The keyword here? Organic. Building a solid Instagram following isn’t a walk in the park and we’ll tell you why: your growth needs to be organic, or it won’t last very long to buy 1000 Instagram followers

What does organic mean in terms of social media?

It means that people found you and followed you because they found you interesting and worth engaging with. It is the opposite of buying followers (sies) or gaining followers through a spam-like follow-for-follow technique. All that leaves you with is a follower base that appears to be a sold-out stadium when, really, you’re talking to empty seats.

Buying followers and likes is a dated technique people use to appear as if they have a large following. Here’s why we suggest you skip this process altogether:

  1. It’s expensive (and not a once-off cost kind of expensive, but continuously expensive)
  2. You’ll be wasting your time churning out content. When you have ghost followers, you’re posting for yourself and yourself only.
  3. You won’t see a boost in engagement.
  4. It won’t bode well for your brand if you’re caught out. It’s very easy to tell when a brand has bought followers and likes because things just don’t add up – how can an account with 22 000 followers only have one comment on every other photo?

That begs the question, how do you get followers who want to engage with your brand?

Internal Research

Before you decide what you’re going to put out, you need to do a scan of what’s going on internally. A watery internal strategy results in a watery social media presence.

Conduct a Social Media Audit

If you’re already on social media, you’re going to evaluate what you’ve done so far. Ask yourself and your team the following,

  1. What profiles are already out there?
  2. What’s working?
  3. What isn’t working?
  4. Who are you currently engaging with?
  5. Is this network/account helping you reach your business goals?

If you already have social media profiles out there, you can get to work on those. Make sure they are updated, have all your relevant information and have been optimised for your audience. Also, make sure they’re the only ones out there. You don’t want any imposter accounts imitating your brand or old, unfinished accounts floating around in social media space. You want to make sure there is one clear touchpoint that is easy for Instagram followers to find.

If you don’t have any social media at all, this step still applies. Instead, you can audit any digital communication you use or use this time to align your business goals with your Instagram strategy. The two aren’t separate and using the one to uplift the other is an integrated, effective approach.