How to Quickly Increase Engagement and Followers on Instagram

Hey there! It’s Mike Cooch with LVRG. 

In this blog, I want to share with you my favorite strategy for ramping up the engagement on Instagram real quick. This will also touch on how to get a bunch of new followers fast.

Instagram is an incredible social media and marketing platform. If you are not using it and building your audience there then you have to get to it right now. It is such an incredible opportunity but it’s changing all the time.

Instagram is changing just like the Facebook algorithm is changing and so you have to figure out ways to get engagement quickly and get visibility quickly no matter what they’re doing with their algorithm.

My favorite strategy that I have found works in every market.

It is super easy to execute too!

Giveaway contests

All you have to do is to simply run a quick giveaway contest.

On my local media property, my Instagram account, I run a giveaway contest. It was before a major holiday, the National Donut Day.

Here in San Diego even though it is known as a healthy place to live, people love their donuts.

We are donut crazy out here and we have some of the most amazing donut shops.

What I did is I just fired up a quick contest where I’m going to give away $100 in donuts. So four $25 gift cards to people’s favorite donut shops.

All I posted was, “Hey look! It’s National Donut Day. On Friday I am going to pick four winners. All you have to do is in the comments below tag your favorite local donut shop and a friend that you’d like to take along to eat donuts with you.”

“Make sure that both of you are following our account and the donut shop that you tagged.”

Of course, I also want to give the local businesses some love. 

“And then on Friday, we’re going to pick our winners. Four of them will have $25 gift check each to go enjoy their donuts.”

Engagements and followers boomed

I just posted that and within just a handful of minutes I’ve already got a hundred people that have liked it and I’ve already got a bunch of comments on it. I can promise you over the next few days, those numbers are absolutely going to blow up. 

What it does is it gets crazy engagement on my Instagram account really fast. That catches Instagram’s eye and I start getting some more visibility to my account. 

I get a bunch of fresh new blood into my account because I’m getting tagged in those comments.

Plus I’m getting exposure to all the businesses that get tagged as well. 

So with my particular model for my local media business and Instagram, that’s important for me because I want to sell to those businesses. So I’m getting exposure to them. 

So it’s all kinds of wins and it’s something that you can do in any market today. 

Here’s the way you do it

Just pick whatever is a popular product or service in that marketplace. 

I promise you it does not have to be expensive. The last giveaway I did was just for a $50 gift certificate and it already got massive visibility. 

So pick whatever is popular in your chosen marketplace. It does not even have to be yours.

You’re going to get tons of goodwill because you’re giving away something cool. In return, you are also going to get tons of engagement and exposure. 

I hope that helps you build up your Instagram engagement and grow your audience. Having an audience is so important in today’s social media-centric world. 

So build up your audience and have a fun time doing it. 

Again, this is Mike Cooch with Get LVRG. 

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Mike Cooch
Mike Cooch

LVRG CEO Mike Cooch is a serial entrepreneur who generates 6-7 big ideas before breakfast (conservative estimate) each day.

Mike has a Texas-sized passion for sales & marketing, business development, technology, and entrepreneurship.

He has founded successful businesses in technology services, agency services, publishing, and ecommerce (and flopped on a variety of attempts as well…keepin’ it real!).

His businesses have made the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America three times, and have been recognized as a 'Best Place to Work' in their respective cities.

He has an MBA from Babson College, the #1 ranked entrepreneurship program in the world by US News 24 years running, where he has been a regular guest lecturer on 'Managing a Growing Business'.

He has three children, is an avid skier, hiker and traveler, and is loving his adopted hometown of San Diego.