The Ultimate Guide: Get Instagram 10K Followers In 2023

Have you been running your Instagram account but not seeing any growth lately? This is something many of you would want to change. Instagram, like other social media platforms, runs on many algorithms. These algorithms push your content and this is how certain accounts go viral and some don’t. Now, you and I obviously cannot see the algorithms running in the background. However, what you can do is understand the basics and use the algorithms to your advantage. Here I would try to present a comprehensive guide to getting 10K Instagram followers to your account in 2023.

The Ultimate Guide To Getting 10K Instagram Followers

Here are a few strategies and ways that you can try to get that boost in your Instagram account. We will start with some easy and basic strategies to some complex strategies in this article.

These strategies do not aim to provide you with an instant boost. These strategies done consistently have proven to give you long-term benefits over a course of a few months. Unlike other articles, I do not mean to give false hope to my readers. There are simply no shortcuts 🙂

1. Set Your Account Basics Correctly

When you create an account on Instagram, you are one individual. But you should realize that this platform has millions of users and another million trying to create an account on a daily basis. So, what is the context here? It means that you should set up your Instagram account correctly with properly filled information. This may seem not useful to many, but it is!

Instagram is not checking any profile manually. They have algorithms running and scanning for real profiles. Why would Instagram push or promote the content of a profile it thinks is fake? So, you need to set certain settings in your account that will help you in the long run.

Have a clean profile picture. Preferably including your own face or brand logo.

Put your relevant contact details in the phone or email. They should be active at all times.

Write a short bio to explain what people can expect from your account. As a user, one should be able to understand what you post even without looking at your posts.

Link your other social media profiles. It builds credibility and proves you are not a bot.

2. Get Your Base Followers Ready

There is no use in targeting 10K Instagram followers if you do not set up your base followers correctly. These are the followers you know personally and would like to support your content. These are your family members, colleagues, relatives, friends, or acquaintances. You need to get these people to follow your Instagram account first.

Once you get them to follow, use their network. Word of mouth does work in any scenario. If they are following you as a friend, their friends might also have a look and tap on the follow button.

3. Study Your Competitors

Before you start posting your content, you need to ensure it is valuable for your users. No one is free enough to follow someone if he gets the same content from some previous account they already follow. It is the harsh truth. This is how competition works. Unless you provide something unique or better, you have no chance to gain followers.

This is where you study your competitors. Here are a few ways to do it.

Prepare a list of competitors with not more than 5K followers

Analyze their content type and the format they use the most – posts, reels, or IGVT.

Track how consistent they are. Maybe some accounts post daily, some post weekly, or some after every 2 days.

Check how old the account is. You can go to their profile, then the top right corner for three dots. Select the “About This Account” section. This is important to know how many months/years have been since they joined this platform.

Correlate the information in the above point with point number 3. You can then know when they started becoming consistent and how many months/years took them to get a certain amount of followers.

All the above information can get you a clear picture of what your competitors are facing. You will get a reality check that not every account gets 10K followers out of the blue. Those accounts are rare and won’t happen with everyone.

4. Decide The Content-Type

Now that you have a basic understanding of what your competitors are doing, you are good to start posting. Think about what content can you provide that will add value to your followers. There are 3 ways in which you can do this.

Create what others aren’t creating at the moment. This is what is usually known as the first movers’ advantage. Even if the quality is not that superior, you are the first to post it. You would surely make your mark.

The next thing you can do is do what others are doing but in a better format. What looks better tends to attract more people. Invest in video editing and lighting. This is old school but still effective. What would the user choose? The same content is in great lighting and video format or in poor lighting with low-quality video. Sometimes, you can make even the generic content piece high-quality only by choosing the right format and editing skills.

5. Consistency Is The King

You analyzed your competitors and got to know how often they post. You need to be posting often as well. Consistency is the most underrated aspect of growing anything in a positive direction. The Instagram algorithms do support accounts that are posting on a regular basis. This helps Instagram know that you are regularly pushing and using their platform. It somehow fits well in their algorithms.

Decide your posting schedule according to what you can adhere to. Do not start posting daily if you cannot keep up. Remember, you need to post in a timeframe that is manageable at your end without skipping. You can post daily, weekly, or every 3 days, depending on how well you can be consistent with it.

6. Choose The Right Hashtags

Hashtags are the weapons that will win you war and not just battles. They are so powerful yet people don’t use them to their full potential. You will see most people copy/paste the same set of hashtags for similar posts. This is where they go wrong and miss out on their content growth. Hashtags keep on changing depending on how your niche is performing on Instagram. The same set of hashtags may be relevant this week but may be useless in the coming week.

Now, the question arises as to how to choose the right hashtags for your content.

Choose hashtags that are not flooded with posts. Maybe a hashtag between 10K to 50K posts.

Use a range of hashtags. Use 2-3 hashtags below 10K posts, 2-3 hashtags above 10K but below 20K posts, and so on.

As your account is not yet recognized out there, you need less competition until your account’s reach is optimized.

7. Why Compete When You Can Collaborate

Growth is not always about competition. It is about collaboration too. There are many content creators related to your niche already on the platform. Do your research and find some people who are just starting out or maybe gained a few good followers. Just hit them in a DM for collaboration. Most people are happy to collaborate. The reason is simple. It helps to grow the accounts of everyone involved in the collaborations. Moreover, when Instagram sees a few people in the same post – it does make a difference!

8. Take Advantage Of Remixing Reel

Many of us focus on creating our own reels and posts. This is obviously a great way to move forward. However, since Instagram has launched the feature to remix a reel we should take advantage of it. Remixing Instagram reels is a great way to collaborate with people and help two accounts grow together.

When you remix a reel with someone, you are adding to their content. Instagram algorithms analyze this and label it as a positive metric for your account. Moreover, it would help you spread your content using someone else’s reach as well. Try putting remixed reels once in a while to take advantage of this feature. If you do not want to post your single content, remixing reels all the way can also help. There are many accounts in which you can only see reels that are remixed. They hardly post stuff without remixing with others. But to be on the safer side, have a mixed batch of both. Post your own content and remix with others too.

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