This is a question that we get asked all the time: How to grow a Meme page on Instagram?
Instagram is definitely one of the places where memes have a big market.
We see it all the time; there are accounts with even more than a million followers, and that’s nothing compared to the real potential number of people that you could attract.
Now…
Just like with anything, if there is a big market, there is a lot of competition, and on Instagram, you will get tired of this scenario.
There are a few ways in which you can go ahead and grow while standing out from the rest; we will talk about them here.
Let’s start…
Contents
How to grow a Meme page on Instagram?
In this post, we are going to be talking about the different ways in which you can grow your Meme page on Instagram and how you can do that in the fastest and safest way possible.
Growing a Meme page is fun, and if you grow enough to have hundreds of people commenting and engaging with you, then you can even make money off your account, but don’t let that be your main goal; just have a good time.
Keep reading for more.
1- Use hashtags
When it comes to growing a page on Instagram (or any page), hashtags should not be optional.
They will get your content out there, and just like Google does with keywords and websites, Instagram will do the same with hashtags and your account.
You will rank higher if you are publishing good content and if people enjoy what you put out.
Now…
What hashtags should you use?
Don’t even worry about it; we have already hand-selected the best Meme hashtags out there.
You can always add some of the ones that you think will better suit your page, for example, if you are in certain sub-niche, then it would make sense to include some hashtag in there from that same sub-niche.
People are always scrolling through hashtag sections, and when they find something really unique and interesting, they open it.
What does that mean?
It means that whatever you publish, you should always try to make it as interesting and special as you can.
Note: Don’t clickbait. I know everyone is using those red circles for literally anything, but unless you have a real and genuine reason, don’t do it.
Imagine you being the one searching for your own page through a hashtag: What would you want to see? And more importantly, what would make you click on your own post if you did not know it was yours?
Having that thought in your mind is crucial if you want to stand out.
2- Don’t buy followers or likes
The most obvious reason that somebody could have to buy this type of service is wanting direct and instant results.
This is the most terrible thing you could ever do to your account.
Does this look right?
It obviously doesn’t.
This picture was altered on purpose, but that’s the same reaction people will get from your page.
Trust me…
Don’t use shortcuts to grow your Meme page or else, you might and surely eventually will get banned.
Instagram knows when something is not right, and they will spot you and disable your account.
Plus, all those followers will be fake (you read that right, they will be fake).
What they do is that they automate their bots to make their hundreds of spammy accounts follow you, but since no real human is behind these accounts, nobody will engage with you, at all.
You are basically doing it for the numbers, and imagine having 30k followers and only get 12 likes with no comments.
This is a position you don’t want to be in.
Why is this even important?
People can see that your account is a fake one really easy.
Then almost nobody will really genuinely follow you if they organically come across your content.
This will really push away whoever could be interested in what you do.
3- Always post about what’s trending; do not post dead/old memes
Do you want a simple trick to doing this?
Simply watch Pewdiepie every now and then, and be active on his subreddit (or just be on Reddit in general).
Don’t think this is a joke, these are really some of the best places where you can find the latest memes before anyone.
When you go into the /r/memes subreddit, make sure to change the sort option to “hot” so it puts the most popular ones first.
People like new memes, and if you want to increase your engagement and eventually your following, then this is a really important thing to do.
Why?
Most Instagram meme accounts are usually “repost” accounts.
Now, imagine you being one of the first accounts to post about a new meme or trend (or maybe even create your own one); then you will certainly have a lot of people reposting your content.
With a proper watermark…
This is a good way to get free marketing for your page.
Note: If this is sounding too complicated and you are just aiming to be a “re-post” account or make some original memes here and there, that’s perfectly fine; the content below will certainly also help you.
4- Network and connect with other meme accounts
Get to know other accounts and interact with them.
Most creators of meme accounts are certainly willing to comment, follow, and like a lot of your Instagram posts.
If you see that somebody is trying to engage with you, then do the same.
In the long run, you will really see the benefit of doing this.
Don’t compete with them, grow together; this is the mentality that you should have.
In the future, those same users could be the ones shouting you out and sharing their audience with you (they call it “shoutout for shoutout”).
I will talk about this below.
