Your brand has an Instagram account and probably one of your goals is to build your community and increase the number of followers. The question that arises is – How to achieve this? Surely the first solution that comes to mind is that famous and well-known word on the Internet – Giveaway. Yes, we will admit that it is the fastest way to increase the number of followers (unless it occurs to you to buy them before, which is a big NO, NO!), But, reward activations can sometimes be a double-edged sword. In this text, we will explain why.

Start with the mechanism

How many times during the month do you get sponsored posts on the Instagram feed with the big caption GIVEAWAY, and the mechanism reads something like this:

  1. Follow our profile
  2. Tag in the comment (enter number) of people

This mechanism has been proven to work as follows: There will be more than the expected number of comments, and the followers are growing at a dizzying speed. Well that’s great, isn’t it !? The Instagram algorithm won’t agree, and here’s why.

​​Instagram has set up engagement (likes, comments, shares and save) – as a parameter for evaluating content and “rewarding” profiles. Take, for example, the assumption that your posts have an average of 300 interactions, and your profile has 7,000 followers. A giveaway post will, logically, have significantly more interactions than average. The Instagram algorithm will, in the future, expect increased interactions based on your new numbers, and in reality, the mechanism we have described will do a completely different thing. You have attracted a lot of new followers to your profile, one of which is “award hunters”, the other part of their fake profiles, and unfortunately, the smallest part of people who are actually interested in your product or service. In the long run, not only will you not meet Instagram’s expectations in terms of more interactions, but those interactions will often be less than average. Based on that, the Instagram algorithm will conclude that you are not producing content that is valuable or interesting to the public, so they will not recommend it further. 

The value is not in gaining a huge amount of followers…

Those who gain it – know that, right after such activations. 🙂 Do you really need a few hundreds more followers, if out of all of them, only 20 are really interested in what you offer? Let’s put it this way: What do you get by increasing the number of followers? Earlier, after passing 10K followers, accounts were given the option of swipe-up linking within the Instagram story. You now have a sticker that you can use regardless of the number of followers. Then, you get more visibility. Again, greater visibility among disinterested audiences. Basically, you get satisfaction in the form of statistics: I have many followers on my brand profile. If other parameters do not follow that fact, as well as conversions – how much is it worth? You will agree, not much. And in this case, quality wins over quantity.

How to attract actually your audience?

What is very important to begin with is to know your target group, and how to approach them according to their needs, strategically. If you need help defining and setting up a strategy on digital communication channels, feel free to contact us (the strategic approach is our second nature😉).

It is very important to nurture a relationship with the community, and generic activation mechanisms will only unhelp you. Why not reward your existing followers? By doing so, you let the community know that you appreciate them and that you are grateful that they are there and set aside time for you. As a result, when people who don’t follow you and are interested in your product realize that they can’t only find relevant content on your profile, but are occasionally rewarded for trusting you, you’ll get new followers who are truly yours. Does this mean that reward activations outside your community should be forgotten? Of course not, there is always a way.

When you thought something could go by without an influencer…

You know your community, you know what they love. Do you know who they love? If the answer is “Yes”, the formula for success, not only on Instagram, but also on other channels, can be quite simple: Good reward activation mechanism + RELEVANT influencer. We have to emphasize again – relevant! So, do not determine the influencers according to the number of followers, but according to the structure of their audience. Five micro-influencers, if you choose them purposefully, can bring you more results than two mega-popular ones. We repeat: quality> quantity.

In the case of such cooperation, activation can take place on the profile of the influencer, and it is up to you to “host” new visitors in the right way so that they remain your followers after activation and ultimately become your consumers.

When we add it all up:

The calculation is clear. Your audience is real people, not just numbers and statistics. If you approach them generically, the results will be short-lived or practically unusable. Instead, invest resources in nurturing the relationship with the community since it is the only proven way to grow your social media business in the right direction in the long run. If you still need support, we are here for you. 🙂