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You might already know that Instagram is a growing channel that lets individuals and businesses alike expand their brand. For businesses especially, it’s a way to humanize your brand, recruit future employees, showcase your product and company culture, delight customers, and generate new business.

But here’s the deal: Unless you’re famous, it’s really hard to amass a huge following on Instagram without some hard work.

For the average person or business, growing your following takes time and attention on a daily basis. And although you may be tempted to buy your first several followers to get the ball rolling, purchased followers are either fake or low-quality profiles — so they really serve no purpose except to artificially inflate your follower count. Don’t count on any meaningful engagement or business interactions from these folks.

Luckily, there are a few things you can do right away to collect at least 1,000 quality followers for your personal or professional Instagram account. It’s all about knowing where to invest your time and effort — which is exactly what we’ll show you in this post.

Download the complete guide to using Instagram for business and marketing here.

Let’s go through how to gain those first 1,000 followers, from creating a follow-worthy Instagram profile to using contests to staying true to your brand. (Looking for inspiration? Read this blog post to browse through 17 of the best brands on Instagram.)

How to Get More Followers on Instagram

1) Create and optimize your profile.

First things first: Customize your Instagram profile to make it look good, tell your potential followers who you are, and give them a reason to follow you.

How? Start by making sure your username is recognizable and easily searchable — like your business name. If your business name is already taken, try keeping your business name as the first part of your username so that people searching for your business are more likely to come across you. For example, the Australian activewear line Lorna Jane uses the username @lornajaneactive.

(Note: Make sure to add your full business name to the “Name” field in the “Options” section — the gear button on iOS, or three dots on Android). This will appear under your profile picture and under your username in search.

Next, make sure your profile is public. To make your profile public, open Instagram, open “Options,” and make sure “Private Account” is turned off.

Next, choose a profile picture that’s on-brand with your other social networks, like your company logo.

Then, fill your bio with delightful, actionable, and informative information about your brand. Information like this lets people know what you’re about and gives them a reason to follow you. Include who you are and what you do, and be sure to add a hint of personality. Here are a few examples for inspiration:

• @WeWork: “Make a life, not just a living.”
• @Oreo: “See the world through our OREO Wonderfilled lens.”
• @CalifiaFarms: “Crafting, concocting and cold-brewing up a delicious, plant-based future. Califia Farms Loves You Back”
• @Staples: “We make it easy to #MakeMoreHappen”

Next, add a link to your bio to make it easy for people to go straight from Instagram to your website if they want to. The space allotted for URLs is precious real estate because it’s the only place within Instagram where you can place a clickable link, so use it wisely. We recommend using a shortened, customized Bitly link to make it more clickable.

Finally, enable notifications so you can see when people share or comment on your photos. This’ll let you engage with them more quickly — just like a lot of companies do on Twitter. To enable notifications, go to “Options” and then “Push Notification Settings.” Select “From Everyone” for every category.

A word to the wise: We don’t recommend you link your Instagram account to Twitter and Facebook so your Instagram posts are automatically published on those other accounts. Post types are different.

2) Designate a content creator.

Just like there should be one (maybe two) people managing your other social media accounts, there should only be one or two people managing your Instagram account. If possible, choose someone who has experience using a personal Instagram account, and therefore “gets” the platform — and be sure they know all the handy features Instagram has to offer.

If you work for a large organization, you might find that a lot of people want to have a say in what’s posted. That’s when an organized request or guidelines document comes in hand. This document should inform people how to request a post on your Instagram account, when, the value of the post, and why.

3) Brush up on your photography and editing skills.

On Instagram, post quality matters. A lot. Your Twitter followers might forgive a few bad tweets, but a bad photo on Instagram is a big no-no. By no means do you have to take a photography course to be a good Instagram poster — nor do you have to practice for weeks before you start. But you should get familiar with basic photography tips and photo editing apps.

Photography Skills

Since Instagram is a mobile app, chances are, most of the photos you post to Instagram will be taken on your mobile device. That’s not just okay; it’s expected. While some brands use professional photography for their Instagram photos, most use smartphones — and that’s the vibe that Instagram is meant for, anyway.

