get your Snoopreport set up and start using it to grow your Instagram followers:

  1. Sign up for a Snoopreport account. You can do this in a matter of seconds with only your email address.
  2. Purchase the Snoopreport plan you want depending on how many people’s activity you want to analyze. To grow your Instagram followers, we recommend either the small business plan, which lets you track ten accounts at a time, or the professional plan, which lets you track up to 100 accounts at a time.
  3. Add the accounts you want to track: the accounts you have identified as fitting into your target audience. To do this, simply go to your Snoopreport dashboard and click “Add Account.” Type in the account username (located at the very top of the person’s Instagram profile) for the account you want to add and click “Check.” If Snoopreport is able to access the profile, it will show the profile picture and you will be able to click “Add Account.” Repeat this process for all the accounts you identified as fitting into your target audience.

Within a matter of minutes, you can have your Snoopreport account in action and gathering intel for you.

Thanks to the fact that you will know who users follow, you will also be able to increase the number of your own followers

Step 3: Gather Insights About the Content Your Target Audience Likes

Once you have your Snoopreport set up and you’ve added all the accounts you want to track, you’ll start receiving a weekly activity report on each tracked account. That report will be packed with data about that person’s Instagram activity for the week: the posts they liked, the most common hashtags in their liked posts, topics of interest based on their liked posts, activity level, and so on.

This is where the real fun starts. Review these reports and look for patterns among your target audience members. What types of content do they seem to be liking most often? Do they seem to give more attention to videos, photos, or other content formats? What types of filters and aesthetic styles seem to appeal to them most? What hashtags frequently appear on their top hashtags lists?

There probably won’t be stark and consistent answers, like posts that are exclusive to a particular category or mood, but you should be able to get a feel for some of the most common threads in the content that is popular among your target audience. Take notes of the key patterns you’re noticing

The report on liked hashtags allows you to get valuable insights about the tracked user

Step 4: Create Content Aligned with Your Audience

Thanks to your Snoopreport data, you now have a much better picture of the types of content your target audience enjoys most. It’s time to put it to use, and this is where your follower growth will really kick in.

Start creating content that aligns with your findings from your Snoopreport data. For instance, maybe you’ve found that your target audience responds well to posts that have a snarky sense of humor, and you can start infusing that type of humor into your posts. Or maybe you’ve discovered that posts with a particular bright, airy look seem to catch their eye, or that they love empowering, inspirational posts.

Incorporate those types of content into your posts in a way that remains true to your brand voice. Then, enjoy watching your Instagram followers increase and know that you’re building a following that will last.

Keep in mind that your audience’s tastes, like anyone’s tastes, will change with time. This is why it’s so helpful that Snoopreport works on a subscription basis and continues to give you weekly reports on each tracked account as long as you choose. Continue to review these reports each week to look for shifting patterns so you can adjust your content for the week accordingly.

Instagram activity tracker provides accurate data about user interests

The Caveat: Creating a Strong Strategy to Get Instagram Followers

The four-step process above is a tried and true way to gain followers in the most organic, lasting way: by creating content that appeals to your target audience. That’s what it comes down to, plain and simple.

It’s important to note, though, that if you want to give yourself the best, strongest Instagram following possible, you can’t rely on any one strategy for gaining followers. It’s best to have a comprehensive growth strategy that incorporates several tactics.

 For example, you can supplement the four-step process above with techniques like these:

  • Run Instagram ads targeted toward gaining followers.
  • Launch contests that award drawing entries to new followers, people who like and share your post, or people who tag other people in your post.
  • Run an incentive for reaching a certain follower number, like advertising that you’ll have a giveaway or release a special behind-the-scenes video if you reach a certain number of followers by a certain date.
  • Engage with other content creators whose target audiences overlap with yours so you can get in front of more users, or, better yet, post collaborations with other content creators.
  • Cross-market yourself by telling your followers on Facebook, Snapchat, and other platforms about your Instagram page.
  • Post frequently and consistently, because the more posts you publish, the more opportunities there are for your posts to appear on users’ news feeds or recommendations.
  • Publish several types of content, like reels, stories, posts, IGTV videos, and so on so you capture users who prefer each of these types of content.
  • Use an unfollower tracker tool to see your “unfollowers” on Instagram so you can see what types of users you’re losing.

