I'm working on growing my Instagram at the minute, and it definitely does feel like a bit of an uphill struggle at times. I'm at around 740ish followers at the minute so I'm definitely not an Insta Guru, but I do seem to be building some momentum.
These are the things that I've found help...
- Optimising your profile so it's really clear what you do, and keeping in mind who that's going to appeal to. I know that seems like common sense, but I've tweaked mine a few times after really thinking about this, and it seems to have an impact each time.
- Adding relevant hashtags... BUT, keep them varied and don't use the exact same ones on each and every post. You risk getting 'shadowbanned' if you do that. I have a couple of different 'sets' of hashtags saved on my phone that I rotate.
- Using the caption section to add a little more insight and start a conversation. I see loads of people who pretty much just ignore that and don't add any text. It's valuable 'real estate' though, so it's worth testing out a few different approaches to using it and seeing what happens
- Sharing some personal stuff, like what's been mentioned in this thread. I try to have at least one post in 3 as a more personal one. Sometimes just a pic of my food if I've been out for dinner, or a pumpkin I carved for Halloween, or something like that... But just reminding people that I am in fact a real person!
- Adding to your 'stories' with snippets from your day. I've got no idea if that somehow improves your visibility to people who don't already follow you, but I've definitely noticed that I get more followers when I'm active on stories. Plus I get quite a bit of engagement on them, which gives me hope that I'm not just talking to myself!!
- Again, like has been mentioned, interacting with other people and liking, commenting, and so on. I try to spend a little bit of time each day on doing that.
I'm aiming for 1000 followers by the end of the year... Might be a bit ambitious, but we'll see!