5- Upload content that tempts people to tag other people
This is another strategy that is very likely to help you increase your followers automatically.
There is no better way of reaching someone you don’t know, than making who they know, tell them about you.
I hope I said that right.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoNZj83BD0m/?hl=en&taken-by=daquan
What you should try to do is upload memes that are relatable, and then in your post’s caption ask your followers to tag “others that should see” the post.
This is not difficult, but you have to ensure that the content is right and that you give your followers a way to engage and get their friends to do the same.
If their friends are active on social media, they are probably going to come in and engage as well.
In your caption, you can say something like:
*your own funny personal comment related to the meme*. Tag somebody and don’t say anything.
For the “funny personal comment” part, just make sure to say something relevant to the meme.
In my opinion, a big amount of successful meme pages are successful because of the character and personality of whoever is running it.
So, be creative and funny.
6- Engage with your followers
Never give your followers a chance to get bored.
Always be there to make fun of stuff.
If they went ahead and commented on one of your posts, then reply to them or like their comment.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn0LOnaAEWt/?hl=en&taken-by=memep
They actually took the time to do that, so appreciate it.
When somebody that does not follow you comes to your page and sees that you actually have a community with people talking to each other and interacting, they will be more likely to follow your account.
Why?
People like to be part of something.
Is a thing that we unconsciously do as humans; most of us want to “fit in” somewhere.
So, use that to your advantage.
7- Switch to a business profile
You will be doing this to know a few things about your account…
By having a business profile, Instagram will provide you with the exact engagement data and analytics of your page.
You should then use this information to further know your audience and so that you can adapt to them in better ways.
Let me explain myself…
For example, if your audience is 80% based on China, and you are in the United States, then guess what, the time that you publish will influence the number of people seeing the post right after it gets posted.
This is the problem…
If you didn’t know, Instagram takes how fast and positive the feedback for each post is, as a factor to determine how good that same content is.
Then they feature the best of the best in different places like the explorer page.
You see where I’m going with this?
The fewer the people reacting to your memes right away, the fewer the chances of getting free exposure from Instagram’s explorer page. If you don’t get any likes, Instagram’s algorithm will automatically think that what you are posting is low-quality.
I will talk more about how to easily get in the explorer page below.
8- Do shoutouts for shoutouts
If you want to increase your following, you should also consider doing shoutouts for shoutouts.
They are a great way of making people who like memes notice your page through other pages.
As soon as you start growing, others will automatically ask you for a shoutout.
If you see that you will get as much value as they will get, then do it, otherwise, just wait for the right time.
This is what I mean…
If you have 100 followers and you do a shoutout for a shoutout with another account that also has 100 followers, nobody will benefit from this.
Even having a 2% success percentage, will only give you 2 followers.
And that’s not even worth your time; you can do 5x that by just uploading content with the right hashtags.
Note: If you decide to do a shoutout for a shoutout, then be aware of how many times you do it because this usually looks like you are trying to spam your followers, and that irritates most of the people.
9- Pick a small niche and then expand
People usually think that picking a small niche is bad and that they won’t be able to grow.
In my opinion, it is just the opposite.
Why?
Well, think about how many meme pages are on Instagram and what they are doing!
I’m pretty sure you have noticed that it is mostly the same thing done over and over.
Most pages just post random stuff, and they don’t really have a goal or a specific audience that they want to target.
That just makes the competition be even higher than it is.
Do you want the perfect example that illustrates what I’m talking about?
Think about this new trend of “posting the same picture every day.”
People are literally gaining thousands of followers by just posting oranges.
That was not “a thing,” and nobody was doing it.
Now you have all these accounts blowing up with more than 10k followers each, and having only a few posts.
And trust me, those numbers are huge if you think about the little effort that they put into creating content.
Take a look at some other accounts:
And one of the ones that we have seen with the most followers and engagements is @samepictureofatoaster:
For some reason this account gained more attraction than any other one:
Now…
I’m not saying that you should go ahead and create a “posting the same picture everyday” type of account, I just want you to think how even the simplest things could be the ones that work the most.
And to be clear, these type of accounts generally do a lot of commenting on big accounts (spam?), so if you don’t have that much time, then don’t do it.
