How to Get Your First 1000 Followers on Instagram

It is no secret that Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, but did you know that the platform’s monthly 1.32 billion active users make up 25% of the total internet users worldwide? 

 

The fantastic reach potential Instagram offers marks it as an excellent platform for content creators and brands to grow and widen their audience. You can probably guess that, unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that starting your Instagram journey from zero will be a smooth and seamless process. 

 

After Instagram introduced Reels, the platform has become more dynamic than ever. So much so that saying that we start every week with a new Instagram trend popping up on our Explore page wouldn’t be an exaggeration! 

 

When new feature releases and an algorithm that consistently updates itself for better user experience are added on top of that, keeping up with these changes and foreseeing which tactics will work for a new account become the mutual concerns of every content creator who has recently entered the Instagram marketplace. 

 

The good news is, establishing a solid audience for your personal or commercial brand on Instagram and hitting 1000 followers becomes less of a challenge once you get a grasp of how Instagram works. Just think about the Explore page on your personal account for a minute. There has to be a reason why Instagram is showing you the type of content you enjoy seeing, right? 

 

Well, that’s because Instagram is constantly working to personalize and enhance every user’s social media experience. So, when you are on the creative side of things, understanding the metrics that determine 

 

• who will see a post you shared,
• when they will see it, 
• and how you can lead them to interact with it

will help you encourage your target audience to hit that follow button to get your first 1000 followers on Instagram. Read on to find out more about how you can reach the 1000 milestone!

If there is something more important than getting your first 1000 followers on Instagram, it is getting 1000 followers who will stick with you along the way. 

 

Here are 13 steps to getting your first 1000 Instagram followers who follow you for your brand’s unique content. Let’s begin!

If you have been searching for Instagram growth tips for a while now, you might have heard the term “niching down” and how important it is to attract your target audience, especially on Instagram, in comparison to YouTube or TikTok.

 

A niche is a specific area of topic you want to cover in your content, and when it is combined with the kind of value you want to offer your audience, it basically becomes the thing you are known for on Instagram. 

 

For example, lifestyle blogging is usually not considered a niche because you can talk about fashion, food, traveling, studying, fitness, etc. - you get the idea. So, if your content is only about fashion, then your niche is fashion, and if you are posting specifically about European street style fashion, you’re niching down a lot more. 

 

You might have lots of interests in your personal life, but if your focus is on having your first 1000 followers on Instagram and how to get more followers in the long run, picking a niche will work wonders for reaching out to your target audience. 

 

When Instagram knows what your content is about, it shows your content to people who enjoy seeing what you create. After finding your niche, discovering the lengths of your niche, and what works for your niche on Instagram, you can:

 

• Go to the Explore page and see what content format type performs better for that topic. Is it Reels or Carousels? How long are the most popular Reels? Is it a better idea to have an entertaining/funny approach or an educational one? 
• Try to spot how the content shared within your niche can be improved. Maybe you feel like there are not enough Carousels in your niche and that starting to post Carousels can help your content stand out - don’t be shy to give it a try!

Creating the type of content your target audience loves and being successful at doing so goes through learning how your audience behaves, what time they are active on Instagram, and what they like and don’t like.

 

You can gather all of these details by looking at your analytics, and we will talk about them further later in this article. But what happens if you don’t even have your first 100 followers yet - how can you get to know your audience better if you don’t have any data to work with? 

 

You can look at the posts and accounts your target audience interacts with the most to find some inspiration for themes for your upcoming content. Keep in mind that you must not copy other people’s work. This is just to see what sort of value your target audience seeks in your niche so that you can come up with your own authentic content. 

 

Another thing you can do is dive into the comments section and see how your target audience is reacting to content that is similar to yours. If they are pointing out something they would rather see done differently, it can be a good idea to implement those ideas into your content to draw in more followers. 

 

Furthermore, finding a couple of accounts with high follower counts in your niche, following them, and turning on their post notifications can give you an idea about what time of the week and day your target audience is most active.

The golden rule about Instagram bios: Your bio is not for you, it is for Instagram and your potential followers. 

 

What you include in your bio tells Instagram what your account is about so that the algorithm can show your account to the right people. 

