How To Grow Instagram Followers Organically.

In this guide, you’ll discover the best ways to grow Instagram followers organically. No smokes and mirrors here – only REAL, genuine & engaged followers. Learn how to grow your IG organically with tried and tested methods, from an expert with over 1 million followers, yes that’s me @kelseyinlondon 👋

When it comes to growing followers organically on Instagram, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been active on Instagram since Valencia was the most used photo filter and I am incredibly grateful that this social media app has led me to have my dream career as a full-time travel creator. 

I’ll be honest: it took me many, many years to grow my account to over 650,000 followers on Instagram and over 1 million followers across all my social accounts. Many mistakes were made along the way – in fact, I’m internally cringing at the thought of some of the selfies I used to upload, but I digress.

A few years ago, I created a second account for my interior addiction – @homewithkelsey. Although I was beginning at ground zero again, this time I had a great wealth of knowledge and a few notches on my belt.

Through the following tactics, I was able to quickly grow 10,000 organic followers on Instagram in just 6 months’ time. I then gained over 200,000 followers after 2 years of starting this account. 

While having lots of followers isn’t the defining point of how successful you are in life, (I mean, so long as I can eat my overpriced avo on toast, then I’m happy!), growing your followers on Instagram is extremely sought-after for most influencers, content creators and businesses.   

Keep reading to learn my tried and tested strategies for organic Instagram growth, and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below if you have any questions.

How To Grow Instagram Followers Organically:

1. Pick an Instagram niche and stick to it!

Growing a community on Instagram is going to be a LOT easier if you stick to a niche. This is something I massively failed to do on my account @kelseyinlondon.

For many years, I posted whatever I wanted – my outfits, photos of food, selfies, my nails – there was no rhyme or reason! As a result, I didn’t grow for many years.

That is until I decided to focus on one of my biggest passions – travel. As you can see on the chart below, my growth skyrocketed from 150k followers to 650k followers in the span of 2 years.

So, how do you find your niche on Instagram?

It’s incredibly daunting starting a new account on Instagram, especially when the app is so oversaturated. However, picking a niche is as simple as focusing on what you’re most passionate about.

Because no matter what you’re interested in, there are always going to be THOUSANDS (and often millions!) of people who are as equally as into something as you are. Whether that’s vegan baking, crochet making or online gaming.

You want to focus on becoming the “go-to” person for your audience. My followers know when they come to my page they will always get helpful travel tips and that’s consistent. There may be some cases where you can combine two niches on one page, for example – beauty & fashion tend to work well together on one account.

When you stray from your niche, it’s harder to grow. Let me explain: if you’ve always shared book reviews on Instagram and one day you suddenly began to post makeup selfies, your followers would become confused and unfollow you because beauty tips are not what they signed up for.

Pick an Instagram niche and stick to it. Or start a new account entirely to showcase your latest obsession.

This is why I created a separate interiors account @homewithkelsey as interior design has always been one of my biggest passions. It took me 2 years to grow this account from 0 to over 200k followers because I started the account with a clear niche. The proof is in the pudding!

2. Create an Instagram Aesthetic

When I started my interiors account @homewithkelsey, I shared high-quality and beautiful imagery from the get-go.

Unlike @kelseyinlondon where my followers had to witness my “awkward teen stage” of Instagram, the one where I was experimenting with different filters and horrendous outfit choices.

Having a strong aesthetic for your feed is my go-to tip when someone asks me how to get followers on Instagram.

When a potential new follower is viewing your profile for the first time, you have less than a second to grab their attention so you better believe that your feed has got to look banging. 

I’ve written a post with a lot more detail on how to create the perfect Instagram feed aesthetic.

I’m able to easily achieve an aesthetically pleasing feed by using my Presets to edit my photos, you can learn more about my editing filters here. 

3. Create valuable content

If you want to gain followers on Instagram, you need to create valuable content.

Valuable content is anything that is educational, informative, inspiring, entertaining or relatable. Even better if you can make content that is SAVEABLE and SHAREABLE.

The more likes/saves/shares you get on a post will tell the Instagram algorithm that your content is valuable.

This means that your post will be pushed on the Instagram explore page & reels tab. More reach = more followers.

Here are some examples of valuable content: 

• Sharing a funny storytime is entertaining. By showing your personality, you are relatable and this gives someone a reason to follow you. 
• Creating a DIY tutorial video is educational, and if you list out the tutorial steps/instructions in the caption then your video is saveable.
• Showing the best date night spots in London is informative and shareable as the viewer will send the video to their partner.
• Posting beautiful travel photos is inspiring, and if you write the locations for each photo in your caption, then your carousel post is saveable. 

Before creating any content, make sure you ask yourself: what value will this give?

Always aim to create with purpose and passion, with a goal of enriching the lives of the people viewing your content.

Long gone are the days of posting selfies to Instagram and posting with only emojis in captions. Yes this can work for some creators but I’m going to be brutally honest here: it mostly only works for extremely conventionally attractive people. For everyone else, we have to work harder for our content to be seen online.

4. Learn how to make Reels go viral

Posting Instagram Reels is hands down the fastest way to get followers on Instagram. I’ll be honest – I was really really reluctant to get into Instagram Reels when they first launched.

I thought they were a bit cringe and I hadn’t previously made much video content before. However I eventually gave in and gave Reels a crack and let me tell you, I wish I had got on it a lot sooner!

I’ve since had dozens of Reels go viral (my highest 18 million views!) and as a result, I gained over 300,000 new followers from Reels, some months 1000 new followers every day!

In 10 years of being on Instagram, I have never seen growth like this before nor have I ever had a photo post reach over 1 million people, it’s possible for some, but very rare.

