How Instagram Followers Influence Your Digital Marketing Success

It’s no secret that Instagram is one of the most powerful social media platforms; it has over one billion monthly active users. If you are a brand or business looking to generate more leads through digital marketing, having a strong presence on Instagram is certainly an important thing to have. 

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The extent to which a brand’s presence on Instagram is influential and authoritative is often decided by the number of Instagram followers it has. This means that, in the eyes of new users who will see your profile, more followers indicate credibility and trust. Also, it helps you reach more people, as your content will appear in additional feeds when people scroll through Instagram. So, let’s see how many Instagram followers could affect your digital marketing and your business success in general.

Building Brand Awareness and Recognition

One primary goal for brands on Instagram is to build awareness about their business, products or services. Having more followers on your Instagram profile automatically exposes more people to your brand every time you post content. This repeated exposure in Instagram feeds leads to improved brand recognition over time. 

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Even outside of Instagram, someone who has seen your brand multiple times on Instagram is more likely to remember you over a completely unknown brand. A big follower count signals authority and trust as well. If thousands or even millions are already following you, new visitors can instantly recognize that your content is interesting enough for the crowd. This social proof establishes credibility quickly, making it easier to attract more followers rapidly. For brands looking to accelerate their growth, options like Instagram followers buy on GoreAd can provide the initial push needed to stand out in a competitive space.

Expanding Reach Through Viral Content

Viral content reaches a large number of people in a short period. On Instagram, content from accounts with more followers tends to go more viral compared to smaller accounts. When you post something exciting, and followers start liking and commenting on it quickly, the Instagram algorithm picks it up and shows it to more users outside your follower base. 

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If the content resonates with people, it sparks a viral effect and keeps getting more visibility on Instagram. Explore this section and follower feeds. Accounts with just a few thousand followers struggle to make content go viral. However, larger follower bases amplify the distribution and help reach tens of thousands of new people within a few days.

Driving More Traffic to Your Website

Expanding the reach and visibility of your brand on Instagram can directly drive more valuable traffic to your website. An effective digital marketing strategy requires bringing external traffic into your owned media platforms like blogs and websites through social channels. When you build engaging Instagram content optimized with strategic call-to-actions and website links, you can divert a portion of your new followers into website visitors. This traffic is already familiar to your brand and more likely to convert compared to completely cold traffic. A strong follower base thus gives you the launch pad to keep bringing in warmer traffic from Instagram instead of relying only on expensive ads.

Establishing Thought Leadership

In many industries, establishing thought leadership and showcasing expertise can be a differentiator, especially for lead generation. On Instagram, you can leverage educational content and industry insights to position your brand as a trusted leader and authority figure. However, it is difficult to establish credibility with low follower counts as people perceive your content as less valuable compared to influencers with higher followers. 

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But once you build substantial followers showcasing great content, new visitors immediately associate your posts with an expert. This results in increased leads and sales inquiries coming in through Instagram DMs/comments, even without explicitly asking for it.

Higher Social Engagement Rates

Follower growth and social engagement have a directly proportional relationship. Accounts with more followers tend to have higher engagement rates, i.e., more likes, shares and comments per post, compared to smaller accounts in the same niche. People are more likely to interact with content from an already popular brand, enjoying social proof. 

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Additionally, Instagram's algorithm favors content that gets high early engagement after posting and amplifies reach to more users. This creates a positive reinforcement loop where more followers lead to better engagement, which expands your reach and earns more followers.

Unlocking Instagram's Algorithm

The Instagram algorithm does not show posts from all followed accounts in users' feeds. It selectively picks content predicted to be most relevant for each person based on past behavior. So, reach drastically drops if Instagram's algorithm does not find your content engaging enough. But as you build substantial followers and engagement, Instagram identifies you as a creator with content valuable for the community. Your existing popularity signals relevancy, and the algorithm starts consistently showing your posts to more followers as well as non-followers. This boosts further growth without paying for promotions.

Leveraging Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing on Instagram has become extremely lucrative for brands to leverage endorsements from relevant creators. But popular influencers only agree to partner with brands that match their follower base and status. Nano influencers with a few thousand followers are ready to post for almost anyone due to lower fees. 

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But for higher-tier influencers, brands need a strong Instagram presence and a minimum of 200-300K+ followers to unlock collaboration opportunities. Without enough followers of your own, you cannot leverage influencer marketing to tap into new target audiences and boost your marketing.

Analyzing Performance Through Insights

Instagram offers built-in analytics under Insights to track the performance of your content and profile. However, detailed metrics and reporting are only available for business/creator accounts that require at least 10,000+ followers, or you will see limited data. To make data-driven decisions to fine-tune content and marketing, the performance metrics and demographics data from Insights become crucial. More followers qualify you for the extra analytics that offer a competitive advantage for small businesses over those still stuck with personal accounts.

Enabling Shopping and Commerce

Instagram opened up ecommerce and shopping opportunities for brands through shoppable posts and product tags. It allows direct checkout through Instagram itself. However, the shopping features are only enabled for business accounts that cross Instagram's threshold of credibility, i.e., having over 10,000 followers. Regardless of how great your products are, you cannot leverage the built-in commerce without growing your followers first. Once you gain more followers, you can immediately activate shopping to start selling products directly via Instagram to tap into new sales channels.

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Clearly, the number of Instagram followers carries significant influence over various aspects of digital marketing for brands and businesses. While authentic and relevant content remains the core foundation, putting focused efforts toward growing your followers unlocks many additional benefits. It establishes credibility and authority that attracts more engagement, reach and conversions. A strong follower base sets the optimal foundation for executing high-performing digital marketing campaigns on Instagram.

Conclusion

Consistency, patience, and perseverance are some of the things you need to execute the right follower growth strategies for your brand. The long-term rewards of higher credibility, visibility, and conversions are so worth the effort that succeeding in Instagram marketing is a very doable task. Until you hit a predictable follower growth trajectory month after month, track growth metrics and fine-tune tactics.

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The bottom line is to find the right balance between creating content the audience loves and implementing tactics to get that content in front of as many people as possible. The one-two punch is what will accelerate your Instagram follower growth and elevate your digital marketing to the next level.

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