7 tips to get followers on Instagram (and turn them into customers for your online store)

Getting followers on Instagram is no easy task – not at all.
You have to:

• Share lots of high-quality content.
• Interact with your followers on a daily basis.
• Take high-quality photos.

And, worse yet, much of the time that doesn’t even materialize as a big improvement.
Is that your case?
If so, worry not – in this article, we’ll show you some tricks to make your profile more visible to help you capture more followers every day.
Let’s get to it.

7 tips to capture followers on Instagram for your eCommerce (without cheating!)

Cheating is pretty useless in this case. Well, it’s actually quite useful if your goal is for Instagram to detect it and shut your profile down. ?
Instead, we’d like to give you some tips to help your Instagram profile get more followers (and especially those who become customers).
Take note.

✅ 1. Make the most of your company profile

First, make sure you have a company profile on Instagram as opposed to a personal one (we’ll tell you why later).
You can check that by logging into your account: click on “Settings” and then “Account” in the top-right menu (the three stripes).
If the option, “Change to professional account” appears, then you’re using a personal profile.
You’re missing out on lots of tools if you don’t have a professional profile. Here are some examples:

• Track your post performance: It gives you access to statistics (if you have over 100 followers).
• Post ads: Your return on investment will be more profitable. Later, we’ll tell you in detail how and why to promote yourself to get more followers on Instagram.
• Verify your account: This helps to come across as being trustworthy to your followers since they can be sure that the profile belongs to your business. You can activate this function by clicking on Menu > Settings > Account > Request verification (a blue tick will then be shown next to your name).
• Add contact buttons and a CTA (Call to Action): This is particularly useful because Instagram doesn’t allow you to insert links in posts (but you can in your profile description).

Once you’ve made sure you have a professional account on Instagram, complete it with:

• Your brand name: Even though it doesn’t have to be the same as the profile name, it should be as similar as possible.
• A description of your business: Help clients easily identify you.
• Your value proposition: if you still don’t have one, check out this post.
• Your address: Provide a link to your eCommerce and your street address if you own a physical store.
• Your brand hashtag: This is useful for others to identify you and for your followers to be in the loop about what you’re posting.
• A link offering your followers more content: For example, you can use LinkTree, a free tool that allows you to create a customized link in your bio and direct your followers to another website with all the links you want to share.

Here’s an example.
This is the French Galeries Lafayette’s profile:
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Take a look at how it incorporates all the tips we’ve given you (brand hashtag, a link with more content for followers, business description, etc.) to strengthen their brand image.

✅ 2. Share and interact properly and coherently

You need to bear in mind that your Instagram posts should be aimed at your ideal client, that is, your buyer persona.
That’s why all your content should aim to bring value to the followers that could become your clients.
Keeping that in mind will help you determine what content they would find inspiring, exciting, or useful – so much so that they may decide to pop by your website (and make a purchase). 😉 
Here are some ideas to improve interaction:

• Devote time to your followers: Reply to their comments on your timeline, especially when you’ve just posted something.
• Tag and mention your followers: You will generate more engagement as well as give a warm impression to those who aren’t yet your followers.
• Search for other profiles that your buyer persona interacts with: Interact with those profiles in order to gain visibility and get closer to your clients.
• Use sector or location tags (if you own a physical store): You’ll be able to segment the followers you’re looking for with more accuracy.

You’ll come across as a friendly and more “humane” brand –not just as a company that tries to sell at all costs.

✅ 3. Take care of the look of your wall

We’re not simply encouraging you to upload nice pictures with proper copywriting and hashtags but also to create a feed that catches one’s attention right away. 

By feed, we’re referring to the array of images that make up your Instagram profile. That is, the thumbnails you see when you visit a profile without clicking on specific posts.

Don’t forget that Instagram is the most visual social networking site out there since its users give special importance to the images posted.
That’s why having a balanced and harmonious feed:

• Makes you stand out from other “messy” profiles.
• Gives the impression of a robust brand as it shows that you put time and effort into the content you publish.

But do you know how to make your feed flashier and more elegant?
By choosing a defined style for your wall.
There are 5 basic feed styles:

A. Basic

It consists of publishing content that lacks a logical order or defined esthetic. That’s what most people do, so we recommend against it. 

B. Vertical or horizontal lines

It consists of publishing images that form visual lines.
Aldi UK’s feed is the perfect example. They post images in threes so as to create a horizontal line, although each one stands on its own.

C. Chessboard

This method alternates posts to create a mosaic.
That’s what South Beach does as it alternates pictures of their swimsuits with others of beaches or pools.

D. By color

You can choose different shades that you combine into rows or columns, or you can choose a specific tone featured in all posts (your corporate color, for example, following Go To Skin Care’s example).

E. Jigsaw puzzle format

No post is more important than any other. The goal is for the global feed to transmit a strong personality.
Use different picture formats featuring different cropping styles and frames. Toy around with different backgrounds, as done by Takeawei, an online pottery shop. 

Of course, you don’t have to stick to any specific style forever. Combining them is much more effective. You can even change styles to see how your followers respond to them.

➡️ Bonus Trick: How do you know if you’re publishing content in the right order?

One of Instagram’s drawbacks is that the order of the pictures can’t be changed once they’ve been posted.
To avoid mistakes, we suggest that you use an app (like Preview) that allows you to check what your feed will look like on your phone before definitively publishing your content.

✅ 4. Use Instagram stories

Stories are the current craze on Instagram. Do you know what they are?
Instagram Stories are audiovisual content that can’t be longer than 15 seconds and that remain visible for only 24 hours after being posted.
If you still don’t use them, you should start now because 62% of Instagram users admit to becoming interested in a brand after discovering it through one of its stories.
If you don’t know where to start, here’s a full tutorial on how to make Instagram stories to get more followers (and boost your sales).

✅ 5. Get the most out of hashtags in your posts

As we’ve already mentioned, hashtags are a really simple tool to easily get more followers even though most profiles always use the same ones.
And that’s why you shouldn’t settle for the ones the competition uses.
Make a list of the 15 or 20 most suitable hashtags for your profile and alternate them depending on the content of your posts.

✅ 6. Advertise your company with Instagram Ads

Launching an advertising campaign is a simple and very profitable way of capturing followers on Instagram.
Besides, the cost per click of each ad is lower than on other social networking sites.
If you’re after qualified traffic (people who are more likely to end up buying in your eCommerce), check out this post to find out how to design an effective advertising campaign on Instagram.

✅ 7. Promote your posts outside Instagram

It sounds like a total contradiction: get followers on Instagram outside Instagram?
Well, yes – you can share your Instagram profile:

• In your eCommerce.
• As the signature of your newsletter emails.
• In your profiles on other social networking sites.
• As the closing of your blog posts.

The point is for you to attract visitors to your wall so they become followers.
Take a look at the next example.
Rascol, one of our clients, has a specific tab on their homepage to share Instagram posts and to show other posts in which their followers tag them as well. 
It’s a perfect strategy to foster client loyalty. 

One last tip.
Don’t fall victim to the temptation – don’t buy followers. Bought Instagram followers are usually fake profiles, not real followers (let alone clients). 
Also, Instagram is not fond of cheating, so if they catch you, you may have your account shut down. It’s simply not worth the risk.

How many new followers do you think you can get on Instagram?

Now you know some of the tricks to start capturing more followers for your company’s Instagram account, so put them into practice.
Follow our advice and watch just how many of your followers head from your feed over to your online shop (which may materialize in purchases). 😉