How to Grow Your Instagram Followers in 2024: Strategies, Challenges, and Solutions

With the vast and continuously growing world of social media, attracting and retaining followers on Instagram has never been harder. The updates of Instagram’s algorithm which are aimed to attack fake accounts or bots that make it difficult for …

With the vast and continuously growing world of social media, attracting and retaining followers on Instagram has never been harder. The updates of Instagram’s algorithm which are aimed to attack fake accounts or bots that make it difficult for users to depend on regular shortcuts like buying followers. These changes are the latest in a series of moves Instagram has made to try to enhance an authentic user experience. But it’s still possible to organically grow your following, provided you do it the right way.

In this publication we will talk about the current situation with the Instagram algorithm, why buying followers is more and more pointless and dangerous, and how services like Soc-Promotion can help to solve the problem, offering you real followers via legitimate advertising mechanism. We’ll also see how to try out Soc Promotion’s free Instagram followers and test the service without any SEO investment.

Instagram’s Constant Algorithm Updates: Well now we will take a look at the Challenge of Buying Followers.

Over the past several years, Instagram has changed its algorithms considerably to improve the user experience. Updates have made it harder to run dishonest tactics such as purchasing followers, or using bots to artificially inflate their numbers. While buying followers was once a popular method to boost social proof quickly, it has become less effective for several reasons:

  1. Instagram’s Bot Detection System: The platform has created some very sophisticated tools that can spot and kick out fake accounts — bot followers included. Now, Instagram tracks account behavior much more closely, monitoring how users behave with posts, stories, or any content in any way. As Instagram can flag an account as suspicious or inactive, it is most likely to take it off board.

  2. Decreased Engagement Rates: So, even if you manage to get your hands on undetectable followers, they are likely to have no interaction with your content. These fake accounts will not like, comment, nor share your posts. However, this results in a poor engagement rate, also known as a key metric Instagram uses for prioritizing content. Low engagement causes your posts to be seen less often, therefore your organic reach is compromised.

  3. Reputation Damage: A high following without a high engagement is a red flag not just for Instagram but also for a real user. If you do this, it can damage your brand’s credibility, and tell your potential followers that your numbers have been artificially inflated. Fake followers not only prevent brands and influencers from getting paid advertising opportunities but they can also lead to them being shamed by the press and lose business opportunities because brands are increasingly wary of working with anyone who has inflated metrics.

Finally these compounding factors make buying followers something rather risky, as opposed to a shortcut to your success. The short term payoff of seeming more famous than you actually are with fake followers far outweigh the consequences of it.

Why organic growth is the way towards everlasting success

How Instagram algorithm loves genuine engagement just as much as we love organic growth. Here are a few reasons why growing your following naturally is crucial:

  1. Better Engagement Rates: With real followers, your content is far more likely to appear in Instagram’s algorithm resulting in more engagement. The more engagement your posts get, the higher they’ll rank in your followers’ feeds and the Explore page, so get more followers.

  2. Brand Trust and Authenticity: The most important thing, in building trust with your audience, is to be authentic. It’s people who want to keep following accounts that offer some kind of value, whether that’s informative content, entertainment, or inspiration. Having organic followers means your content reaches out to people: it’s made your brand credible and maintains long term relationships with your audience.

  3. Sustainable Growth: This might seem to be effective in the short term, however since you are purchasing followers, it is a solution that is eventually going to damage your account. While organic growth takes time, it’s more likely to get you a loyal and engaged audience that really cares about your content and is more likely to support your business or personal brand.

Soc-Promotion: Instagram growth the Safe and Effective Way

Having a hard time to get followers on Instagram organically, many people are seeking these tools and services to stimulate the growth of their following base. However, one such service that can proudly put itself out there is Soc-Promotion which does posess real Instagram followers. Unlike other methods of bot or fake account counts, Soc-Promotion allows users to boost their following by real ads, promoting to real people interested in your content.

What Soc Promotions Are, and How They Work?

  1. Targeted Advertising: Soc-Promotions promote your Instagram Profile to a relevant audience using REAL Ad Campaigns. This will mean the people who have their interest in your content that actually see your account. In turn, these users are much more likely to follow your account and interact with your posts to get you higher engagement rates and sustained growth.

