Note: many of the methods described below can be performed by our growth tool AiGrow. That includes targeted Liking, following, commenting, and DMing. Additionally, scheduling and posting content for days, weeks and months ahead from your desktop. And also managing your DM inbox from your desktop, and joining or creating engagement groups to get more real comments and Likes on your posts.

Click here to sign up for AiGrow free and try it for yourself.

How to Get 10K Followers on Instagram with Targeted Engagement

Let’s say you are a 20-something woman from Toronto who runs an Instagram page for your pet dog named Porkchop.

Who do you think is more likely to follow Porkchop’s Instagram page:

• a self-employed landscaper from Minnesota who only posts promotional pictures of his company’s work, or…
• a fellow dog owner from Toronto who regularly posts pictures of her dog’s daily life.

9/10 times, the dog owner from Toronto is more likely to follow your dog’s Instagram page than the landscaper from Minnesota.

This is because the other dog owner fits your target audience perfectly. Not only does she have similar interests as you (pet dogs). But she is also from the same area as you (Toronto).

Of course, this is only one example. Not everyone has a cute puppy named Porkchop to post on Instagram.

How do you get your Instagram content in front of people who fit your target audience? And therefore who are likely to follow you, no matter what kind of Instagram page you have?

Easy – with the right hashtags and location-tagging.

People express their interests on Instagram primarily through hashtags.

For example, a quick search on Instagram for the hashtag #corgipuppy shows 1,821,172 results.

For every post tagged with #corgipuppy, there is someone interested in corgis who posted it.

If you run an Instagram page having to with Corgis. Then it would make sense to get the attention of these people posting the hashtag #corgipuppy and direct their attention towards your Instagram page.

But let’s forget dogs all together for a second…

Here are three steps anyone on Instagram can use to find people who are likely to be interested enough in what you do to follow you:

1. Think of three main keywords related to your Instagram page
2. Search these keywords on Instagram and write down all the major hashtags that result from your search
3. Explore each of these hashtags one-by-one and scroll down to the “Recent Posts” area
4. Engage with as many posts in the “Recent Posts” area as possible and contact the users behind the posts

Note: You can also repeat these steps with location! (i.e you can search a location on Instagram. Take note of all the geotags that result. And also engage with users using those geotags)

How do you “engage” with these people?

The main ways to get the attention of these people are:

• Liking their posts
• Commenting on their posts
• DMing them
• Following their page

Easier forms of engagement are Liking and Following.

Commenting and DMing can take more time and consideration. Plus, if the users you are DMing are not already following you, you risk them not even seeing your DM.

When the people behind the posts you engage with see your engagement, there is a good chance they will return the favor with a Like, comment, or Follow of their own.

The best way to engage

You can certainly perform all of the steps above manually and engage with posts one-by-one.

However, this can be extremely time-consuming.

The quickest and most effective way to engage with your target audience is with smart automation.

With a tool like AiGrow, for example, you can automatically Like, comment, follow,  and DM Instagram users based on the hashtags they use, where they’re located, and what Instagram pages they follow.

This way you can take the hashtags from your research above, give it to AiGrow. And sit back as you automatically Like, comment, follow and DM only Instagram users who fit your target audience. So, as a result, drive people to your Instagram page who are likely to convert to followers.

How to Get 10K Followers on Instagram with Smart DMs

There are a million ways you can use Instagram DMs to help get you to 10K followers on Instagram.

But let’s keep things simple in an easy way.

Let’s say you are a personal trainer who posts pictures of people’s before-and-afters as motivation.

You can use Instagram DMs as a way to not only produce content for your page. But also as a way to quickly generate followers.

Here’s how:

1. You craft a DM congratulating people on their progress so far and explain how you’d love to share their story on your page as motivation
2. To explain in your DM that in order to get posted, people have to follow your page and tag their post with your branded hashtag
3. You perform some hashtag research to find out what hashtags your target audience is using (using the steps described in the first section) and begin sending out DMs only to people using those hashtags

Using Instagram DMs this way, you also get the added benefit of people tagging you in their posts. The more people tag you in their posts, the larger your reach on Instagram becomes.

You can send these DMs manually. But to really ramp up the followers, you can use a tool like AiGrow to automatically send hundreds of targeted DMs a day.

Although you’re essentially saying the same thing in every DMs, AiGrow allows you to create multiple versions of the same DM to avoid coming off as spammy.

For example, look at the following message:

Hey {username}! Couldn’t help but {notice | appreciate} your fitness {progress | gains} recently! Would {love | really like} to share your motivation with my audience. If you’re interesting, shoot me a message 🙂

Every DM that is sent using this format will change according to the username of the recipient. Not only that. But every sentence will randomly change according to the options in the brackets.

For example, one DM will read “Couldn’t help but notice…” while another will read “Couldn’t help but appreciate…”, and so on.

Pretty cool, huh?

Using the tactics above, you can easily use Instagram DMs to help propel you closer to your 10K follower goal.

How to Get 10K Followers on Instagram with Effective Scheduling

Did you know that 95 million photos and videos are posted to Instagram every day?

With this in mind, you want to make sure that the people who are actually interested in your content get to see it.

While people on Instagram primarily see only posts from people they already follow on their feeds, there are plenty of situations where people can discover content posted by someone they’re not already following.

For example, plenty of people follow hashtags.

When you follow a hashtag, posts using that hashtag show up on your feed like any other normal post.

If you tag your content correctly, this is a great opportunity to get your content in front of interested eyes and cover those eyes to followers.

