With over two billion users, Instagram has become a pretty crowded place. If you are someone who is looking for inspiration, then you are likely trying to figure out who to follow on Instagram. We have curated a list for different kinds of influencers, brands, and fan pages that are excelling at their Instagram strategies.
There are of course many accounts we have not showcased, as there are numerous niches and industries that are more specific and tailored to unique audiences and tastes. However, this list is an excellent starting point if you need some additional insights into how you can take your Instagram content and engagement strategy to the next level.
Our list includes five high-quality accounts within each of three categories:
- Celebrities
- Brands
- Influencers
Who to Follow on Instagram – Celebrities
There are some celebrities that are worth following to get inspiration from seeing how the most massive accounts create content. Here are our top picks for celebrities you should follow on Instagram:
Christiano Ronaldo
Professional soccer player Christiano Ronaldo has over 600 million followers, making him a highly popular account among soccer fans. Part of his success on Instagram is due to not only sharing content from his games, but also candid moments with his friends, family, and travels. This is an account that blends celebrity life with private life in a balanced and effective way.
Selena Gomez
With over 400 million followers, Selena Gomez has an incredibly popular IG account. This is largely attributed to her curating content in a way that makes her appear relatable to others. Additionally, she gives back by doing shoutouts of other accounts sometimes to amplify other smaller accounts on the platform. Finally, she doesn’t shy away from offering sneak peaks outside of the glamor photo shoots.
Adele
Over 50 million accounts follow Adele, the iconic singer who is known for her powerful vocals. She takes a quality over quantity approach to her Instagram content strategy, ensuring every post does its best by being a blend of fun, positivity, and promotion. What she also does is open up about personal issues that others can relate to on a deeper level, such as postpartum depression. This is a great celebrity account to follow to see that it’s OK to be yourself and still bring in a massive audience.
Gary Vaynerchuk
While not your typical celebrity, Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee as he’s known, is a celebrity of sorts in the business world. He is the CEO of multiple companies, as well as an investor of many more. Gary’s strategy involves posting several times a day, which is likely being done with the help of marketing automation tools that allow him to schedule content to cut down on how much time he spends on the platform. Additionally, Gary focuses on creating video content rather than photos, and adds text in cover photos that hooks people into watching the videos. This is an IG account that knows precisely how to leverage Instagram as a marketing tool.
Ryan Reynolds
Boasting over 50 million followers, Ryan Reynolds has an Instagram account that shows off his wide array of successes. Far more than just an actor, he showcases how he has multiple businesses of his own, and peppers in some candid content that helps him connect with his followers. He also makes sure that he stays light-hearted in the amusing way he is known to be. If you want to see how you can be bold about the business ventures you have, while doing so in a way that doesn’t come off as pushy, this is a great celebrity account to follow.
Who to Follow on Instagram – Brands
Following a select number of brand accounts will be exceptionally helpful if you have your own brand and want to increase your success. If you have a brand, you want to make sure you are doing everything you can to get more of your followers into customers for your products and services.
The following are our picks for brands whose IG strategies are performing especially well.
Kylie Cosmetics
While 25 million followers is a far cry from the 400 million she has on her celebrity profile, Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics has been showcasing how a beauty brand should be doing Instagram. Her brand racked up nearly $1 billion in just three years, demonstrating how successful her strategy is. Although she does not solely make sales from her brand’s IG page, her content is certainly helping. This is likely due to her showing her products being used in everyday life and not just within highly-polished photo shoots. Additionally, she also shares photos of herself on occasion.
Casetify
Having a single product type can also be successful with the help of Instagram. That’s the case with Casetify, which sells incredibly stylish phone cases. This brand makes sure to leverage influencers showcasing their products, as well videos demonstrating how incredibly durable they are. Creativity is in no short supply on Casetify’s IG profile, with some rather creative ways of marketing their products being shared. If you are in need of some creative and unconventional ideas to promote products on Instagram, this is the account to follow.
