13 Hacks to Get More REAL Followers on Instagram [Fast]

Looking for effective ways to get more real Instagram followers quickly?

Gaining genuine followers on Instagram expands your reach, builds stronger brand credibility and drives more engagement on your posts.

With Instagram’s algorithms always changing, using the right hacks is key to attracting people who truly care about your content.

Finding strategies that actually work (and don’t involve fake accounts) can be challenging, especially when you’re just starting out or feel stuck in a growth rut.

As a digital marketer, early on in my Instagram journey, I tried a mix of tactics before discovering what really attracts authentic followers and keeps them engaged.

With my experience at Smash Balloon helping users improve their Instagram presence and master social media growth, I’ve identified proven hacks that make a real difference.

In this article, I’ll share 13 powerful ways to get more real followers on Instagram so you can start growing your audience faster, even if you feel like you’ve tried everything!

Key Takeaways: 3 Hacks to Grow Fast

• Post consistently: Regular activity signals the algorithm to show your content to new people.
• Prioritize Reels: Video content currently gets significantly more reach than static images.
• Cross-promote: Use your website traffic to drive engaged users to your Instagram profile.

How Do I Increase My Instagram Followers?

The fastest way to grow real Instagram followers is to post Reels consistently, write captions and a bio with keywords people search for, reply to comments and DMs, and promote your account outside Instagram, like showing your feed on your website. Skip bought followers: they don’t engage, and Instagram removes fake accounts.

In This Article

Should You Buy Instagram Followers?

No, buying followers will actually hurt your long-term growth. While it seems like a quick fix, Instagram’s algorithm is smart enough to detect fake activity.

Tell me if you’ve seen the following search terms on Google before:

• “How to get 1k followers on Instagram in 5 minutes?”
• “Cheat on how to get Instagram followers?”
• “How to get fake Instagram followers?”

With more than 3 billion monthly active users (Meta, September 2025), Instagram remains one of the most popular social media networks in the world.

Competition on Instagram is tough, and it’s one of the reasons why some brands want to take shortcuts in growing their followers.

In the same way that buying fake Facebook followers isn’t worth it, getting fake Instagram followers for your account can also result in:

• Low User Engagement: Most fake followers aren’t high-quality. They’re just robots or spam accounts, so they will never like or comment on your Instagram posts.
• Decreased Brand Trust: Is your follower count high, but your engagement metrics are low? Then it’s painfully obvious to your audience that some fake followers are involved, so they’re less likely to trust you.
• No Potential Customers: Since the new followers you bought are spam accounts or bots, there’s zero chance that they’ll do business with your brand. Yikes.

In fact, Instagram regularly purges fake accounts, meaning those purchased numbers will eventually disappear anyway.

If buying Instagram followers isn’t a good idea, can you increase your account followers authentically without following hundreds of profiles daily?

How to Increase Followers on Instagram Without Following Everyone

Instead of hoping people follow you back, you can turn your website visitors into more followers and engagement for Instagram.

An easy way to do this is to use Smash Balloon Instagram Feed Pro and display custom Instagram feeds on your WordPress site.

That way, people visiting your website can check out your engaging Instagram content and follow you for more.

Instagram Feed Pro is the #1 rated Instagram plugin for WordPress, and it lets you add stunning Instagram feeds to your website without any coding.

Pro Tip: Want to see how easy it can be to display Instagram feeds? Here’s a beginner’s guide on embedding Instagram feeds on your website.

Top Tips to Increase Instagram Followers Fast (Organic Ways)

Ready to start getting more real Instagram followers without buying fake followers or following every account you see?

Let’s get started.

1. Improve Your Instagram Profile

One of the easiest ways to get more Instagram followers is to make sure your Instagram account is set up properly, starting with your Instagram bio.

Your Instagram profile bio is the most important real estate of your account. It’s from your business profile that users get to know more about your brand, your website, and your overall online presence.

Make your bio as interesting as you can to get more Instagram followers with some of these tricks:

• Display a recognizable profile picture, like your photo or brand logo
• Include your website URL so people can learn more
• Choose words carefully to describe your brand using as little space as possible
• Add emojis to convey emotion, character, and personality

To help you optimize your Instagram profile, see this useful post on how to use Instagram for business.

2. Curate Your Instagram Feed

Another hack to increase your followers organically is to develop a unique style and theme for your account.

Because there are so many people all vying for attention on Instagram, you need to stand out to get noticed. A clear visual content style sets you apart from the competition and makes it easier for people to recognize your brand.

For example, Rosie Clayton does an excellent job with her Instagram theme of bright, color pops. And with over 118,000 followers, her style choice certainly paid off.

Optimizing your Instagram gallery doesn’t stop at deciding on a theme or color palette you’ll be using for your Instagram profile. Since Instagram is a media-heavy social media platform, it’s crucial you pay particular attention to media quality as well.

