Why Are Instagram Followers Important?

Followers are one of the most valuable currencies on Instagram. You can create the best content in the world, but if you don’t have any followers, it won’t mean a thing. Whether your goal is to monetize your account or increase sales for your business, you need followers.

But why are followers so important, and are there any benefits to having a lot of followers? In this guide, we answer these questions and give you tips on how to attract more of the right followers.

Why are Instagram Followers Important?

Instagram followers are so important and for a number of reasons:

1. Your Followers Engage with Your Content

Followers will engage with your content. You’ll build relationships with them, and they’ll share your photos and Reels with others to help your account grow.

Engagement is so important on Instagram if you want to expand your reach and have your content land on the Explore page. The more followers you have, the higher your engagement rate will be (hopefully!).

Remember – Instagram’s algorithm prefers content that has more likes, comments and shares. Followers can help you stay in the algorithm’s good graces.

2. More Followers = More $$

If your goal is to make money on Instagram – who doesn’t have this goal? – then followers are your ticket to higher earnings.

Why?

Want proof that more followers = more money? Just look at how much influencers get paid for 1 million followers:

The more followers you have, the more influence you have, and that’s an attractive trait to brands or customers.

3. Followers Give You Credibility

Credibility is important on Instagram or any social media platform. While there are many ways to establish yourself as a trusted authority in your niche or industry, having more followers is the simplest approach.

How do followers give you credibility? If people are following your account, they’re clearly interested in what you have to say. You must be producing great content that people find valuable or entertaining.

Just think about some of the most well-known motivational speakers or leaders in the business world. Hundreds or thousands of people show up to see and hear them speak because they know what they’re talking about. They’re an authority or a thought leader.

The same idea applies to Instagram. 

If you don’t have any followers, what does that say about you as a creator or brand? Either you have a new account, or your content isn’t great. Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about. People may think twice about following your account because no one else is.

Lack of credibility can hurt you as an influencer or brand, so it’s crucial to focus on growing your follower count.

4. Followers Help Build Brand Awareness

Whether you’re an influencer or a business, you can benefit from building brand awareness. Social media is great for that purpose, and followers can help you get your name in front of more people. 

If you’re creating content that attracts followers from your target audience, you’ll be building awareness with the right people.

5. Followers = Potential Customers

Every follower is a potential customer if you’re trying to sell your own products or engage in affiliate marketing. 

Each time you post new content relating to products or services, your followers will see it and may decide to make a purchase or contact you to get more information. 

At the very least, you’ll be informing your followers of your offerings, and they may come back in the future to do business with you.

How to Get More of the Right Followers on Instagram

You know why Instagram followers are important, but how do you get more of the right ones? Business and personal accounts always struggle to get the right followers on Instagram.

What is the “right follower?”

That’s the million-dollar question. Your right follower may be:

Your account needs the right type of followers to be a success. Often, you want to attract followers in a certain niche or group.

Right?

You can connect with this audience on a deeper level and even sell to them. Once you know who your ideal follower is, you can begin working on attracting them.

How?

1. Optimize Your Bio for Your Ideal Follower

Before someone follows you, they’ll likely check your profile and your bio first. It’s important to make sure that your bio makes your account appealing to your ideal follower. How do you achieve this?

Adding a link and a call-to-action can further optimize your bio for your ideal follower.

2. Create Consistent Niche-Related Posts

Consistency is crucial when trying to grow your Instagram account. Followers want to follow you for a reason, which is the type of posts you create. If you have an account that is based on animals one day and then airplanes the next, your followers will become disengaged.

Worse, you may stop getting followers because your account seems to be a “catch-all” rather than a niche-relevant one.

Create posts that are:

You can experiment with your account, but always focus on quality.

3. Start Doing More of What Works and LESS of What Doesn’t

Instagram Insights provides deep, data-based information on your posts. You can use this information to create more of the types of posts people want to see and fewer of the ones that don’t resonate with your audience.

If you’ve never viewed your Insights before, you can start by following these steps:

You’ll want to familiarize yourself with the Insights dashboard. Inside, you’ll find information on engagement, the number of accounts that your content has reached and even promotions that you’ve paid for recently.

We recommend that you look at the types of posts and content that didn’t perform well.

Why?

You want to avoid wasting resources on the things that are not helping you grow your account. If you identify what doesn’t work and what does, you can put more resources into the content that is highly engaging and helps you get more followers.

4. Produce Content in a Variety of Formats

Instagram has multiple content formats – use them all. Often, you won’t know the type of content that your audience prefers until you experiment with multiple options. You can create content that includes:

Spend time experimenting with each content type to see what your audience really wants. You can use Instagram Insights to analyze each post you’ve made to find ones that attract organic engagement and followers.

5. Switch Your Profile to Public

Is your profile private? A lot of creators make the mistake of making their profile private and then they wonder why they’re not gaining followers. 

Why?

If you go to someone’s profile and it’s private, you cannot see their posts. Unless you know the person or business or they have a very enticing bio, you likely won’t follow them. The same scenario will happen when people find your profile.

So, what can you do?

You’ll want to turn privacy off from this setting and confirm the change. Once your profile is public, everyone will be able to see all of your posts. If you don’t want a certain post to be seen, remove it.

6. Boost Your Posts (Paid)

You can pay to increase your followers and reach, and if you have the budget, this is a fast and easy way to see results. Boosting a post requires you to have a Professional or Business account.

All you need to do is:

You’ll need to set your ad goal and also a budget. Be cautious about setting a realistic budget because, with over 2 billion users on the platform, it’s easy to exceed your ad budget very, very fast.

7. Buy Followers (Paid)

Buying followers must be done with caution because the provider must offer:

You can buy legitimate followers, but a lot of services will provide “bot” followers. Unfortunately, if you have all bots following you, it will cause your engagement to drop. Fewer comments and likes will negatively impact your account and may lead to less of a reach.

Conduct your own due diligence on the provider by:

Bots will not help you grow your account or following. You can buy real Instagram followers from us, and if you have any questions, feel free to open the chat at the bottom right of the screen.

Working on growing your followers – the right way – will allow you to build a brand and a business, if you like. You can, and should, work to grow a following that is hyper-relevant and targeted.

If you follow the tips above and dedicate some time every single day to your account, you will grow your following over time.