The world of social media is growing and although there are loads of new ‘hot’ social sites popping up more regularly than a field of pimples on a oily-teenager’s face, most aren’t worth owrrying about too much. But every now and then a new social portal gets it right. And that site is the reason you’re here trying to learn how to get more Instagram followers, right?

To put it simply, Instagram is growing stupidly fast. And just like Twitter, already thousands of celebrities are using it to connect with their fans, just the same as they did on Twitter. Oh, and if you’re already losing faith in humanity, you might like to ignore the fact that shake-and-bake pop-gerbil Justin Bieber is already the most-followed person. Sometimes, I just want to set fire to everyone…

Ahem…moving on.

While Instagram marketing may not be a tactic for every kind of business, it sure is something that a lot of companies, up-and-coming artists, clothing labels and soforth could use to help boost their online advertising and promotion. So without any further ado, here are my tips on how to get more followers on Instagram the fastest way possible:

1. Upload GOOD Content

Now I’m not trying to treat you like some mewling, slobbering, pant-crapping child here, but the first and probably most important thing to remember is that you should only be uploading your most impressive and best photos to your Instagram followers. Unless you’re a celebrity, (who thousands of mindless denizens of the web will follow anyway, regardless of what you post) nobody gives three craps that you’ve just folded your shirts and decided to show the world how awesome you are at it. The best way to look at it is as if you were a potential follower finding your own picture on Instagram. If you saw it, would you want to follow that person? If the answer is no, don’t post it. Posting only one quality photo a day is much more effective than posting a dozen which are the photographic equivalent of fingerpainting with feces.

And we should also be launching our new buy Instagram followers service soon, so keep an eye out for that! But in the meantime…

2. Geo-tag Everything

One of the features of posting on Instagram is that you have the opportunity to geo-tag where you were at the time of taking the pic. You should do this ALWAYS. When you tag the location of a cafe you were at, event or something similar, it gives other people who were at that location the ability to see all the pics uploaded at the same location. Chances are, if someone is close to you geographically, they will want to keep updated with what you’re doing, resulting in a follow. This should be a fundamental of  how to get more Instagram followers you should always take advantage of.

3. How To Get More Instagram Followers With Hashtags

Just like with Twitter marketing, you have the ability to attach up to 30 hashtags — similar to keywords — to every photo. It doesn’t take a noodle-surgeon to figure out these are a great way for people searching Instagram for certain topics to find content, or similar images. While it may seem more tedious than watching your grandmother knit a sweater for your pet hermit crab to attach 30 tags to every image you post, you should take into account that this is by far THE MOST EFFECTIVE TOOL for getting followers, especially when you’re new to Instagram. And for those of you with the attention span of a stoned sloth, there is a reason I capitalized that. Just be aware that whatever hashtags you do use are relevant to what you post, for example, using the hashtag #food when you post a picture of what you had for dinner. Oh, and you can find a totally awesometacular list of top trending keywords on Instagram here.

4. Comment, Like, Comment, Repeat…

One of the best ways of getting targeted Instagram followers is by commenting and liking other photos, especially popular ones that are similar or relevant to yours. Now before you go and start becoming some kind of evil spam-demon and mass-liking everything you see, let me say that I only recommend you do this sparingly. The reason is that from time-to-time I do see people using the app that are getting more Instagram followers by just going out and ‘liking’ everything they see. It works, though only to a certain extent. You will get followers, but only in general those who are doing it to get follow-backs or something similar. The main aim of using this tactic is that you’re getting a large number of highly-targeted followers who will be interested in whatever you want to promote through IG. Unless you just want a bunch of moronic Bieber-fans, stick to my advice.

5. Promote Yourself Everywhere

This one should be common sense, though I’m going to mention it anyway. If you have other marketing channels (ie; blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc…) you should let your existing fans and followers know you’re now a member of the Instagram family so they can follow you there. The more you promote yourself elsewhere and let people know you’re now photo-blogging like a mad teenage hipster who’s just been given their first iPhone, the better your chances of harvesting new followers. Remember, social media success is all about perseverence and constant promotion. Get yourself out there.