  2. Real Followers, No Risks: Because Soc Promotion only works with real advertising, you will actually get real followers and you don’t risk violating Instagram’s rules. This will keep your profile safe, and you won’t need to worry that Instagram will delete fake followers or punish your account for pretending to be worth more than you are.

  3. Free Instagram Followers for Testing: What sets Soc-Promotion apart, is the opportunity to test the service before making a financial commitment. On the other hand, you can get free Instagram followers on their trail program and you can see what exactly you are going to get from them. This is a perfect chance to test out the quality of the followers and the usefulness of the service without spending a dime on the up front investment.

What Soc_Promotion’s Approach Brings

  • Compliance with Instagram’s Rules: As Soc-Promotion gets its users through advertising, all its followers are real customers that aren’t fake and won’t get your page banned. What this means is: you can add followers to your account without having to worry about getting dinged or risking losing followers.

  • Higher Engagement Rates: Soc-Promotion followers are real people who will react physically to your content. As a result, your posts are more likely to be better ranked in Instagram’s algorithm, which in turn leads to higher engagement rates.

  • Customizable Campaigns: With Soc-Promotion, you’re able to design campaigns according to your target audience. This allows you to target specific demographics, target people from specific areas, and target people interested in certain things so you know that your followers are in alignment with your niche or business goals.

Organic Growth Strategies 2024

Services like Soc-Promotion offer great support but make sure you pair that with strong organic growth strategy. Here are some tips to help you boost your followers naturally:

  1. Consistent Posting Schedule: Posting regularly keeps your profile active and will more likely hit more eyes. Consistency is key – if you want to post daily, bi weekly or weekly, be consistent with how often you post, and make sure your audience knows when to expect new content.

  2. Engage with Your Audience: However, replying to comments, liking posts and engaging other peoples’ content will build relationships and attract more followers. The more interactive you are the more likely it is that Instagram’s algorithm will prioritize your content.

  3. Use Instagram Stories and Reels: Stories and Reels are still given the most attention in the Instagram algorithm. This is just awesome and these formats are terrific to show behind scenes, tutorials or viral challenges to cover a much larger audience.

  4. Hashtag Strategy: Still relevant if you use the relevant hashtags to get your content in front of new users. But don’t overburden your posts with generic hashtags, instead narrow your hashtags to niches in your content for more views.

  5. Collaborate with Influencers or Brands: Collaborate with influencers and brands that fit in your niche to get your profile in front of new audiences. Partnerships are a powerful growth tool in organic ways whether that be shoutouts, giveaways, or joint content.

Conclusion: How to Grow Your Instagram Following The Right Way

With Soc-Promotion’s marketing services, 2024 is all about organically growing your Instagram following, in combination with smart usage of marketing services. With Instagram’s algorithms on a never ending crusade against bots and fake followers, it’s now more important than ever to shift your focus to building real followers (who are engaged with your content) and spreading your brand as sustainably as possible.

Soc Promotion is the safe, reliable, and effective way to grow your Instagram audience risk free from buying fake followers. They use targeted advertising campaigns so that you bring in followers who actually care about your content, thereby increasing engagement and helping you to grow your influence on Instagram. Be sure to try their free trial to see for yourself the power of real follower growth!

Ethical marketing tools like Soc Promotion combined with a solid organic growth technique guarantee success on Instagram in the long term — a friendly audience that will keep supporting your brand in the next couple of years.

 

Dennis Allen may be more aggressive challenging plays after rule change

The NFL has lowered the bar for coaches to receive a third challenge. Will Dennis Allen be more aggressive with the red flag going forward?

The NFL banning the “hip drop tackle” is the rule change generating the most headlines, but the league approved several other major rules changes at league owners meetings this week. Coaches will now be given a third challenge as long as they won at least one of their first two challenges. This is a small, yet major, shift from the norm.

And it could be a big moment for New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen. He has never taken two challenges in the same game, only throwing the red flag on 7 plays in 34 games with New Orleans. Allen could be the perfect coach to use as an example. In his first year as head coach, he was a perfect 4-for-4. This would guarantee him a third challenge under the new system. In Year 2, he lost all of three of his challenges. Under the new rule, he would still have another shot to earn a third challenge.

