We’ve been talking lately about how to boost your business marketing with Instagram. Unlike what many people still believe, Instagram isn’t only a fun app where you could post food, holiday and family pics.

Instagram has turned into a powerful brand-building, audience-building and content-marketing tool for businesses. It has over 200 million active monthly members sharing 60 million images and 1.6 billion likes per day.

A note of caution: there are plenty of people on the market who promise to grow your Instagram followers by the thousands, but beware. A lot of them use fake accounts developed by bots to inflate your numbers.

These kinds of followers have zero value. In fact, they can even be dangerous, wanting to steal your password or photos or infect you with a virus.

In line with the data security company Imperva, these bad bots account for 28.9 per cent of bots on Instagram.

The easiest method to build your Instagram followers is when you are authentic to your brand and your audience.

Here are 3 tips to help you get real Instagram followers:

Tell a tale with Hashtags

It’s great to use your business name as a hashtag, nevertheless, you need to think beyond that.

If you want to use your Instagram posts to obtain followers, use other hashtags that tell the story of the image you’re sharing. You need to start a conversation when you’re sharing posts for things such as:

Events

Promotions

Contests

Product launches

A good example of a brandname would you this well is @Tostitos. They utilize the hashtag #GetTogetherAlready to encourage people to get together and share their chips, and to use the hashtag if they share photos of these meetups.

Through the use of engaging, relevant hashtags, you can be discovered in Instagram searches and hopefully build-up followers on Instagram.

Get Creative

Instagram is centered on photos, so many people think about the caption as an afterthought.

Don’t neglect the image caption! You will generate engagement and promote sharing through the use of descriptive words which will engage, inspire and entertain your followers.

Here are some ideas to help you build up followers on Instagram with your posts:

Use questions in your caption. Write your question at the beginning of the post so that people see it first.

Get personal with your post. insta like Tell a story about yourself, or how your product helped or inspired someone else.

Ask visitors to tag others. Asking visitors to tag three of their close friends or tagging someone they are grateful for brings other potential followers into the equation.

A great example of a brand that does personal posts well is the @NatGeo Instagram account.

They create breathtaking Instagram Stories with informative captions to teach an individual on the plight of animals around the globe.

Remember with regards to using Instagram posts to get followers, it’s all about being authentic. Don’t use questions in every single post or tell an individual story that isn’t genuine.

Go Local

One of the best ways to build your Instagram followers would be to become familiar with your neighbours!

Whether you’re creating Instagram ads or desire to promote your event in a specific area, you can see what’s going on near you by going to the search page and simply clicking the Places tab.

Type in the positioning to start to see the geotagged posts for that area. Then visit relevant and recent tagged posts – not those of competing businesses, obviously – and leave a comment or even an emoji and follow the person if you like what you see. Hopefully, this will be the start of a natural interaction.

For example, if you offer life coaching services, you can type in your location accompanied by “entrepreneurs.” Local entrepreneurs could be searching for more work and life balance or help with life goals or career challenges.

Similarly, for those who have a physical location that folks have checked into on Instagram, touch upon those posters’ pictures to make certain they’re aware of your Instagram presence, and follow them.

These are among the best ways to build Instagram followers the right way: no bots, no shortcuts, just old ways to build relationships your audience and turn them into followers!

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is really a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with getting the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their web business presence.