Okay, so these four tips may sound simple, but should get you on the road to getting more followers on Instagram quite quickly. As always, the aim should be to get people following you who will be interested in what you have to post and won’t unfollow you as soon as you post a picture of your new kitten. Although, kittens are damn cute.

And remember, make sure you check out our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube marketing services for a better chance at succeeding in social media!

Anyway, I wish you luck with your new IG marketing efforts and I hope this post has helped you learn more about how to get more followers on Instagram!

If you’ve been doing any kind of marketing online over the last couple of years, I’m sure you’ve heard all the constant “blah, blah, blah” that is talk about social media and how you should be using it or not only is your business going to fail, but your head is going to combust in a spontaneous fiery ball of magma. And while there is a certain grain of truth to the what they’re saying, I’m here to tell you that the hype is not always necessarily as true as some make it out to be.

In my opinion, social media isn’t all that’s cracked up to be — and for some, that may sound funny coming from someone who owns a social media marketing company. But in saying that, I do think you are an absolute and utter ball of amoebic fluid if you’re not utilising one type of social media to promote your business, which based on the title of this post, is obviously Facebook.

The truth is, marketing any business successfully using Facebook — and sometimes nothing but Facebook — is extremely easy. And for those of you savvy-sausages looking for this exact information, this post is going to reveal to you the most essential Facebook marketing tools, of course, expressed through my own humble opinion.

1. uSocial Facebook Marketing

Of course, this was always going to be my Numero Uno choice. With uSocial’s Facebook marketing services, you can targeted and real Facebook fans, friends and likes to be delivered to your own profile on the social site. Some people underestimate just how powerful this tactic can be, but for those of you who’ve done any kind of email marketing will realise, it’s about as hardcore as having your very own massive list of targeted email subscribers to send promo messages and offers to whenever you so desire it. In short,  go use this service now or a swarm of bitey insects will likely devour your children.

2. Facebook Advertising

Coming a close second is Facebook’s own advertising platform for advertising on the site. Just like Google’s famous (or infamous, as the case may be) Adwords system, you can pay FB to place your ads in the sidebar of the site, targeted to certain keywords so that they’re shown when users that fit your demographic talk about the topic you’re promoting, or read about similar interests. Of course, the benefits to this are many, including the fact that you can reach such an immense base of people (500 million and counting…) immediately, as well as the fact that clicks are worlds cheaper than Adwords. Start posting your ads on Facebook here.

Are you a business owner looking to grow your company and increase brand awareness? Twitter lets business owners create a casual online persona that makes them seem as if they are extremely sociable and responsive to the public, which is ideal for many consumers. Individuals are more likely to use the products and services of a business if they feel as if they have made a connection with the company, and see that others are using that business as well. uSocial can help companies make that connection by easily connecting business owners with the general public. uSocial has programs that can grow targeted followers relevant to your business and industry, you can see those here: http://usocial.net/twitter_marketing/. Once you have obtained those followers; here are some tips to make the most of your interactions.

Build Relationships: Twitter provides a social platform that lets business owner’s build relationships with their clientele. Twitter allows business owners to get to know their clients by enabling them to look at user profiles, and clients can get to know the businesses by doing the same. Mentioning and Direct Messaging people on related topics of interest regarding business can also help to build a certain level of understanding and trust.

Don’t Spam: Spamming is the easiest way to lose credibility in the eyes of the public. People sometimes view spam messages such as “Check this link out”, as a scam. Make sure all tweets and messages are composed with valuable content that consumers would be interested in reading.

Take Feedback: Business’ can ask their followers questions regarding their products. Additionally, customers often tweet about the products and services that they received, and the business that they received them from. This gives business owners the opportunity to find out what they are doing right, as well as what they are doing wrong. If the feedback from consumers is positive, then that drives others to seek out the items referenced positively. Negative feedback can even be made into a positive if business owners reach out to the customers that had a bad experience, and make the wrong a right. Afterwards, customers that had a bad experience are more likely to talk about how good the customer service was versus what went wrong.

