Often people are wanting to know the best ways to grow their Instagram following. Your account shouldn't be made in aspiration of gaining followers and/or free products. But if you do want to grow your following because you want to reach more people and share your passion then you're in it for the right reasons. I honestly was most excited about hitting 10,000 followers because I was excited for another giveaway that I had been planning for a month or so! I love being able to say thank you for the support I receive and love being able to make others excited about something I love. I'm so grateful for the love, likes and followers on my Instagram account and wish I could send every single person a thank you gift (but unfortunately, as my username suggests, I'm not made of money and tend to spend it too quickly). I know my account is still smaller than many but I thought I would share some ideas on how to grow your Instagram and reach more people. 

My tips (or how I think I've got followers (not to sound up-myself, I'm just trying to help!)) would be - 

Quality: use only good quality pictures. People don't tend to like grainy, low quality pictures. See my post on taking and editing better pictures.
Stay active: post at least once every three days, comment and like plenty of other similar pictures to the ones you put out. And by comment I don't mean leave an emoji love heart! Ask questions about the products, make statements if you own the same "oh I love my ... bronzer too!!" Etc. I try and post at least once a day, sometimes I'll post two or three times if I'm excited about things I want to share! If I miss a day I don't stress though, but I don't like to be absent from liking or commenting on others' posts.
Hashtags: you can use 30 per picture, use as close to 30 RELEVANT hashtags as you can!! Look through similar accounts and what hashtags they're using if you're unsure what to use. After you've posted go through some of the hashtags you've used and like and comment on similar pictures. This just helps to bring more attention to your page. 


Credit: ALWAYS CREDIT THE OWNER OF PICTURES YOU POST THAT YOU DID NOT TAKE YOURSELF. It is good etiquette. If you don't know say source unknown, don't claim it as your own. Posting pics that aren't yours and claiming they are is a big pet hate of mine as I think it's very rude.
Inspiration: follow other accounts you like and use their pics as inspiration for yours! Don't copy them exactly, but put your own spin on them. Look at what you think works in their pictures but also what you think doesn't. 
Theme: pick a theme and stick to it. It's hard to engage with followers who like beauty posts when you post an assortment of beauty, food, fashion, and fitness etc pictures... If I was to post fitness pictures I think my followers would be confused because they followed my account for the beauty pictures. This isn't a rule you must follow, if you want to post a bit of everything you go right ahead, its your account and you are free to post anything you like. This is just my suggestion (as are all my tips! You do you!)