The trick is knowing when your target audience is online and posting during that time.

If you know that the majority of your target audience is 9 to 5 workers, then you would want to schedule your posts for times throughout the day when these workers are on their way to and/or from work, as well when they are on breaks.

This is because a 9 to 5 worker is much more likely to be on their phone during their commutes and breaks than during working hours.

In this example, you would want to schedule your posts for 8 AM, 12 PM, and/or after 5 PM because you have the highest chance of interested eyes seeing your posts.

While you can usually get a good idea of when your target audience is online just by thinking logically about it, if you have a business profile on Instagram, Insights on Instagram will give you a more accurate idea of exactly when your audience is online.

The more followers you gain, the more accurate Instagram Insights become.

What if I can’t post at these opportune times?

Due to sleep, lack of access to your device, and a thousand other reasons, not everyone is going to be able to post at these opportune times.

That’s where an Instagram scheduling tool like AiGrow comes in.

If you know when the best time to post is but you know you won’t be able to post at that actual time, then you can schedule your post in advance using AiGrow.

You can:

• upload photos, videos, and multi-photo/multi-video albums
• post across multiple Instagram accounts at the same time
• write captions with spintax (multiple versions of the same caption if you are posting across multiple accounts)
• post your hashtags as a comment
• find the most popular hashtags related to your post
• tag your post with a location
• post immediately or at a specific date and time

With the right tools, you can significantly increase your chances of getting your content in front of your target audience when it matters most – when they’re online.

How to Get 10K Followers on Instagram with Engagement Groups

Unfortunately, not every single one of your followers is going to see your posts.

In fact, thanks to an Instagram algorithm, the majority of them won’t.

Because of this, you might have 1,000 followers. But only 10 or 20 Likes on every post.

Not only is this a punch in the gut to you, but it also doesn’t look good for potential followers visiting your page.

When someone sees that you have 1,000 followers but hardly any engagement on your posts, it can raise some red flags.

Did this person buy their followers? Do her followers just not care about what she’s posting?

To avoid raising these red flags in potential followers and visitors to your page, in addition to the number of followers, it’s important to have a healthy engagement rate.

You want to signify to anyone looking in that the people who have decided to follow your page are happy with the decision they made, which they show in the form of leaving Likes and comments on your posts.

How do I counteract Instagram’s algorithm?

One way to counteract Instagram’s algorithm and get the engagement your posts deserve is with Instagram engagement groups.

Engagement groups are groups of people on Instagram who agree to Like and comment on every post uploaded to Instagram by a group member.

For example, Tom and Sarah are in an engagement group together. Then every time Tom uploads a new post, Sarah will Like and/or leave a comment on Tom’s post.

Whenever Sarah uploads a post, Tom will return the favor and leave a Like and/or comment on her post.

As engagement groups continue to grow, members can expect hundreds, if not thousands of additional Likes and comments on every single post they upload.

Finding engagement groups

There are a couple of ways to find and join Instagram engagement groups.

Joining Instagram engagement groups can be as simple as reaching out to similar channels on Instagram and asking if they belong to or are aware of any engagement groups that are accepting new members.

For example, if you are a travel photographer with 10,000 Instagram followers, you would want to reach out to other travel photographers on Instagram with around 10,000 followers.

You can do this manually by reaching out to channels one-by-one, or with the help of automated DM tools like AiGrow, described above.

Another option is Google:

• Instagram Engagement Groups 2020
• IG Engagement groups list
• Instagram pods to  join

Any of these searches will provide possible engagement groups for you to join.

While any engagement group will help you get engagement for your posts, it can look suspicious if most of your comments come from Instagram users completely outside the theme of your channel.

This is why you should join theme-specific engagement groups. This way, all engagement you receive is coming from people who are actually involved in your industry and therefore looks more natural under your posts.

If you want to narrow down your search to theme-specific groups, here are some popular searches:

• Instagram pods for photographers
• IG pods for artists
• Instagram pods for business

Or you can simply search “Instagram engagement groups/Instagram pods/ for *your theme*“.

Your second option is automated Instagram engagement groups

As effective as Instagram engagement groups are, finding the right one for your Instagram page, going through the process to actually join pods, and maintaining your presence in multiple pods on a daily basis can all get a little tiring.

This is especially true if your pods are full of leechers. Leechers are people who receiving engagement from all other members but who don’t return the favor and engage back. If you’re going to put in the effort to Like and comment on everyone else’s posts, you want to ensure that you’re getting the best ROI possible.

To help solve the issues above and make your life a whole lot easier, you can use automated Instagram engagement groups by AiGrow.

With these automated groups, you no longer have to worry about long application processes or pods full of leechers.

You can join or create the perfect Instagram engagement group for your Instagram page from one dashboard, upload and schedule your Instagram post from your desktop using AiGrow’s Instagram scheduler. And then sit back and watch as all members of your pods begin automatically Liking and commenting on your posts.

With the help of Instagram engagement groups, you can rest assured that you maintain a healthy follower-to-engagement ratio as you grow to 10k followers on Instagram.

Conclusion

So there you have it – four top-level tactics you can use right now to propel your way to 10K followers on Instagram.

Many of the most effective tactics explored above, namely creating an editorial calendar, scheduling your posts, engaging with the right people, and maintaining a healthy engagement rate with the help of engagement groups, can be completely handed off to or more effectively performed by a tool like AiGrow.

This way, you can focus on the stuff that matters most – creating the best possible content for your growing follower base.

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