In your case…
Just go ahead, pick a sub-niche, absolutely be the best at it, and then expand.
10- Pick a good username
Can you tell the difference between @memes and @m_e_m_e_s_h19as390?
Which one do you think most people will remember?
Having a username with no special character is a good thing.
Also…
This is usually a detail that most people forget, but having the word “meme” in your username can help you get organic followers on Instagram and even on Google.
For example, let’s take a look at the Google results for the keyword “Instagram memes:”
This results usually change from time to time, but you can obviously see which accounts are getting more organic traffic from Google.
That keyword is currently getting about 4,500 monthly searches; that is just an approximate number; it could be more or it could be less.
But the point is that it helps make your name as memorable as possible.
Disclaimer: Ranking on Google or even Instagram is not as easy and simple as just having the word “meme” in your username, there are many other things that play a big role in this; we are just showing you that is possible, not that is easy.
11- Create a massive giveaway
The right giveaway could make your account go from nothing to having a lot of followers in a very short period of time.
How people usually do it is that they contact other accounts with a big following and they make them promote their giveaway on their pages.
The will say something like:
@*your-username* is giving away *(the more popular the product the better)*, and the only way to enter is by following them and liking their last post.
What are the downsides?
It will generally cost you money to get these big pages to promote your giveaway, plus you will also have to give away something that’s valuable to others.
We usually don’t recommend our clients to do this because of the costs involved in the process, but we have to mention it here due to the actual benefits that it could bring if it’s done right.
If you are starting a page, don’t do this, yet. But have in mind that in the future it could help you grow if you reach a plateau.
12- Get a shoutout from a big page
This one way will also cost you money, so we don’t recommend it to do it at first.
I’m sure you have seen all these memes pages having something on their bio along with the lines of:
DM for promotions.
This is one of the ways in which they make money with their account.
With this, depending on how big they are, you will have people coming directly from their pages since they will tell their followers to follow you.
How to avoid getting charged?
Be as big as they are, and then you won’t have to give them money. You will be collaborating at that point; it would be more of a shoutout-for-shoutout.
I’m sure you have seen all the 10M+ followers accounts having a day in specific that they shout each other out, and comment generic things on each other’s posts.
They are trying to grow even more by doing these things.
13- Use location tags
Location tags are one of those ways to grow on Instagram that people often forget.
See them as an extra hashtag that you are using.
Be smart about it and use the ones that people use the most.
They will put your content out there, and people can and will actually follow you from there too if your content is good enough.
Note: You can double the results you get from using location tags in your memes if they actually have something to do with the location; make them be relevant, and the engagement could be even higher than you expect.
A few of the most used ones are:
- Los Angeles, US
- London, United Kingdom
- New York, US
- Moscow, Russia
- Paris, France
* Not in order of times used or popularity
14- Join a DM or engagement group or create one
A DM or engagement group is a group of people that comment and like each other’s pictures so that Instagram features those post on places like the explorer page.
As I mentioned before when I talked about having 80% of your followers in China, the same applies here.
If you missed that part, this is what I said before:
If you didn’t know, Instagram takes how fast and positive the feedback for each post is, as a factor to determine how good that same content is.
Then they feature the best of the best in different places like the explorer page.
That is the sole purpose of an engagement group, to make Instagram think your post is worth being featured on the explorer page.
Why is this important?
The formula is simple, explorer page = more followers = more likes = more comments.
I encourage you to get in an engagement group, but not to base your whole strategy on that.
If you find it difficult to find one, create one yourself with a few other meme accounts.
Note: I’m talking about how to get in an engagement group below.
15- Comment on other people posts
First of all, don’t spam.
You don’t want to be that account that’s always self-promoting on other pages.
Lately, people have been getting away with:
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that I post *your type of content*, and I don’t even have, *bigger number of followers*, yet.
But that same comment is getting repetitive and annoying.
If you can come up with something new and unique, then do it, but don’t abuse it either.
What we recommend is to engage with other meme accounts or any big account by leaving them a genuine comment that’s relevant to the post itself, or something that people could find worthy of a reply.
Instagram now puts the best comment first, so if you get a lot of likes, everyone will see your comment everytime they open the post.
