The very first stage of a successful marketing strategy for Instagram is to gain the first thousand of your followers and then grow their number as fast as possible. It is simple to say, but quite challenging to fulfill the plan shortly. But otherwise, you will have to struggle for hardly any engagement signs for your content.

Look for people who will most likely get interested in your brand.

About ¾ of people follow brands when they are interested in their products or services. Think about what you are offering to the customers and for who the service or product can be more attractive.

As soon as you select your target audience, you should stand out in the comments section of some topic-related posts and start showing the best side of your brand. Don't just advertise your product on someone else's ad. It would be rude.

You should join a lot of general, topic-related, or gender/age-related groups and increase the awareness of your brand name by commenting on interesting content.

 If you already have some excited customers in real life, you should let them know that you are here. Send them an email and ask them to follow you on Instagram if they don't want to miss all the discounts and offers by your brand.

Follow Other People

Since you get at least the first thousand followers, you may start following people in order to engage them to follow you back. I don't mean random people. Follow only who fit your target audience. They have the biggest potential actually to become your customers.