Coaches no longer need to be perfect to get the reward of a third challenge. You will likely see coaches be more aggressive with their second red flag if they win their first challenge. Maybe Allen will even lean away from his conservative nature. Coaches are less likely to hesitate when throwing the flag after a successful first challenge.

This should help get more calls correct in the long run. Teams were less likely to challenge close calls because they wanted to play it safe. Lowering the prerequisites for a third challenge will lead to more challenges which should lead to more correct calls.

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Dennis Allen now 0-for-3 on coach’s challenges, has yet to get a call overturned in 2023

Dennis Allen is now 0-for-3 on challenges. The Saints head coach has yet to get a call overturned in 2023:

Well that’s not great. New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen challenged the ruling of a completed pass to Indianapolis Colts receiver Josh Downs on Sunday, but as has been the case this year his appeal was unsuccessful. Referee Craig Wrolstad reviewed the instant replay and declined to overturn the play.

It meant that Allen fell to 0-3 on challenges this season. He previously appealed a New England Patriots pass completion and an incomplete pass to Rashid Shaheed in games earlier this year, but neither appeal was successful. Losing those challenges and timeouts can be costly and the margin for error is already mighty thin for Allen’s squad.

But we must acknowledge Allen’s past success on challenges: he was 4-0 when throwing the red flag last season, his first year as Saints head coach. And that’s going to keep him challenging officiating decisions. Allen has won these cases before and he’ll try it again. Hopefully he can get back in the win column sooner rather than later.

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4 challenges with the CBA vote

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports The deadline for the CBA vote is set for March 12. That’s only a week away. That presents some obvious challenges for the NFLPA and its players. It’s not like everyone is in camp or teams are close to each other. …

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The deadline for the CBA vote is set for March 12. That’s only a week away. That presents some obvious challenges for the NFLPA and its players. It’s not like everyone is in camp or teams are close to each other. There are a lot of people who need to get educated on the deal. These challenges aren’t huge roadblocks, but they are something to keep an eye on over the next week. Let’s get to them.

What analytics say about McCarthy in areas Rodgers didn’t influence

Coaches and QBs are always linked, but here areas that are mostly on a HC during McCarthy’s tenure in Green Bay.

The 2019 Dallas Cowboys were certainly a volatile, emotional experience. Despite the sensational high points like Dak Prescott’s early-to-mid-season MVP-campaign, inconsistency down the stretch stirred tension and anxiety. Even with Dallas holding the division lead in the final month of the season, speculation grew as to whether Jason Garrett would return as head coach in 2020. The news broke later than some anticipated, but nevertheless, for the first time in a decade, Garrett will not be on the sideline for the Dallas Cowboys. Instead, Mike McCarthy will be stepping in to fill the void after a year-long hiatus from the NFL.

In his last stint as head coach, McCarthy’s reputation came under heavy scrutiny when reports surfaced depicting a toxic relationship with Aaron Rodgers, and a prodigious amount of dysfunction within the locker room. However, it’s difficult to fully discern the truth of such a situation to know how much blame should be allocated to McCarthy. He’s likely not fully innocent, but it’s doubtful he’s the only guilty party either.

Even with the unhappy ending in Green Bay, McCarthy did manage to stay at the helm for nearly 13 seasons and exit with what is now the third-best active winning percentage among NFL coaches (.618). In that time, he helped develop Aaron Rodgers into a two-time MVP, made the playoffs nine times, and won a Super Bowl in 2010. Unluckily, three of those playoff runs ended in the NFC-Championship game (including the infamous botched onside kick recovery by Brandon Bostick). On paper, that’s a pretty solid resume.

Despite this, there were other concerns regarding McCarthy as a head-coaching candidate. Some speculated that the Rodgers-McCarthy tension was at least partially fueled by stagnancy in the coach’s offensive play-calling. Pop onto Twitter and search “McCarthy” and there will be somebody making a crack about his over-usage of the slant-flat combo.

Again, there’s probably at least some notion of truth to the jokes.