Start by reading this blog post on tips for taking great pictures on your smartphone. Here are some highlights:

• Focus on one subject at a time.
• Embrace negative space.
• Find interesting perspectives.
• Look for symmetry.
• Capture small details.
• Make your followers laugh.

(Click here for all 18 tips on taking great pictures with your smartphone.)

Photo Editing Skills

Instagram has some basic editing capabilities, but oftentimes, they aren’t adequate to make a picture really, really great. Most of your photos should go through at least one or two other photo editing apps on your mobile phone before you open them in Instagram for the first time.

Read this blog post for a list of the best photo and video editing apps for mobile devices. These apps will let you do everything from sharpening specific parts of a photo to brightening certain hues to make your photo look fresher.

4) Start posting.

Once you’ve created and optimized your profile, have someone manning it, and know a thing or two about phone photography and photo editing, it’s time to start posting. It’s a good idea to have a solid number of great posts up — maybe 15 or so — before you start really engaging people and working down this list. That way, when people visit your profile, they’ll see a full screen of photos instead of just a handful, so they know you’ll be posting great content regularly.

To start posting on Instagram, first download this social media content calendar template and start planning out your Instagram posts. Over time, you’ll want to build up a backlog of photos for times of need, like the weekends or when you go on vacation.

Keep your target persona in mind when you first start planning out your posting schedule, as that can drastically change your posting timing and frequency — especially if you’re targeting an audience in a different time zone. (Download this free template for creating buyer personas if you don’t have a few already.)

While optimizing your schedule for your specific audience will take time and experimentation, we created this infographic using recent data on the best times to publish on every social media network to get you started. Our sources found that the very best times to post on Instagram were Mondays and Thursdays at any time except between 3:00–4:00 p.m. for the time zone of your target persona. (For a United States audience, your best bet is to combine Eastern and Central time zones, as they represent almost 80% of the U.S. population. For audiences located outside the U.S., use whichever time zones your target audience uses.)

However, because Instagram is primarily an app for use on mobile devices, users tend to use the network all the time, any time — although many users engage with content more during off-work hours than during the workday. Some businesses have also seen success with posting at 2:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m., and Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. Experiment with these to see if they work with your audience.

5) Curate some of your content.

Although it’s best to have only one or two people manning your account, one or two people can’t be everywhere at once taking photos. What about that fun sushi night the engineers had last night? Or the event your head of sales spoke at earlier this week? There’s a whole breadth of content you’ll want to post to Instagram, and more often than not, one person won’t be able to keep track of it all.

One solution? Create a system where you can curate photos and content from members of your team. There are a few ways to do this. One is to create a specific email address for employees to send their photos, short videos, memes, hyperlapses, and so on. Just encourage people to put a subject line on these emails so you can more easily sort through the photos they’re sending. While this doesn’t seem like the smoothest way to curate photos, it’s actually the easiest for the people sending you photos — and the easier you can make it for them to send content, the more content you’ll get.

If your team shares a Box or Dropbox account, you could also create a shared folder where people can automatically drop their photos and videos. This just makes a few more steps for the people sending you the content, and not everyone might have that app downloaded on their phones. 

6) Write delightful, share-worthy captions.

Photos and videos might be the most important part of your Instagram posts, but captions should never be an afterthought. They’re an essential part of your post — icing on the cake, if you will. Consistently great captions can do wonders for humanizing your brand, winning over followers, and making your content more shareable — thereby giving you more exposure.

My colleague Ryan Bonnici once told me, for example, that he loves Frank Bod’s Instagram account for their captions: “Their witty captions will be your new obsession.” On a photo of a gold necklace, @frank_bod’s caption read: “I can’t give you jewellery, but I can give you the smoothest décolletage to wear it on, babe. #letsbefrank.”

The voice is filled with personality — note the cheeky hashtag #letsbefrank, which often follows captions like this one. Fans of the Frank Bod use that hashtag to post photos of themselves covered in the product like the brand’s own models, which is a great way for them to interact with and feel close to the brand.

Another way to increase the shareability of your caption and engage your followers is to ask questions or have some sort of call-to-action in the captions of your photos. For example, you might say, “double-tap if you find this funny” or “share your story in the comments.” In the example below, we asked followers to share photos of their desk with the @HubSpot Instagram account for the chance to be featured.