Reels aren’t just dancing videos or self-acclaimed gurus pointing at floating text. There’s DIY tutorials, recipe creations, and travel inspiration – so many different types of video content that you can make work for your niche. And the best part is, you only need a smartphone to film amazing high-quality Reels.

My advice? Make your Reels short, snappy & sweet and full of value!

It’s really important that the first 2 seconds of your video is exciting/eye-catching so people stop scrolling and watch your video in full.

I have a very detailed guide which will walk you through how to make Reels go viral on Instagram.

5. Have a Consistent Instagram Posting Schedule

Posting consistently is key to gaining followers on Instagram. Every new post is a chance to reach a new audience outside of your existing followers. Unfortunately, you can’t expect to see any progress if you’re only posting once a week. But the good news is you don’t need to post daily either.

I’m a firm advocator of QUALITY over QUANTITY. It’s better to post 3 value-packed posts per week than post 10 (let’s be honest) pretty average posts per week.

I’ve been a full-time content creator for over 6 years now and aim to post 3-5 times every week. That being said, I take breaks over the holidays and for my mental health, however never longer than 2 weeks at a time.

There is no magic time to post on Instagram. Instead, pick a time during the day that suits your lifestyle – whether that’s on your commute home from work or on your morningwalk.

Before Instagram became my full-time job, I would post on my lunch breaks at my agency job, replying to comments in between mouthfuls of my Pret salad 

6. Use Keywords & Hashtags

Did you ever use to use hashtags ironically? Because me too #guilty. That is until I did some research, developed a winning Instagram hashtag strategy and made hashtags my best friend.

When I implemented this strategy, I received anywhere between 10,000 and up to 100,000 reach per post from hashtags alone.

Hashtag reach is essential for getting new followers on Instagram as it’s a great way you’ll be able to organically reach people who don’t already follow without having to spend any money on boosting your posts. 

That being said, the golden days of hashtag reach may be over. In the past two years (2023 & 2024) my hashtag reach on photo posts is pretty much non-existent.

However I’ve spoken to content creator friends with less than 50k followers and they are still getting great reach from hashtags. So my advice? Try out my Instagram hashtag strategy and see if it works for you.

Otherwise, I recommend focusing on keywords.

What are keywords? These are words or phrases your target audience would be searching for on Instagram.

For example “Thailand hotels” or “Restaurants in Phuket“. You want to make sure you are including these phrases in your Instagram captions so that your content is searchable.

Try to include these keywords as naturally as possible, for example, I might write in my caption: “This is one of the best restaurants in Phuket to get a delicious Pad Thai“.

7. Review Your Instagram Insights

Each week, sit down and review your Instagram insights. Look at your top-performing posts each week and make a note of which posts got the most reach/likes/saves and WHY.

See if you can spot any common trends in your top-performing content.

It could be as simple as posts where you are wearing blue get more saves, or your baking videos get more likes than your savoury recipes, or your lower body workout videos get more followers than your upper body ones. 

Then aim to post similar content each week to gain more reach and followers. For example, as a travel creator, whenever I post about Italy or Morocco I get the most engagement. So I aim to post one of these destinations every week. 

Also, pay attention to patterns in your statistics. I’ve noticed that I need to reach 100,000 people in order to gain 100 new followers.

In fact, if I don’t reach more than 1 million people within a 7 day period I’ll actually start to lose followers. Note: this is because my account is old and large so I lose around 300 followers every day. 

For you, it might be that when you reach 100,000 people you gain 500 followers. The conversion rate of reach to new followers gained will be different for everyone, so look at your stats to figure this out. 

Then you need to make sure your weekly reach is high enough so that you are gaining instead of losing followers. The simple answer would be to post more content however you need to make sure you are posting content that has a track record for performing too. 

8. Engage With Your Community

Engaging with your followers is so important when it comes to gaining new followers and also keeping the ones you already have.

It’s important to remember that your followers aren’t just numbers, they are real people that should feel like they’re part of your community. Therefore it’s important to foster your relationship with your audience.

That doesn’t mean you should spend multiple hours a day leaving meaningless comments on other people’s posts, which is what many “Instagram gurus” teach. 

One of the best ways to engage with your followers is via your Instagram stories. Ask your followers questions and get them to share opinions on topics that relate to your niche.

Try committing to a weekly Q&A (question & answer) session every week on your stories. Post a question box to your stories and ask your followers what they need help with.

Do your Q&A on the same day each week so your followers know when to expect it. Not only is this a great way to engage and build a relationship with your followers directly, you’ll also get some great content ideas from the questions you receive. 

Check to see if there are any online communities you can join that relate to your niche.

For example, if you’re in the UK you can join my Facebook group Creative Gal Gang to connect with other creators. There’s a Facebook group for just about any interest, I make a lot of connections within the group Girls Love Travel.

Don’t forget to utilise Threads as another way to connect with your followers. The great thing about Threads is that it automatically connects to your Instagram and is a much more casual way of engaging with your community since most of the posts are text-based only. 

9. Be Authentically You

Okay, okay, I know you’re rolling your eyes and I know this is incredibly cliche. However, I wanted to end this piece on a positive note.

Pretty feeds and hashtags aside, at the end of the day your followers are following YOU for a reason – and that’s simply because there’s no one else like you!

Play that to your advantage by showing more of the unfiltered version of you on Instagram.

My story views tripled when I started showing more of my sassy personality and mundane day-to-day activities rather than just my perfectly poised posts. You know why? Because those moments are actually relatable.

Here’s an idea: try adding a “Get to know me” story highlight to your Instagram page so that potential followers can watch a few videos of you introducing yourself and letting them know what they can expect from your page. This is a great way to showcase your personality and show the human behind the grid.