Each of these techniques can contribute to an overall healthy, growing Instagram following.

Starting Your Journey to Gain Followers on Instagram

Your path to thousands (or millions) of Instagram followers can begin today, and getting started is easier than you think. Use the four-step process above and get started with Snoopreport to begin optimizing your content for effective, reliable follower growth.

Instagram search

How Instagram Search Works — Cheat the Algorithms

Being visible in search results is one of the top ways to build your visibility on Instagram, but that’s easier said than done. In the same way that Google and other search engines have their algorithms to decide what to show when a user conducts a search, Instagram has its own search algorithms.

So how do you get your account to the top of search results in Instagram user search results? Let’s dig into the Instagram search algorithm and how you can coax it to send users in your direction.

Brief data about user’s activity that will help you to cheat Instagram search algorithms

Table of Contents:

How Instagram Search Works

Before you can strategize for getting to the top of Instagram search results, you need to understand how Instagram’s algorithm works so you know what it’s looking for. Just like Google and other search engines, Instagram uses its own search criteria to prioritize accounts and posts that best suit a user’s search.

Fortunately, Instagram has been somewhat transparent about its search algorithm. According to the company, there are three key factors its algorithm uses:

  • Keyword text
  • User activity
  • Popularity

Let’s look at each of those in a bit more detail.

See who likes who using an online Snoopreport tracker

Keywords

This is the most straightforward and expected part of Instagram’s search algorithm. When a user types a keyword or search term into the search box, Instagram prioritizes posts and accounts that fit that topic or query best.

User Activity

When a user conducts a search on Instagram, Instagram’s goal is to show that user the results they’re most likely to enjoy. After all, Instagram’s performance as a business depends on its users’ satisfaction. For that reason, Instagram shows search results that are catered to the individual user.

Instagram knows what accounts the user follows and what types of content they tend to view and engage with most often. It uses that activity history to determine which posts and accounts are most likely to appeal to this user’s interests.

Popularity

As we mentioned, in every search, Instagram wants to prioritize the results that the user is most likely to enjoy. Part of the criteria it uses is the popularity of your posts or your account. Instagram assumes that if an account has ten million followers, it’s more likely to have high-quality content than an account that has ten followers.

Why Try to Understand the Instagram Search Algorithms?

Think back to your school days. If you wanted to get a good grade on a project, remember what a relief it was when the teacher gave you their grading rubric. It’s so much easier to perform better when you know exactly what the evaluator is looking for and what is expected of you.

Think of the Instagram algorithm as the grading rubric as you try to make your posts or your account more visible in search algorithms. Understanding the algorithm tells you exactly what factors you need to appeal to in order to land those coveted top spots in the search results. For influencers and marketers, or anyone else who wants to boost their Instagram views, understanding the algorithm is immensely helpful.

How to check who someone recently followed on Instagram 2022?

Top Ways to Hack the Algorithms

Unlike those old-school days, there’s really no way to “cheat” the Instagram algorithm. It’s all about working with the algorithm to make your content fit its criteria so your content appears higher in search results.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to do this. Follow these top tips and strategies for better search performance.

Get a Glimpse of Your Target Audience’s Instagram Activity

Much of Instagram’s algorithm relies on how well your content appeal to the searcher. You can’t appeal to every user, but one of the best tools you can give yourself is the insight into the activity of your target audience. By seeing what your target audience members are liking, viewing, and interacting with, you can craft content that appeals to their tastes.

Bad news: that data isn’t publicly presented. Good news: there’s still a way to gather great intel. Snoopreport is a tool that was designed specifically for this purpose.