Gymshark
One of the best fitness-related IG accounts is definitely Gymshark. Millions of people follow this account to see major athletes, fitness gurus, and champions showing off Gymshark gymwear. In fact, you probably won’t find more muscular influencers on any other single IG account like you will on Gymshark. This is one of the ways they stand out and get their engagement to increase. Partnering with eye-catching influencers has helped cement the success of this clothing brand.
Kawaii Pen Shop
What Kawaii Pen Shop demonstrates is that even what would traditionally be considered to be a less exciting niche like stationery can be quite the opposite. With hundreds of thousands of people following this brand’s IG account, there is something to be said about the cute, bright, and cheery aesthetic this brand is leveraging. Given the pastel tones in every photo and products that blend into their surroundings, it doesn’t feel as if you are really being pushed products as much as it feels that someone is sharing something beautiful they found with you.
Mizzen+Main
This meanswear line focuses on delivering the highest-quality performance shirts possible. They have branched out beyond initially focused on just a single dress shirt and are now known for superior mens apparel. Many of the photos shared by this brand account show their products being used out in everyday life. This helps people get a glimpse into how the apparel would actually look when used like they would use them. Mizzen+Main is a great source of inspiration for similar brands looking to gain an edge over competitors who don’t have people wearing their apparel in everyday situations, especially in candid moments.
Who to Follow on Instagram – Influencers
Influencers have become today’s version of spokespeople for brands. Sometimes they focus solely on one particular brand, especially if it’s one they own, or several brands they have made promotional agreements with. Since them getting paid relies on them being able to convince people to buy a product or service, it is essential that you follow successful influencers. This will help you craft your own content strategy, especially if you are a micro or nano influencer.
Here are our top choices for influencer accounts you should follow on Instagram:
Huda Kattan
Over 50 million accounts follow this makeup artist and blogger, who has placed herself in a position where she is seen as an authority on makeup. While she got her start with a beauty-focused blog, she later expanded into creating an Instagram presence, along with her own line up makeup. Her success, partially thanks to her Instagram account that shows her makeup being tested on herself and with no filters, helped her become a makeup artist for celebrities.
Chiara Ferragni
Coming in at just under 30 million followers, entrepreneur and fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni is a great example of leveraging Instagram as a marketing tool. Chiara had her start by running her own fashion blog, and later started up her Instagram account, along with an entire fashion house. What you can note from her Instagram strategy is that she will often share content that includes her family, including personal and heartwarming moments that others may shy away from. You may see a theme in how the most successful IG accounts make sure to include personal and behind-the-scenes content intermixed with the content they are sharing to sell their products and services.
Mariano Di Vaio
As an actor and model hailing from Italy, Mariano di Vaio boasts over 7 million followers. This brand ambassador regularly showcases the fashion lines of quite a number of big-name fashion houses. Additionally, he makes sure he is posting content that includes his family. What sets Mariano apart from other influencers doing something similar is that he makes sure to make his captions say something inspiring and uplifting. Giving a dose of positivity to your content could potentially help you get improved engagement on it.
Jamie Oliver
Having over 10 million followers, Jamie Oliver is quite successful as a chef and TV personality, besides being a mega influencer on Instagram. His IG page is an assortment of incredible food photos, personal lifestyle pictures, and some candid shots as well. The way he separates himself from a crowded food influencer field is by focusing on both family and health. Going further, he niches down on locally-grown food, and also brings his children into some of his content, teaching them how to cook delicious-looking meals.
Joana Gaines
Nearly 14 million people follow Joana Gaines, a lifestyle influencer based in Texas where she runs a couple of stores selling home decor, gifts, and more. Besides showing off her daily life to her followers as lifestyle influencers do, she also positions herself as a writer with a published book. To ensure she provides well-rounded lifestyle content, Joana often shares photos and videos that include her family, her cooking, and her gardening skills.
Conclusion
You now have a great selection of Instagram accounts to follow that could help you with your own Instagram success. The recurring theme with these IG pages is that they make sure to balance out highly-polished content with more casual photos and videos, showing off their lives in the process. They also aren’t worried about being a little different and standing out, as this actually helps them be seen more. Additionally, they are having fun, staying uplifting, and being true to themselves.
Take what works best for you from these accounts to improve the success you have on Instagram with your business or brand.
