How to Get Your First 1000 Followers on Instagram

0-100 Instagram Followers, Real Quick 

It's day one and you are ready to get your first followers. Figure out which day you want to launch (publicly promote) your new account. Give yourself a week before your launch date so you can prepare your account for your new followers.

Begin by making a business account so that you can get some great insight about your audience and how your posts are preforming as you grow. It is free and easy to setup. Make sure you create a short and concise bio about what followers on your account can expect. In the link section of your account, which only allows for one link at a time, Linktree allows you to put multiple website links for your audience to visit.

Next, figure out the theme of your profile. Whether it is about fitness, business, or yoga your profile should have a consistent theme with all of your posts. After you have figured out your theme, create 30 hashtags that you will use with all of your posts. Hashtags are the number one way that new users can discover you on Instagram, so they are very important. After each post you make, make a comment and post the 30 hashtags in your first comment for other users to be able to discover your post and your account.

On the day you launch your account, make sure you promote it! If you have other Instagram accounts or have any social media following on any of the major platforms, inform your audience that they should follow your new account. Your first followers will most likely be people that you know!

Also, the first 15 minutes to 1 hour after you make a new post are the most important! The Instagram algorithm weighs the interactions of your posts (likes and comments) within this timeframe. The more engagement you get, the more your post will be seen. If your posts are not being engaged within this timeframe, it will not get as much reach and impressions as you would like.

To make sure your posts are seen, you need to engage with your audience. Likes are good, but comments hold more weight. The best way you to get likes and comments on your posts are if you like and comment on your audience's posts. I can attest that if you engage with your audience they will engage back!

301-500: The Challenge 

During this period of follower growth, it was a grind to start getting new followers. I decided to do more research on how I could get more people to discover me. I learned that you can follow hashtags in addition to people. You do this by going to the discover page, then going to hashtags.

First, type in a few of the hashtags that you are putting with your posts. Follow some of the hashtags with millions of followers and some with less than 100K. Next, select some of the trending pictures and go to the account of some of the influencers in this space. Next follower their followers. This was crucial for me because as I followed people who were already interested in the niche I was posting about, I saw a higher conversion of people beginning to follow me back.

501-1,000: Building Momentum 

Something magical happened once we hit 500 followers. Suddenly, when we would follow new users, more would follow back at a higher rate. Around this time is when I discovered the "follow-for-follow" growth hack. What this means is that you start following a massive amount of people in hopes that 20% or better follow you back. At the end of the week, you unfollow the people that did not follow you back.

Using this method is extremely tedious and time consuming and requires that you be extremely careful as to not be seen as a spammer. I have made the observation that you can follow ~25 people every five minutes without Instagram marking you as a spammer. Also, you can unfollow ~20 accounts an hour or Instagram will block your account from following more accounts for a couple of hours (or even 24 hours if you unfollow a massive amount of people in a short amount of time). This method is not sustainable; however, it can get you started and grow your initial following substantially!

Become an Influencer

Once you hit the magical 10K followers, Instagram marks you as an influencer and gives you a whole new bag of goodies and functionalities. If you have ambition on creating an influencer account, need help implementing this growth strategy, or creating your own marketing plan, please contact me so we get you on the right path today!