Here’s how to put it to use:

  1. Define your target audience. Maybe you want to appeal to users of a particular gender, age range, location, marital status, or other qualities. Determine who you’re trying to attract or determine segments and prioritize them. For instance, maybe you primarily want to appeal to women between ages 20 and 34, then men ages 20 to 34, then women ages 35-50, and so on.
  2. Find some Instagram users who fit into those target groups. For Snoopreport’s purposes, you can identify up to 100 users you want to study. If you’re wanting to target a few different segments, make sure to focus most of those users in your top-priority segment. For example, you could identify 50 accounts of women ages 20-34, 30 accounts of men ages 20-34, and 20 accounts of women ages 35-50. You can do this with a simple Instagram profile search, by checking out the users who follow your competitors, or through other strategies.
  3. Sign up for a Snoopreport account.
  4. Purchase a Snoopreport plan depending on the number of Instagram users you want to study – up to 100 users.
  5. Enter each of the profiles you want to study into your Snoopreport account.
  6. That’s it! Each week, you’ll get a report for each of those users. It will tell you what posts they’ve liked, what accounts’ posts they’ve likely most often, what topics seem to interest them most, and more. Keep in mind that you don’t have to have an Instagram account to use Snoopreport, so once you have these reports, you can review these Instagram search users by name without an account on Instagram.

It can take time to identify the users you want to follow, but once you do, the rest is easy and time-effective, allowing you to gather informative data without scouring Instagram for hours.

Boost Your Keyword Game

Keywords are a major part of the Instagram search algorithm. The goal is for your content to include keywords that relate to a high number of searches so your account appears more often in search results.

Of course, you don’t have a crystal ball to predict what anyone will search for, but you can make educated guesses. Instagram often sees a high number of searches for posts related to popular topics that are being talked about at the time. This can include holidays, news stories, major events like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, and so on. As you craft your content, try to incorporate current hot topics.

Find Out the Top Hashtags for Your Target Audience

Hashtags are a critical part of Instagram’s platform, and that includes its search algorithm. As we mentioned, Instagram prioritizes search results that are similar to the content the user seems to like, and that includes hashtags. As often as possible, you want your content to include hashtags that are popular among your target audience.

Snoopreport comes to the rescue here again. When you get a weekly Snoopreport on a user you’re studying, one of the pieces of data you’ll see is the list of most common hashtags in the posts they like. Look for patterns among the users you’re studying to see which hashtags you should have in your posts more often. You can collect even more intel on hashtags when you do an Instagram search for users by name for your top competitors because you can see what hashtags they use often.

Keep in mind that hashtags have to be relevant in posts but they don’t have to be on the nose. For example, if you’re a fashion influencer, you can include #fashioninfluencer even in posts that aren’t about fashion because they were still posted by a fashion influencer.

Hashtags are a key tool to understanding the work of Instagram algorithms

Explore Related Top Hashtags

Another way to find great hashtags to include in your posts is to do an Instagram hashtag search for the top hashtags for a given topic. For example, let’s say you’re posting about an upcoming charity event. On the Instagram app, search for “charity event” and then go to the “Tags” tab of your results. This shows you some of the most used hashtags related to charity events.

Keep in mind that Instagram lets you include up to 30 hashtags in a regular post and up to 10 hashtags in a story. If you don’t hit those numbers, you’re leaving opportunities on the table.

Look for Ways to Encourage Post Interaction

The more popular your posts are, the more likely they are to appear at the top of Instagram finder or Instagram search results. One way to make your posts look highly popular is to get more engagement on them with more likes and comments.

Sure, you can’t make likes appear out of thin air, but there are ways to increase them. Look for ways to incentivize or otherwise encourage people to engage with your posts. You could post a question in your caption, for example, which invites people to comment with their answers. You could also offer incentives like a prize drawing for everyone who likes a particular post.

Track Instagram interests of any user with a public profile with Snoopreport tool

Improving Your Instagram Search Performance

Whether you’re trying to boost your business as an influencer, spread visibility for your brand, establish yourself as a thought leader, or just grow your Instagram following for your own purposes, you can “hack” Instagram search results with the strategies above. If you’re eager to jump in and start reaping the rewards, sign up for a Snoopreport account today.