Promote Yourself: Twitter is the perfect place to get consumers involved in your company. Business owners can tweet about coupons and incentives, and place links for followers to navigate to. Twitter is also a good platform to hold contests on, and contests have the potential to create a large buzz among users.

All of the tips above can help a business owner utilize Twitter and possibly grow their business while promoting their brand. Again, it is important to understand that the more followers a business has, the more likely it is that others will want to start using that business’ products and services. uSocial can help business’ build a strong following, which will can lead to greater public awareness in general. Pricing can be found through the following link: http://usocial.net/twitter_marketing/.

To learn more about how Twitter can help your business refer to the Twitter 101 manual: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/

Looking for an easy way to make money? Twitter offers users the ability to gain monetary value through the utilization of their followers. The most basic ways to monetize your Twitter account include sponsored ads, direct advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsored contests, and paid reviews. However, all of the methods listed mean nothing with followers. uSocial can partner with you to gain followers, which in turn can help you make money.

Sponsored advertisements revolve around the use of auto ads and sponsored actions. Auto Ads would allow an outside service to help the user in dispensing the tweet ads when the actual user of the account is not actively tweeting on a regular basis or is idle. The user can also set the auto ad to send out advertisements at certain times, in order to ensure that they do not annoy their followers. Sponsored Actions would require the user to send out a call of action to followers, such as re-tweeting a certain phrase where a hash tag is used (for tracking purposes).

Direct Advertising allows users to promote a particular product to their followers. If a user’s followers fits a certain niche market for a company and/or product then that company will want to employ that user simply because of the resources that they have to offer them in that market (potential buyers). Essentially, all direct advertising requires is making a recommendation to followers to look into a specific item. After recommending the item, the user would need to present the follower with an action, like buying the product.

Affiliate Marketing lets users make money through affiliate links or the user’s personal sales pages. An affiliate link is comprised of a tweet that recommends a product, and presents a link in the same tweet that directs the follower to where that product is sold. A sales pages would allow the user to send followers to their own personal sites (where the user can sell the follower their own products and services), versus sending them to affiliate companies.

Sponsored contests are sometimes done to promote brand awareness, or help advertisers gain insight into the minds of their consumers through feedback. Feedback can be obtained through one’s followers when the user simply throws out a question asking the followers how they feel about a certain product or service. Brand awareness is gained by having users compete in tweeting the best descriptions of products or in sending descriptions that get the word out on certain companies/products. Sponsored tweets are also a great way to go about this.

Paid Reviews allow users to simply get paid by sending in reviews on products, services, or even people. A paid review lets users send information on how they feel about something directly to the company, and does not require anything of the user’s followers.

All of these methods of making money using twitter require you to grow your twitter network.  uSocial can help you do just that by partnering with you to help you increase the numbers of followers you have. Again, increasing your number of followers can increase your personal value in the business world, and therefore increase your wallet size. Visit uSocial’s marketing page on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/usocialads

In addition to being a communication tool, Twitter  offers a very large value to aspiring musicians, bands and singers.  Musicians are able to truly connect with fans through their ability to promote shows, take requests, obtain instant feedback, hold exclusive Twitter contests, in addition to receiving exclusive Twitter downloads.

Uploading music via Tinysong, Twiturm, TwittyTunes is fairly simple, but gaining followers is not. USocial is a great strategic partner for musicians in their quest to stardom.  Usocial helps aspiring musicians gain followers and share music with the masses.  Usocial helps musicians to not only grow their followers, but to identify and follow those interested in similar artists to their genre.

When an artist produces good music and is able to share that music and connect with others many followers feel that a solid connection is formed. As a result large fan bases begin to take shape, and those fans begin to spread the word on that particular artist and become “brand champions”, which can be invaluable to an artist.

With uSocial gaining a large fan base it is quick and easy for musicians and bands to not only acquire a higher profile, but to also establish a higher sense of credibility as well.   When visitors to an artist’s profile see that they have a large fan base or network of followers, they are more likely to follow that artist and give listening to their music a chance.

USocial specializes in building fan bases and followers on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. Pricing can be found through the following link: http://usocial.net/twitter_marketing/