Now, because we don’t mind sharing the secrets with you for free…
What you can do is that, instead of trying to be the top post every time, you can comment in the top post as a good alternative.
This way, you don’t have to worry about commenting the “perfect” thing.
At the same time, we really recommend you to always share a genuine thought and not something along the lines of:
Hey, guys, I post memes, follow me.
Being verified really helps with this, as you can see, Instagram will skip regular accounts reply, to display yours in the top comment.
This is a great way to grow, but, again, don’t spam, and comment relevant things. People can see the self-promotion from a mile away; you don’t want to base your followers on that.
16- Have a watermark on your original content
If you create good original content, other meme accounts will surely re-post it.
Is what most meme accounts do.
So if you go ahead and create something that’s worth a re-post, have a watermark with your username on it.
Put it in a place where if you crop the post it won’t make sense anymore, that way, whoever re-posts your content has to leave your username.
This is a great way of getting out here without having to do much effort other than creating good memes.
If you have a watermark, ensure that it is small but with a transparency of 25-50 percent.
Note: Is a meme unspoken rule to not edit someone’s watermark and add your own; just give them credit for their work.
17- Be creative and have fun
What we said here will definitely help you, but don’t forget that somebody else will be doing the same.
That’s why we encourage you to come up with new ideas to promote yourself and grow your meme page.
There are definitely a lot of other things that you can do, so don’t limit your options.
On the other hand, never forget something:
A meme page that has 100 followers that comment and like every post, is a very successful one.
So, don’t get caught up in growing, but rather have fun doing it.
Now, let’s talk about some of the most popular questions regarding this topic:
Should you follow-unfollow other users?
Don’t do this.
It’s time-consuming, and people will also see what you are doing from a mile away.
But what if I use a bot to do it? You might ask.
Imagine somebody coming to your page organically and seeing 100 followers with 6000 following.
Something is not right about that.
Also, most people will unfollow you as well right after you unfollow them, so what’s really the point.
Instagram certainly don’t like you doing this; stay away from it.
What is a shoutout-for-shoutout?
A shoutout-for-shoutout is when two or more pages cross-promote themselves across Instagram.
Generally, they do it when they have the same big amount of followers so that both of them could get value from it.
As I mentioned before, if you don’t have too many followers, and they don’t have that many followers as well, then there is no point in doing this, as you won’t be getting more followers.
It will just make you look spammy.
How to get in the explorer page?
If you have a lot of followers, you will almost always be on the explorer page.
Now, what people do is that they get into engagement groups so that others would like and comment their posts right after it gets posted.
That way, as I said before, Instagram will think that what you publish is high-quality content, and therefore, it will make more people see it.
Nobody really knows exactly how Instagram’s algorithm works, but everyone just speculates based on their own personal experiences.
How to make money with a meme account?
This is a really big topic to cover in just a few sentences (expect us to link an upcoming article about this in a few days).
But some of the ways in which you can make money are:
1- Selling Ads
When you have a big following, other users and even brands will be interested in your audience.
This is where you can charge them a fee for an ad on your page.
2- Having your own online store
What people know as “merch.”
Creating a Shopify store will allow you to sell products to your audience without even having to have the product on inventory.
Somebody else will ship it.
This is what’s called drop shipping or print on demand.
With the second one, you will be able to customize what you sell.
3- Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you get a commission for promoting somebody else’s product.
You will be getting a unique link that you should send your followers to.
If they buy something, you will make a percentage of that revenue.
Disclaimer (for all three): You will need a big following to make a considerable amount of money with these methods; is possible, but is not easy.
Also, don’t base your account on just making money, again, people will see that from a mile away.
As a bonus, watch this video by TheBuffNerds, in which he shares a few tips on how to grow an Instagram account.
I encourage you to watch since he touches a few important things that you should never forget.
We even share the same point of view when it comes to giveaways as a trick to grow on Instagram.
Before you go
We are a website that provides the best Instagram hashtags out there for any niche or keyword.
For example, meme hashtags.
If you like what we do make sure to bookmark our homepage to always access our content easily everytime you want.
As always, thank you for reading and for being here,
The Hashtagie Team