Great content like high-quality videos and valuable clips can draw in tons of traffic, engagement, and followers. But blurry photos or videos that look thrown-together can drive people away from your profile.

You don’t need expensive equipment to create high-quality content for Instagram. Your smartphone camera will do the trick if you’re careful with lighting, props, and filters, like this shot below.

You need to think like an online marketer whenever you curate your feed. Here’s a helpful guide on Instagram marketing tips guaranteed to boost your business to help you get started.

3. Take Advantage of Instagram Reels

Did you know that posting Instagram Reels on your account can help you get more followers fast?

Considering that 9 out of 10 users on Instagram watch videos daily, it’s clear that this type of content can actively reach more audiences on the platform, like viral TikTok videos.

The more your reels are added to the “trending” content list, the more people your Instagram reels can reach, and the more people you can convert to Instagram followers for your brand.

To put it simply, here’s what works for reels in 2026:

• Hook them in the first 3 seconds. Open with a bold claim, question, or payoff before they scroll past.
• Make it saveable or shareable. Instagram weighs saves and shares more than likes. Tips, how-tos, and relatable moments earn them.
• Reels reach non-followers. Photos mostly hit your existing audience; Reels get pushed to new viewers via Explore.

In addition, Instagram Reels typically have higher engagement rates than other content formats like Instagram Stories, posts, or carousels, so they’re more likely to be featured by Instagram’s algorithm.

Check out this post for the ultimate guide on how you can get more views on your reels. It includes tried-and-tested tips that experts like Neil Patel, Cinnabon, and others use to increase their viewers.

Even better, you can further extend the reach of your account when you show Instagram Reels on your website, which brings us to our next tip below.

4. Display Instagram Feeds on Your Site

One of the easiest ways to increase your Instagram followers is to make the most of your website’s traffic so you can reach new audiences.

If every site visitor can see your Instagram user-generated content (UGC) embedded in your WordPress site, you have a higher chance of converting them into followers versus not showing your Instagram feeds at all.

For example, if your website gets 3,000 unique visitors daily…

And at least 1% of them follow your account just because your Instagram feed is displayed on your site…

That’s 30 Instagram followers added daily to your account!

With the help of the Instagram Feed Pro plugin, you can easily add your Instagram feed to your website with just a few clicks.

It’s the best Instagram feed plugin to help you make, customize, and show engaging Instagram feeds on your site, even if you’re not tech-savvy.

The free version is rated 4.9 out of 5 on WordPress.org from more than 4,300 ratings, and Pro builds on it with hashtag feeds, advanced layouts and shoppable feeds.

With this Instagram feed plugin, you can easily embed your Instagram feeds on your site’s:

• About page
• Reviews page
• Products page
• Blog page
• and more…

Your site visitors have already shown an interest in your brand by visiting your website. The next step? Gently nudge them to follow you by displaying your Instagram posts anywhere on WordPress.

Even before joining Smash Balloon, I’d already used Instagram Feed Pro so I could show my Instagram content on my website.

To do this for your business, see this step-by-step guide on how to embed Instagram feeds on your website.

5. Add Instagram Chat to Your Website

This tip can help you boost your Instagram followers and provide better customer support at the same time.

A lot of people visiting your website will have questions about your products, services, or something else. By adding Instagram chat to your site, you can let them reach you on Instagram with ease.

Just like that, your website visitors can message you almost instantly and follow your Instagram account for more updates. Plus, adding Instagram chat to WordPress only takes a few minutes.

You can just use the WPChat plugin and have a powerful chat feature on your website in just minutes.

On top of being a great Instagram marketing tool, WPChat also helps you increase the quality of your customer support.

It lets you create agents for your Instagram chat popup to represent your support team, complete with names and photos. It lets visitors know they’re talking to a real person from your brand.

Instead of asking people to fill out complex forms, you can reach them on a platform they all know and use.

Better yet, you also get to explain your products and features and encourage people to buy from you.

Ready to connect with people using Instagram? Get WPChat for your site here.

6. Use Niche-Related Hashtags and Keywords on Your Posts

Hashtags still help people find you, but they don’t work the way they used to. In 2026, Instagram has shifted toward keywords for discovery, so piling on broad, popular tags like #Instagood and #photooftheday barely moves the needle now.

What works today is a small, tight set. I stick to three to five hashtags that genuinely match my niche instead of the biggest ones I can find.

The bigger win is treating Instagram like a search engine. People now search it with plain keywords, the same way they Google things, so weave search keywords in your captions, your on-screen text, and even the audio you speak in Reels.

Pro-tip: Branded hashtags are still worth running, especially for campaigns and user-generated content. Want more mileage out of yours?

You can take advantage of influencer marketing and curate Instagram content relevant to your industry and display it in tailored hashtag feeds on your website.

