Find your niche and speciality

We're not going to lie to each other. Unless you have made a successful reality TV show and already have hundreds of thousands of fans like Nabila or Caroline Receveur, it will be challenging to gain subscribers and, therefore, success by simply taking selfies in front of the mirror. You'll need a real niche, something more than the others. Do you have a speciality? A passion? A particularity? Fantastic! This will help you find your audience because you will need added value.

Let's take the young as an example. His particuliarity? She is a young French woman living in Mexico with a Mexican companion. She speaks Spanish with a delicious French accent that Latin Americans love and shares her everyday life as a French person in a new country. Success is there, and she has more than 110K subscribers on her Instagram account and more than 400K subscribers on her YouTube channel.

Quality content with high-added value

To increase your number of subscribers, you must be regular in your content. This is why Influence4You strongly recommends making your Instagram account according to your speciality or your passion. If you don't like cars, it won't be straightforward to post mechanic tests at least twice a week! Because regularity is the key. You will need to post at least two pieces of content per week, original and with inspiring text:

For example, your photos must be original and not come from an image bank. Your photo should allow Internet users to connect with you. If they've never seen the picture you're posting, they'll definitely be more likely to be surprised and like it click here.

Accompany your photo with inspiring text with a clear call to action to leave a comment. Don't hesitate to post an open question, share your opinion and ask for your community's. This will generate conversation and, therefore, engagement. Regarding the discussion in the comments, some social network specialists recommend posting "controversial" content once or twice a month. What is this? This is about taking a position on an issue relating to your niche, a topic subject to debate. You can then share your work and call for discussion in the comments.

Engagement is critical to Instagram's algorithm. The more likes and comments you have on your posts, the more you will be highlighted on the social network, especially when Internet users search for hashtags.

Make collaborations

If you have an account with still few subscribers, it would be very relevant to collaborate with influencers with the same target audience so as to benefit from their audience.

Choose your collaborators: The ideal is to choose collaborators who will be in a range of 50% subscribers (more or less) compared to yours. If you have 800 subscribers, the target employee will be between 400 and 1200 subscribers. Targeting an influencer with fewer subscribers than you will allow you to face rejections but will still be helpful. If, after the collaboration, you gain even 10% of the collaborator's audience at 1,200 subscribers, this will give you 120 more subscribers or 15% of your total audience; not insignificant, isn't it??

Choosing themes: Imagine you are a beauty influencer used to doing beauty tutorials, product tests, etc. What would be the themes in the broad sense that could interest your audience? Aesthetic medicine, facial treatments, the natural approach to beauty, and even facial yoga? The idea is to engage your audience with the process of another expert and try to convert the latter's audience to your content.

Contact potential collaborators: they must not be your competitors but people who are "complementary" to your activity. Let's retake the example of beauty influence. Collaborating with a specialist in aesthetic medicine, for example, who would talk about botox or other professional treatments, would perhaps allow you to gain subscribers who are interested in this subject, and in beauty in general, and who will therefore want to come and follow your beauty tutorials and product tests!

Here is a YouTube video from blogger Tony Nieves, who perfectly explains the collaboration system between influencers.

Types of collaborations

There are multiple possible collaborations, and you can share the story of an influencer you have chosen. The idea is "physical" collaboration, such as a post such as a photo together or alive in the form of an interview. But this is only sometimes possible in terms of organization. In any case, know that the possibilities are multiple and that you can approach other influencers without any problem. This will also allow you to chat with other Instagrammers and discuss your techniques and issues. It's a winner.

Work with quality hashtags.

You will need to use relevant and quality hashtags to increase your visibility and, therefore, your number of subscribers. Remember that when Internet users search on Instagram, it is often through hashtags that they discover new content. Your hashtags should preferably be in French if you are targeting a local market, and you can use tools dedicated to generating hashtags. Among them, hashtagify. I allow you to create numerous tags related to yours. You can write your hashtags under your post directly or in comments, and the two schools are equal in visibility.

Should you buy followers on Instagram?

The answer is NO. Some tutorials or guides found online will recommend you do this, but Influence4You strongly advises against it. For what? Because engagement mainly matters to success on Instagram and obtaining collaborations with exciting brands! So yes, buying subscribers by the thousands will increase your counter very quickly, but these people are robot accounts, otherwise called "bots", who will never engage with your publications. Having 1,000 subscribers but four likes won't do you any good and will, on the contrary, arouse suspicion about your activity. Your credibility will then be seriously jeopardized, and it will be difficult for you to advance on the social network.

Should you use automation tools?

Once again, the answer is NO. There are many tools for influencers. We presented them here in our article, the 10 Tools for Influencers. But automation is not one of them. Many sites promise you wonders and guaranteed results with organic growth and real subscribers. This is, in fact, automation of likes, follow/unfollow, and automatic comments. Instagram has strengthened its security policy against all these automated software and detects them in most cases. You could end up with a blocked or even deleted account for using this service. Nothing beats the time spent on the platform, commenting, exchanging, and liking posts yourself with other Internet users and your community. It may seem like a long process, but your efforts will eventually be rewarded.