 

Send us your desk glamour shots and we’ll share our favorites. 📎🗂🖊 🌿 This leafy layout is from @piconsulting! #hubspotting #officelife

A photo posted by HubSpot (@hubspot) on Oct 25, 2016 at 8:24am PDT

7) Use relevant hashtags.

Let’s go back to hashtags for a second. On Instagram, a hashtag ties the conversations of different users who wouldn’t already be connected into a single stream. If you use relevant hashtags, your posts will get exposure to a wider audience than the people who already follow you or know about your brand. (Read this guide on how hashtags work on Instagram for more detailed tips.)

The key to using hashtags effectively is to use them smartly and sparingly. Try to limit the number of hashtags per caption to around three. Similarly, don’t use “like for like” hashtags, like #like4like or #like4likes. This is a dirty tactic that’ll leave you with a whole bunch of low-quality followers.

To find the hashtags your audience might be using, do a little research on relevant hashtags in your niche or industry. The easiest way to do this research is in the Instagram app itself, in the “explore” tab (i.e. the magnifying glass icon). When you search for one hashtag, it’ll show you a list of related hashtags at the top of your screen. For example, when I search for #inboundmarketing on Instagram, it shows me relevant hashtags like #marketingdigital, #marketingtips, and so on.

To help relate to your followers on a personal level, you might consider hopping on hashtag trends like #tbt (“Throwback Thursday”), #MotivationMonday, #TransformationTuesday, or hashtags that are trending at any given time. Here’s a post from @HubSpot’s account using the #MotivationMonday hashtag:

 

⬆️ #motivationmonday

A photo posted by HubSpot (@hubspot) on Dec 12, 2016 at 5:04am PST

Once you build up a bit of a following, you can try creating your own hashtags — like your company name or a slogan that applies to a lot of your photos. This is a great way to build up your brand on the platform and build a more cohesive presence.

8) Interact with other users, including your followers.

Instagram is very much a community, and one great way to get involved in that community is to find people who post pictures that interest you, and follow their accounts and interact with their content. It’s the most natural way to draw attention to your own Instagram account while getting your foot in the door in the community, and getting inspiration from others’ content.

That does two things for you: For one, when they get the notification that you’ve followed them, they might check out your account and decide whether or not to follow you. (This is why it’s important to have some great content on there before you start reaching out to others.) Secondly, it means you’ll be seeing their recent posts in your feed, so you can Like and interact with them if you choose to.

As you build a following, celebrate your followers and show you appreciate them by responding to their comments, and even following them and engaging with their posts.

9) Cross-promote with users who have audiences similar to your own.

Once you build a solid relationship with some of the folks behind these accounts that have a similar audience to your own, you might ask to do some co-promotion on each others’ accounts. The more natural and less spammy you can make the content of these cross-promotions — especially the captions — the better. It also helps to be picky about them, and don’t do them very often.

Below is an example of what that looks like from food blogger @sprinklesforbreakfast and photographer @graymalin, who cross-promoted each others’ accounts at about the same time:

 

The only thing better than a @graymalin print…a @graymalin print that comes with FREE FRAMING! Head over to his site and check it out! Sale ends today. Oh and this pcture is reposted from @graymalin – but the obsession with him is all me ❤️

A photo posted by Lindsay Nathanson (@sprinklesforbreakfast) on Nov 22, 2015 at 9:57am PST

 

In homage to our winter aerial series, @sprinklesforbreakfast brought one of our Ski images to life.. in a cake 🍰! http://ift.tt/1qBXuN5 🎿

A photo posted by Gray Malin (@graymalin) on Nov 24, 2015 at 10:46am PST

10) Run Instagram contests.

Another great way to expand your reach while increasing engagement on your photos is to publish a post promoting a contest, and then ask people to follow your account and Like or comment on the photo in order to enter.

You might add a UGC (User-Generated Content) element to the contest, too, where people post a photo of their own and use a specific hashtag along with following your account. Here’s an example of a post from Starbucks promoting a UGC contest on their Instagram account.

