WHO SHOULD YOU FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM?

Are you feeling frustrated as you try to grow your Instagram following? The best way to grow your Instagram Followers is to ensure you are following a reasonable amount of accounts as well. Here is your guideline on who and how to follow on Instagram sprinkled with a don't.

Follow Brands In Your Industry
• Find and follow companies or brands in your industry that use Instagram well. Observe how well they engage with their Instagram community. You also want to be aware of the methods you may or not want to incorporate in your account.

Follow Your Customers
• Sometimes that is. If your customers are truly devoted fans who engage with you and share your content, then it is definitely worth it. However, if the content they post is not similar to what you post or is inappropriate then there is no reason to follow them back.

Affiliation
• If you are connected to or partnered with a business or organization then following them is a great way to show solidarity and support.

Follow Accounts That Interest You
• And it's ok. Even though you have a brand or business Instagram account it is YOUR account. If there are accounts that share content you love then follow them. Use your account to follow family and friends too.

Follow Your Target Audience - Yes It Is Possible
• Are you looking for dentists in Toronto? Type in #torontodentist in the search area of Instagram and search the 3062 posts for potential clients. Or how about real estate agents in Mississauga? Type #mississaugarealestate and pull up 6887 posts. Take note that as you type in keywords in the Instagram search bar, other examples come up as well.

Follow Tip
• When you follow your niche from your phone a drop down of who they are following appears. Most likely it may be the same audience you are searching for. You can quickly verify by checking those accounts.

Who You Shouldn't Follow
• Be careful and aware when it comes to following others. Their accounts should have a complete bio, relevant or real photos, a month old and engagement.
Follow everyone and you may find your account open to spam. Also you will find yourself following accounts that followed you to inflate their own followers only to unfollow you after (so not cool).
Don't follow when others ask you to engage in the "follow for follow plan". Most likely those accounts will not engage with your brand and will bring no value to your account.

And Do Not... follow then unfollow. It's just not nice and it's so uncouth. A large following is fabulous but if they don't engage with you, share your content or support your brand... is it really worth it? Use Instagram to build relationships.

That being said... It may come up that you may want to unfollow someone at a later point because of a change in direction with their posts. Admittedly, I have followed people only to unfollow them at some later date. Their content changed and evolved in a different way that I didn’t love.
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Did you find this post helpful? Do you have additional tips? Share in the comments below.