 

Here’s what you can do to have a captivating bio:

 

• Username: Unless you are using your full name in your username, choose a simple and clear username related to your niche.
• Nameplate: Include keywords related to your niche in your nameplate. Let’s say you run a flower shop called Pacific Coast Petals in Santa Barbara. In your nameplate, right next to your brand’s name, you can add “Santa Barbara Florist” to let Instagram know more about the details of what your account is about.
• Profile Photo: Choose a profile photo that makes sense for your niche.
• Description: Keep your description straightforward. Your potential followers may not know your personal or commercial brand’s name yet, but choosing the right keywords will make your account pop up when they search for what you do. 

When you are starting new on Instagram, connecting with friends and family and building your own social media network by reaching out to accounts similar to yours can help you to kickstart your account.

 

However, remember that the follow-and-unfollow tactic stayed way in the past. Following someone only to unfollow them after they follow you back is not a sustainable way to grow on Instagram, and it can harm your channel in the long run. 

 

After you follow brands that share the same interests as you, try these methods instead:

 

• Sending DMs: Interacting with people through DMs is how Instagram knows that you are “friends” with someone - and the easiest way you can do this is by replying and reacting to stories!
• Commenting: Commenting on the posts shared by accounts in your niche is a way to make them notice your Instagram channel and follow you back. When leaving a comment on people’s content, be genuine and avoid sounding too generic.
• Liking Comments: Instead of following people from your target audience and unfollowing them when you think you have enough followers, liking their comments on content that is similar to yours is a more effective way to draw them in.

Furthermore, if you already have an existing follower base on another platform, such as YouTube, you can learn how to share YouTube videos on Instagram stories to let other creators know that interacting with your Instagram account and collaborating with you will also help them grow their own audience.

Switching your account to a professional account is crucial for your growth on Instagram as you can then have access to features regular accounts can’t see, such as Insights, call-to-action buttons, secondary inbox, ranked follow requests, and more.

 

Deciding between a Creator and Business account is up to you, the main difference between the two is that, unlike Business accounts, Creator accounts can use trending music. 

 

No need to worry, though! By browsing our extensive royalty free music and sound effects library here at Snapmuse, you can find the perfect audio across all genres, moods, and usage areas to make your content stand out from the rest!

Even if the reason you create an Instagram account is not to promote your business/commercial brand and reach out to more customers, you should consider your social media identity as your personal brand. 

 

Being consistent with how you present yourself, the way you communicate with your followers, and your visual aesthetics will make you stand out from other accounts in your niche with your authentic style. 

 

If your existing and potential audience is drawn to your voice because it is unique, you can keep your followers’ interest alive and attract more people in the long run. 

 

Using the type of music and audio that resonates with your brand’s image is a great way to elevate your content! 

 

Don’t forget to check out the list below and browse our library to find thousands of sound effects you can add to your educational, inspirational, and entertaining Reels to grab your audience’s attention.

Posting regularly is the key to getting your first 1000 followers on Instagram and enhancing your engagement rate. While YouTube can recommend its users a video from two months ago, Instagram’s Explore page favors recency. This means that having a consistent posting schedule raises your chances of being seen by more people and even going viral. 

 

Creating a weekly or monthly plan can help you organize your content better and post consistently. Here’s what you can do to create a schedule that works both for you and Instagram:

 

• Focus on sustainability: Keep in mind that what matters the most is that your schedule makes sense to you. The purpose of creating a schedule is to motivate yourself to be more productive to grow your account - not to burn you out. It’s okay if you can’t keep up with posting 4-7 times a week, just try to keep it at a minimum of 2-3 posts per week.
• Plan ahead: Mark a day and time in your schedule to brainstorm what you will be creating for the week.
• Create in bulks: How you will manage your creative process is totally up to you. If you feel like it’s manageable, you can record multiple reels and create static posts in one day and share them one by one throughout the week.
• Post when your audience is active: We know that creating content takes time and effort, so it is best that your work reaches the right people at the right time. By checking out your insights, you can see the days and hours when your audience is active the most.
• Share Stories daily: Even if you don’t have any reels, videos, or photos to post for the day, remember that Instagram Stories are a great way to boost engagement and interact with your followers. Post up to 6 stories, and make sure that you know how to add music to Instagram Stories to add some spice!

If you want your content to perform well and reach that 1000 milestone, the value you offer to your audience needs to fall under at least one of the criteria below:

 

1. Educational 
2. Inspirational 
3. Entertaining
4. Intriguing 
5. Relatable

Remember what happened when Instagram introduced Reels to keep up with TikTok’s hype? The engagement rate creators got from Reels was huge for a very long time compared to other format types. Don’t get us wrong, posting Reels is still a very effective way to pop up on the Explore page and get more followers.

