1️⃣ Try Instamacro

We use Instamacro to grow and interact with followers/potential followers for all of our brand/personal brand accounts. It’s less than $2 a day to run and just automates Liking and following/unfollowing. We only use it for liking, set to like accounts that complement our feeds (i.e. we use other agencies like @heyawkward).WeI wouldn’t recommend using follow/unfollow. Switch liking between usernames and locations, start with locations close to you for 2-4 weeks, then swap to usernames (use 8-12) for 2-4 weeks, switching back and forth.
It’s essentially a bot but this is the quickest way of authentically growing quickly without buying followers. You’re essentially just maxing out the process (Instamacro has stop limits on liking/following so you don’t get banned) of interacting with profiles that you like/are similar to you, prompting them to check you out and like/follow you.

 

2️⃣ Heavily use Insta Stories

If you want to get on the insta Explore page, you need to create ultra-engaging, super-targeted content. The better your Stories are, and the more they speak to a specific audience, the higher the chance that Instagram will add your account to the recommended Stories at the top of the Explore tab. Hastags and location stickers will really help this, we’d throw them on almost all Stories (no concurrent ones).

 

3️⃣ Try out a few vids

Up to 60-sec clips. They engage far better than any static imagery…need we say more?

 

4️⃣ Use Minter to get better insights

Navigate to Minter.io, create a free account and run a trial on yourself. You’ll get this awesome report back detailing absolutely everything there is to know about your performance, followers and engagement. That way you can make some decisions tailored to your audience, because chances are there will be a standout chunk and there will be people out there similar to that chunk who are ready to engage with you. If you need help deciphering these just flick us a message.

 

5️⃣ List 10-20 people or brands who have a similar audience as you and keep it in notes on your phone.

When you have time to actively engage, go to each of these accounts and leave genuine comments on their most recent posts. The idea is to be the last person to comment on the post. That way, anyone else who comes to that post in the future will see your comment and hopefully click to your gram.