That way, site visitors get to see fresh, engaging content, and you develop the reputation of being an influencer on those topics. And as you may already know, influencers and brand ambassadors can have massive sway over their followers’ purchase decisions.

When you use Instagram Feed Pro, adding a tailored hashtag feed to your website to boost your following is quick and easy. Just select Publish Hashtag and customize your feed to your liking in just a few minutes.

When you publish your feed, there’ll be a fresh stream of your chosen hashtags on your website.

Pretty easy, right?

For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to embed an Instagram hashtag feed on WordPress.

Pro-tip: You can also make sure that your Instagram feed is accessible on every page of your site by adding it to your footer area. Check out the steps here on how to add Instagram footer widget to WordPress.

7. Optimize Your Post Captions

Here’s another trick you can use to grow your Instagram organically: get creative with your captions.

Even though we’ve talked about the power of images and videos on Instagram so far, it doesn’t mean you should ignore the words you use.

Your Instagram post captions are a great place to engage with your audience and use persuasive language to encourage them to follow you.

Create a brand voice unique to your account and use captions as a way to tell a story about your photo or video. That way, you can tap into readers’ emotions and build an emotional connection with them, which makes it easier for them to like and trust you.

Chances are, if they enjoy what they read, as well as what they see, they’ll come back for more and follow you.

Another way to optimize your captions is by adding calls to action (CTAs) either in the captions of your posts or in the images or videos you upload.

CTAs tell people what action you want them to take next, so if you want them to follow your profile, it’s worth giving them a nudge in the right direction. If you don’t ask, you won’t find out, right?

In this example, the CTA is a contest where people can get a copy of the author’s new book and color a specific page. This shows how a clear CTA can spur people into action.

8. Engage With Your Existing Followers

It doesn’t matter if you want to get 100 Instagram followers or 1,000: the idea behind this Instagram marketing tip is the same.

For you to get explosive Instagram growth, you need to interact with your existing followers regularly.

Boosting your account’s engagement influences Instagram’s algorithm to show your account to even more people. As a result, a larger audience can view your Instagram account and potentially follow you.

Here are some of the best ways to interact with your audience:

• Respond to their comments on your posts

• Go to your followers’ walls and leave a relevant comment on their posts
• Regram your followers’ posts about you and credit them via tags

Chances are you’ve got a bunch of posts you’re tagged in from other Instagram users. Even better, you can go the extra mile and display tagged feeds on your WordPress site so you can use the power of social proof to get more Instagram followers.

Using Instagram Feed Pro, you can easily choose the Tagged Posts feed so your site’s Instagram feed will show only the photos you’re tagged in.

For more details, you can read this detailed post on how to add a live Instagram feed to your site.

9. Highlight Product Review Posts

Speaking of social proof, this next hack to increase your followers can also boost your sales.

We’re talking about building trust with your target audience using customer reviews and testimonials. 

Simply put, if people trust you more, they’re more likely to engage with your content and follow your profile.

An excellent way to build that trust is to display product reviews on your website. Product reviews offer real-life testimony for your products.

Right now, many people choose to express their feelings about a product or service on Instagram.

So what better way to improve trust and get more followers than by displaying specific Instagram review posts on your WordPress?

With Instagram Feed Pro, you can highlight specific product review posts and photos with our smart Visual Moderation system, which is guaranteed to improve trust.

Using the plugin’s live feed customizer, you can set this up on the Filters and Moderations settings.

From here, simply click individual posts to hide them from your feed. That way, you can display only the product review posts you’d like to include. No coding needed.

For full instructions on how to moderate your Instagram reviews post, see our documentation here.

10. Show Your Instagram on Relevant Platforms

Are you interested in how to get Instagram followers fast but in an authentic way?

Then you need to take advantage of all the communication channels your business has. After all, the more platforms you use for Instagram promotion, the more people you can reach and potentially convert into followers.

Here are a few ideas you can use when marketing your Instagram:

• Collaborate with a partner brand on Instagram

You can tag them on your account, and they’ll tag you on theirs. As a result, your followers can check them out, and their followers become your Instagram fans as well.

• Make sure your embedded Instagram feed has a “Follow us on Instagram” button

This makes it easier for your website visitors to find your business on Instagram, especially if you use Instagram Feed Pro to quickly display your Instagram on your site.

• Add your Instagram account to your email signature:

This is a quick and easy way to make sure everyone who gets your email can be a potential follower. After all, some people find it easier to communicate on Instagram rather than through email.

• Display Instagram popups on your site

You can use OptinMonster, the world’s best lead generation and conversion optimization tool, to create an Instagram popup and add it to your site.

Even better, OptinMonster has a built-in “Social” template you can tweak to help grow your social media followers without starting from scratch.