 

Ooo cozy. Just a few more days to share your Cozy up to Red Cups photo using #RedCupContest. Thanks @ktnewms for the beautiful photo. ❤️ For more cozy moments see our story.

A photo posted by Starbucks Coffee ☕ (@starbucks) on Nov 22, 2016 at 2:25pm PST

(Read this post for more tips on how to run a successful Instagram contest.)

11) Share Instagram Stories and live videos.

Instagram has always offered the opportunity to post beautiful, curated photos to represent your brand. However, with the introduction of ephemeral Instagram Stories, brands can also share on-the-fly, behind-the-scenes looks for 24 hours that may not be as polished as a published photo, but give your brand more personality on the platform. One look at Snapchat’s explosion in popularity demonstrates that social media users are clearly responding positively to ephemeral photo and video sharing. Instagram Stories let brands engage with users in different ways to cultivate brand loyalty and appeal.

Instagram Stories also lets users share live videos, another content format that’s proven to be hugely popular on other social networks. What’s unique about live videos on Instagram? They disappear when users stop filming. This authentic, bi-directional experience lets brands share unscripted, raw moments with their audience to incorporate human elements into a social media platform that’s highly edited and polished in its traditional use.

How Brands Can Use Instagram Stories

We can’t include Instagram Stories in this article (they disappear after 24 hours), but here are a few brands we recommend following to see what they’re sharing:

Rachel Brathen (@yoga_girl) is a yoga teacher and entrepreneur in Aruba who uses Instagram Stories to document the behind-the-scenes action of building a yoga studio. While her Instagram portfolio features beautiful, professional photos and videos of her in yoga poses, her Stories feature her dog sitting in on staff meetings, her team unwrapping amethyst crystals to decorate her studio, and artists painting the walls. She uses Stories to showcase the other side of her brand to her 2 million followers in an authentic and unpolished way, and to keep her followers apprised of what she does every day (besides yoga, of course).

Dana Shultz (@miniamlistbaker) publishes easy vegan and gluten-free recipes on her blog. Her Stories feature neat how-to videos of her making breakfast and testing out new recipes in her kitchen. The behind-the-scenes aspect of her Stories provide a lot of human context for her blog’s brand, and everybody loves a good how-to video.

Casper (@casper) publishes quirky Instagram content to advertise their mattresses — without overtly doing so. The main theme of their content? Staying in is better than going out (because you can stay in and lay on a comfy Casper mattress, naturally). They’ve even created a gallery for followers to use as backdrops for their Snapchat and Instagram stories to make it look like they’re out at a party, when they’re really laying in bed. One of their latest Instagram Stories featured someone watching “The Sopranos” in bed, with the caption: “Who needs plans when you have five more seasons?” This video supports Casper’s campaign to stay in bed with a very real look at what millions of people do when they’re hanging out at home.

Here are our tips for using Instagram Stories for your brand:

• Whether it’s funny, sad, or unique, be authentic. Your photo gallery is where content can be perfect and polished. Instagram Stories are for the raw, unscripted, and unretouched. Use Stories to share the other side of your brand that followers might not be able to glean elsewhere. Do you have a dog-friendly office? Is your team trying out the Mannequin Challenge? Start filming to showcase the more human side of your brand.
• Go behind-the-scenes. These are by far our favorite type of content for ephemeral video sharing. Show your followers what goes into the planning of an event or the launching of a product, and make it fun. Your followers want to feel included and in-the-know, and you could use Stories to cultivate a brand loyalty program that only rewards people who check out your content.
• Go live. Live video is a growing trend across a variety of social media platforms, so if something interesting is happening, start rolling. Whether it’s a team birthday party, a staff meeting, or a cute animal, your devoted followers want to see what you’re up to every day. Take Stories to the next level by sharing them as they happen (and promoting it on Twitter or Facebook to get followers to tune in). 

Experiment with sharing Stories and live, ephemeral content to attract new followers and to increase engagement with the ones you already have. Learn how to share Stories and go live in these blog posts.

12) Make your profile easy to find and follow.

Place a follow button on your homepage, your “About Us” page, and various other places on your website. You can generate a “badge” button that links to your account on Instagram’s website here. Just make sure you’re logged into the right account when you create it. Here’s what one of the badge options looks like:

If your brand has brick-and-mortar locations, put out a good ol’ print call-to-action letting people know you have an Instagram account and encouraging them to follow you.