But in a year away from the NFL, McCarthy has done everything you could ask of someone determined to get back to the top. As Peter King outlined in the article, McCarthy has spent time in self-reflection, evaluation, intense study, and preparation for where he and the NFL are heading next. Openness to constructive criticism and the ability to adapt on the fly are huge positives for a high-leverage position like an NFL coach. It’s encouraging to see these signs now, but incorporating them once you’re in the job is much more difficult.

Evaluating McCarthy’s Green Bay tenure is truly difficult, as the offensive success they exhibited is simultaneously tied to Rodgers. Yet again, who gets the credit and blame? Thus, rather than focusing on overall performance, I tried to parse out team aspects and decision-making that are generally more attributable to coaching.

Penalties

Charted above is the number of penalties committed by the Green Bay Packers each year from 2009 – 2018. I’ve excluded 2006-2008 as those years are unavailable via the nflscrapR package.

As you can see, in all about two seasons under McCarthy, the Packers ranked in the top half of the league in regards to penalties committed. Typically, penalties are considered to be a reflection of discipline and coaching. Consequently, it’s certainly positive that McCarthy’s Packers generally performed well in this area.

Challenges

At this stage of my NFL fandom I’m not sure we can even define what constitutes a catch anymore. In an era of high-definition slow-motion replay, the understanding and interpretation of the rule book is murkier than ever. It’s actually remarkable referees get as much right as they do, given the speed of the game they’re assigned to judge. It doesn’t get any easier for a head coach either.

The moment a coach has to challenge a play can be as thin as a razor’s edge. The game continues to move, and their job in managing the flow, morale, chemistry, and game-plan of the team doesn’t stop for them to think it over. It’s often a gut-level reaction, and unfortunately, intuition can often lead us astray.

From 2009-2018, there were 2,933 coach’s challenges in regular season games. Of those, 1,220 resulted in the call on the field being overturned (41.6%). Over that same time-span, McCarthy threw the challenge flag 66 times, and won 32 of those challenges (48.5%). While he was his result was better than average, it’s a small enough sample that perhaps he was just a little lucky.

Passing Tendency

Naturally, when a team is in a situation when they’re likely to win, they generally run the ball more. The chart above depicts this, as the black line shows the league average passing rate based on the game-script at the time of play. Further to the right means the team with the ball is more likely to win. Unsurprisingly, passing rates decrease as the chance of winning increases.

Notice also the green line, which represents the Packers’ passing rate under McCarthy. While the line follows the same general trend (moving down to the right), it’s higher than the black line at every stage of the chart. In essence, this means the Packers were much more likely to throw the ball than the average team, regardless of the game-script.

I’m always a proponent to throw the ball more, and thus, I’m quite pleased with this tendency. However, it’s at least possible that this result was somewhat tied to the personnel McCarthy had to deploy on offense. The closest thing Green Bay had to a feature back under McCarthy was Eddie Lacy when he ran for 1,100 yards in 2013 and 2014. Beyond that, the running back position was typically a committee deployment involving guys like James Starks, Ryan Grant and even converted wide receiver Ty Montgomery.

All this to say, McCarthy hasn’t had a running back like Ezekiel Elliott, and how he chooses to deploy him will be one of the features I’m most intrigued to observe.

Aggressiveness

While showing an overall propensity for passing more, McCarthy has previously come under fire for being too conservative as a play-caller. Admittedly, a coach’s aggressiveness is quite difficult to quantify (unless you’re the Ravens). Here, I chose to focus on fourth-down decisions.

Again, from 2009-2018, the Packers faced 4th-and-less-than-five in opposing territory 234 times. 86 times the offense stayed on the field and went for the first down (36.7%). Over the same time-span, the NFL went for it 2445 times out of 8135 opportunities (30%).

McCarthy may have at least some foundation to incorporate analytics into his coaching methods. Even so, he will need to develop trust in Dak Prescott for any type of aggressive decision-making to transpire.

Summary

Overall, McCarthy comes up with a largely positive resume. Every coaching candidate has some risks and cons, but for a team that’s ready to compete, he’s a fantastic acquisition. Of course, a head coach can’t do it alone. Even if past mistakes or negative traits begin to recur, having the right staff in place can offset these bumps and provide feedback that moves the team back toward their desired process. Thus, the next stage of the hiring process is paramount. But at least for today, Cowboys fans can be optimistic about this hire, and the potential it instills for 2020 and beyond.

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