 

Recently, Carousels have been on the rise - which means that balancing out your video content and static posts is more important than ever!

Earlier, we mentioned that choosing specific keywords related to your niche in your bio helps Instagram to understand what your account is about to show your content to your target audience. 

 

However, ranking high in search results is not limited to how good your bio is! The words you use in your captions, the hashtags you choose for a post, topic tags, and alt tags also have a great impact on how high you will rank in search results.

Paying attention to Instagram’s new features and finding out how you can incorporate them into your creative style is a great way to enhance your reach and grow your audience.

 

You don’t have to go back to 2012 to notice how much the platform had changed over the years, just think about how different it was in 2020 before Reels entered our lives! And, of course, creators who took advantage of the potential of Reels in the earlier days were the ones who got the chance to stand out with their content faster than others a while later. 

 

That is why staying up to date with recent features and being open to experimenting with your content accordingly matters a lot if you want to get your first 1000 followers on Instagram.

A good part of creating is related to the aftermath. What we mean is to get the most out of your content and get your first 1000 followers, you need to monitor your content and analyze your progress - and the Insights page will be your best friend along the way! 

 

Your analytics will tell you what your audience likes best. Filter your posts to see what type of content brings you the most engagement. Is it Reels, a pretty standard photo format, or the Carousel that appeals most to your followers? Once you specify which one performed the best and the most poorly, go deep! Did you use a flashy photo, bright colors, or a caption with a call to action? And how about the hashtags? 

 

The metrics will also allow you to rank your posts by:

 

• Followers: If you rank your posts by followers, you will see the posts that got you the most followers. 
• Reach: Ranking your posts by reach shows you what posts got you more reach. Reach is one of the key elements you need to mind in the game. 

If you can’t attract your own audience and get engagement of any sort (what we mean by that is not only the likes and the comments section, but also how much time people spend to view your Stories, the emoji reactions they sent, and so on) you won’t have the algorithm in your favor. 

 

This means if your audience does not see any value in your posts, the algorithm will see no value in your posts either, and it will not suggest your content to more people or rank your posts higher on the Explore page. Eventually, fewer people engaging with your content will result in fewer people seeing your content. 

 

If you are having trouble with your reach and feel lost when trying to increase it, you may want to look for other ways to make your content more digestible. 

 

For example, the problem can be that your Reels are often too dense! They may be too rapid, filled with lots of text, or eye-tiring fonts, or you may be simply using a boring tune behind the content. If you sense that the problem is the music, you are lucky that you’ve been reading this on Snapmuse.com. By exploring our non-copyrighted music and sound effects library, you can find the perfect tune to elevate your content! 

 

Even though you can find your way by these steps, you also need to keep in mind that you will be the one deciding what works best for you and how to incorporate the different high-functioning materials into your content.

Instagram is not a solo game! You need to learn from others, be able to adapt and keep track of recent trends. Trends and hot topics are the things that will help you promote your brand. What’s better than people wanting to consume more of what they like, right? 

 

Nevertheless, if you feel like a trend doesn’t resonate with your brand, forcing yourself to be a part of it will be of no help. Trends will work best if you can make them blend with your niche. After all, your niche is what people are following you for, and you will want to keep your content to their liking - which will bring you more followers at the end of the day. 

 

But how do these trends work, really? A very good and recent example is the 7-second Reels trend which originated from TikTok. After they became huge, people started to add long texts to these videos, which were impossible to read in 7 seconds. So, if someone wanted to find out what was written on the video, they needed to watch it two or three times. 

 

This signaled the algorithm that the content had to be so good if it was being played in loops - can you guess what happened next? Yes, the content created in this video format started to pop up more on the Explore page and became a trend. Therefore, reacting and adapting to trends in your own way can help you to communicate with your target audience better and elevate your reach.

 

Want to keep up with the trends and give the popular sounds a chance in your own content but don’t know how to save the trending sounds? Then you are more than welcome to read our post on how to save music on Instagram.

 

If you have a business account and are worried that you won’t be able to keep up with the latest trends, remember that Snapmuse.com is here for you! Our dynamic royalty-free music library is kept fresh with new songs coming in every month. Start discovering captivating music for your content by taking a look at our playlist below.