Also, be sure to promote your Instagram account on your other social media accounts. Chances are, the folks who already follow you on Facebook and Twitter will also follow you on Instagram without much prodding. Let those followers know you’re on Instagram and encourage them to follow you there by including a link to your Instagram account in the bios and posts of those other social media accounts.

So give it a shot: Make a profile and start posting, testing, tweaking, and promoting your account. Garnering a following on Instagram won’t happen overnight, but the stronger of a foundation you create on your account in in your niche Instagram community, the higher quality your followers will be.

What other tips do you have for gaining followers on Instagram? Share with us in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2016 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Here at HubSpot, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future of content. We ask questions like, “Which will come out on top — augmented reality or virtual reality?” and “Will AI take over our blog?”

And, in a stroke of paranoia brought on by the 1960 film The Time Machine, I often ask myself, “Will people still read?”

Classic science fiction movies aside, there’s data to suggest that our willingness to read might be on the decline. Between our rapidly-dwindling attention spans — thanks in no small part to smartphone use — to the 59% of people who share articles online without even reading them, there’s no denying that marketers should be thinking strategically about how to recapture their audience’s interest with more engaging written content.

That’s where off-site content enters the picture. But why? And how does it work with your current online presence? We’ve broken down how it can get people to actually read your words, and make them count. 

What Is Off-Site Content?

Chances are, you already have a website, and perhaps a blog that “lives” on it. Off-site content is the material that isn’t on your website. You might own it, or it might have been earned — the latter being content that someone else created, but primarily concerns your business, such as a review or case study.

For the purposes of this blog, we want to address the off-site content that you own and can therefore create and control. That includes social media, blogs, and podcasts, for example. And while it’s important to diversify all of your content, today, we’re going to focus on the written kind.

For example, HubSpot has multiple blogging properties. In addition to this marketing blog, which lives on HubSpot’s website, we also have ThinkGrowth.org, which is published on the Medium platform. It’s content that we own and produce, but it doesn’t exist on HubSpot.com.

Starting to make sense? Once you understand the concept of off-site content, you can also begin to see its value in getting people to fully read what you publish.

How Off-Site Content Attracts Quality Readership

In its 2016 Content Marketing Staffing & Tactics Barometer study, Curata reported that 41.2% of respondents cited content creation as the most lacking skill set in their marketing teams. Within that, these teams fell shortest in writing and editing, with marketers craving “more quality copywriters who can post to various content channels.”

Jackpot. There are two key pieces to pull from that quote:

1. Various channels.
2. Quality writing.

Let’s break down each one.

Various Channels

When it comes to content marketing, different formats and channels accomplish different things. In fact, they might each even attract different audience segments. Take our aforementioned Medium publication, ThinkGrowth.org. While it’s still owned by HubSpot, you’ll notice that the content is a bit different from what’s on our marketing blog.

Having those various channels to share your expertise presents tremendous opportunity. We’ve covered the importance of blogging on behalf of your company, and we stand by it. But while a corporate blog often has to maintain a very specific, branded voice, off-site content affords marketers the opportunity to experiment with different voices, styles, and subject matter.

Off-site content is particularly crucial to those new to business blogging. As my colleague, Sam Mallikarjunan, writes in “Why Medium Works,” it can take up to six months of consistent publishing on your company’s blog before it gains significant traction. (And we’re not discouraging that — stick with it, and find ways to supplement those efforts.) But off-site content diversifies your audience by engaging readers who might not have otherwise found your website. Medium, for example, connects your content with the people most likely to read it. Plus, you’re creating a publication on a platform that comes with a built-in audience of at least 6.3 million users.

There’s also a nifty readability measure attached to every Medium post that indicates how long it will take to get through. As you write, you can see an estimate of how many minutes it would take to read the post on your list of drafts. Remember that dwindling attention span I mentioned earlier? You’re going to lose about half of your readers after fifteen seconds. Keeping your length in check helps to make sure they actually read what you put out there.