Check out this comparison post on the best Instagram plugins for WordPress for more social media marketing tools like this.

11. Cross-Promote on Other Social Media Platforms

If you’re like most business owners, chances are you have at least one other business account on the top social media marketing platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and X (Twitter).

After all, your online presence needs to be active on more than one platform so you can optimize your social media marketing efforts. This means cross-posting content from one social media platform to another.

The great news is that Instagram makes it easy to cross-promote your content on other social media accounts.

Here’s a time-saving tip you can use:

After you’ve edited your photo on Instagram, it’s now ready for publishing. Before publishing a post on Instagram, though, make sure to:

• Mention your Instagram account in the post caption
• And toggle the options so you can automatically post on Facebook, X (Twitter) and others as well

As a result, your followers on other social media platforms can see that you have an existing Instagram account, so they can check out your profile and follow you.

Pro-tip: Want even more exposure for your social media posts?

If you have accounts on all major social media platforms, you can display all your social media feeds in a single wall using Social Wall Pro. It’s the best social media feed aggregator for WordPress.

With the help of Social Wall Pro, you can integrate your social media into your website in just a few minutes, even if you’re not tech-savvy.

This lets you add engaging social media feeds that combine posts from your Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X (Twitter) accounts like this:

Ready to get more social media followers? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to display social media feeds to your WordPress site.

12. Run Viral Instagram Contests

Our next secret tip for increasing your Instagram followers is to run a viral contest from your website.

Giveaways and contests attract tons of traffic to your site, as well as helping to skyrocket your social media follower growth on Instagram.

RafflePress, the best contest plugin for WordPress, lets you create Instagram contests without the hassle.

RafflePress has ready-made Instagram contest templates that automatically populate your contests with powerful entry methods. These help you grow your Instagram followers with a few clicks, even if you’re not an expert designer.

And when it comes to publishing your giveaway, you can embed it in WordPress using the handy contest widget block. Or for a distraction-free experience, you can craft a giveaway landing page to encourage tons more entries.

And the result?

Loads more Instagram followers, engagement, brand awareness, and traffic to your website.

See this handy post on how to run successful Instagram giveaways to get started.

13. Monitor Your Instagram Analytics

Our final tip on how you can get more Instagram followers is about basing your marketing strategy, posting schedule, and Instagram content calendar on data from your Instagram analytics dashboard.

Using Instagram Insights, you can learn which marketing strategies, like organic videos or Instagram ads specific to your target demographics, may generate the best results.

For example, if you want to find out when’s the best time to post on Instagram, here’s what you can do.

First, visit your Instagram profile on your phone and tap Insights. Next, click on Total followers.

From the Insights dashboard, you can now see relevant data about your follower activity. To know when your followers are most active, scroll down to the bottom of the Insights page.

For you to get maximum engagement on your Instagram posts, you need to post videos or images during the peak activity times. This way, you’ll get more people who will interact with your posts.

And you know what this means! More post interactions mean you’ll have a higher chance of being promoted by Instagram to other users who are more likely to follow you.

Your website can win you followers too. With the All Access Bundle, you can show your Instagram feed alongside your other social channels, so every visitor can see where to follow you.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I increase my Instagram followers fast?

Post Reels a few times a week, put searchable keywords in your bio and captions, and reply to every comment in the first hour after posting. Cross-posting to your other platforms and showing your Instagram feed on your website also sends new people to your profile.

Is there a free hack to grow Instagram followers fast?

There’s no shortcut that adds real followers overnight. Free follower apps usually hand out fake accounts or ask for your Instagram login, which puts your account at risk. The free method that works is consistency: post Reels often, use keywords people search for, and engage with your audience.

Can I get 100 Instagram followers in 1 minute for free?

Not real ones. Sites that promise 100 followers in a minute use bots or follow-for-follow networks, and Instagram regularly removes those accounts, so your count drops back down. A few engaged followers are worth more than 100 fake ones.

Does buying Instagram followers work?

No. Bought followers don’t like, comment or share, so your engagement rate drops and Instagram shows your posts to fewer people. Buying followers also goes against Instagram’s Community Guidelines.

How do I get Instagram followers from my website?

Show your Instagram feed on your site so visitors see your latest posts and can follow you in one click. A plugin like Instagram Feed Pro lets you add a feed with a follow button to any page without code.

Start Getting More Real Instagram Followers

And that’s it, folks!

We hope this article helped you learn how to get Instagram followers fast so you can promote your business better on Instagram.

It’s a great place to promote your content and reach new customers for your brand. Once you give these tips a try, you’ll find it much easier than you expect to grow on Instagram.

Want to dominate Instagram marketing? Get started with Instagram Feed Pro and increase your followers today.

Do you want to add Instagram walls to your site? This post on showcasing Instagram feed walls on WordPress can help. 

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