But as Mallikarjunan emphasizes, Medium is not a replacement for your company’s blog. It can’t be optimized for SEO as well, and it doesn’t come with the same lead generation tools. That’s the real point of having multiple channels — in the end, they all work in tandem.

Quality Writing

Not long after its 2016 study was released, Curata published an article titled, “Content Marketers Desperately Need More Journalists.” On the surface, that might seem like a pretty lofty claim, but there’s certainly some merit behind it — namely, marketers’ self-identified need for better writers, especially those who are “creative” and experienced in “long-form writing.”

Writing well in one voice is hard enough, and I dedicate my entire day to it. I can only imagine how difficult it becomes when it’s one item on a list of many tasks and you have to establish a different tone for each of your content properties. That’s where a dedicated writer can be an asset to your content team. But why journalists, specifically?

Content Marketers as Journalists

Journalists tend to be compelling story writers. Back in the day, they were responsible for writing unique, curiosity-provoking headlines, and leading each story with a hook that had to grab and hold the reader’s attention. Today’s journalists, especially those working in the online realm — many of whom are required to know at least a bit about SEO — can do the same thing for your brand’s content.

But quality content writing goes beyond good storytelling. Journalists are trained to ask difficult questions, which can help them identify content gaps in what you’re currently producing. Plus, they’re often tasked with collecting and synthesizing data from multiple sources — studies, interviews, and raw data — into something comprehensive that readers can easily follow.

In this context, “journalist” can carry a broad definition. Freelance writers can fall under the same umbrella, especially since they’re often used to writing for several publications at once. That experience is highly applicable to your various content channels.

Remember, all of these skills lead to a single end goal — to write high-quality content that’s engaging enough for people to read in entirety — and share it.

What’s Next?

We know — you’ve got enough to do. Asking you to maintain multiple content channels might seem like a lot. But that’s part of the value behind having someone on your team who’s dedicated to it.

Not only does this person ideally come equipped with the necessary strategic and editorial skills to produce great content, but also, there’s a reduced risk of distraction from other outstanding responsibilities. Turning content creation and management into a full-time role lends itself to consistency, which is crucial — after all, how likely are you to trust a brand that hasn’t produced anything new in the past 30 days?

Of course, there’s the possibility that there isn’t room in your budget for a full-time role like this one, but take heart — that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to achieve. Just take a look at these suggestions …

Create an Internship

In this case, be sure to evaluate each candidate’s background carefully. Not only should this person have strong writing skills, but also, he or she should be familiar with off-site content channels and have some interest in marketing.

Lean on Freelancers

Second, don’t dismiss the idea of enlisting a freelance writer to help. While not all of this person’s time can be dedicated to your content alone, we covered the value that someone with this background can bring to your team. You can also get creative in negotiating time and availability here — for example, if your budget it small, compensation can be supplemented with a free workspace for the writer to use. (And as a former freelance writer, trust me, free office space is a huge incentive.)

Reallocate Your Own Time

Finally, if all else fails, you can try to start with small steps and dedicate your own time to off-site content creation. Maybe it’s actually one of your strongest skills, and you enjoy that type of work. If that’s the case, it might be time to find someone else to whom you can pass the torch of the work you’re doing now — the things that prevent you from consistently producing quality content — and approach it the same way we advised filling a content role.

And as cliché as it sounds, please — have fun with this content creation. By now, it goes without saying that your content has to be strategic. But it also must have passion behind it. If it bores you, how can you expect it to engage someone else? Think of the questions you ask yourself each day at work, kind of like the questions I led with at the beginning of this post. Then, answer them. Tell a story with those answers. Personally, I can’t wait to read it.

How do you use off-site content to gain better readership? Let us know in the comments.

We demand a lot from logos.

They have to be simple, yet still convey the ethos of the brand in a way that resonates with consumers. They have to be timeless and distinct, but still modern and consistent with contemporary graphic design trends.

It’s a lot to ask of a single symbol. As any designer will surely tell you, designing a logo that meets these varied expectations is no easy task.

To help you prepare for the new year, Logaster created the infographic below detailing their predictions for the most influential logo design trends of 2017. Keep an eye out for these design approaches in the coming year:

What logo trends will you be looking out for in 2017? Let us know in the comments.