The Only Way to Grow on Instagram Is to Put in the Work

People dream of growing their Instagram to 1,000 followers in a matter of days. As if — once those 1,000 followers are reached — their account will just expand and get recommended by users and Instagram itself.

Let’s destroy the myth right away: growing on Instagram requires effort and time, it does not matter if you have 400 subscribers or 400k.

Having a huge following base does not influence that much the growth of your account — do not get me wrong, it does, but the influence is crazily overestimated. As long as you put in the effort: your account will grow. When you stop and get lazy: the growth stops. As simple as that.

Hacks to grow quickly do not exist

Unlike what most social media gurus might tell you: hacks do not work in the long run.

If you have ever paid a ‘social media marketing expert’ and experienced a massive growth of followers within the first month, but with the same number of likes and comments on your posts as before, it’s very likely that this person just bought these followers or that they just applied a mass-following and liking bot to your account.

These hacks seem to work: they increase the number of followers. But, it’s just the number. The amount of people that actually follow you remains the same, the number of ‘true fans’ remains the same. Overall, your Instagram game is the same — just with a larger number of followers.

These hacks have an impact on a number — your number of followers, but they do not have any impact on your actual business.

Plus, these hacks come with a strong downside. Instagram obviously does not appreciate these shortcuts as these methods are here to bypass what Instagram has to sell: ads and promotion. As a result, Instagram will lower your reach and will shadow ban your posts — that means that your posts might not show up in the hashtag pages that you have used. Believe me, as soon as you start using these methods, Instagram figures it out. Their AI has improved a lot over the years, and they are aware of all these hacks and techniques — and they like it less and less.

If you want to be followed, earn it

The number of followers someone has reflects how much they interact with other users within their niche.

This does not mean “publish great content and followers will come,” because that is not true and that is terrible advice. It really doesn’t reflect the way you are supposed to be working on your Instagram growth.

You should not be passive in your Instagram strategy. You should not believe that users will just follow you because they will somehow end up on your profile and see that you have ‘so much great content’ — like, seriously, who does not have beautiful content on Instagram — you need to earn these subscribers. And how can you do that? By actually interacting with them.

If you show genuine interest in other people’s content — that means that you should not use a comment bot, but you should go on Instagram and manually comment on posts — people will engage a conversation with you, will end up following you, and will engage with your content in the future. That is how you get real and qualified subscribers.

It is fairly easy to do. Find posts within your niche and comment on it. Do not post a general comment; instead, bring value to the person’s post you are commenting on. If you can, leave an open question so that person can respond to you in the future, which will allow you to go even deeper in the conversation process.

Do not just ‘like’ posts. People don’t really care about likes anymore since there are so many like bots on Instagram already and since Instagram is planning on hiding the number of likes on posts.

Be the human in an ocean of bots

Like everyone else, you must be tired of all the fake interactions on the platform.

I swear so many people — including influencers — are using engagement bots, following bots, and engagement groups to boost their account. You could differentiate yourself, or your brand, or your business by being the one person that actually interacts with others.

Think about actual comments that you’re getting on your content. Don’t you enjoy when people actually ask a question about what you just posted? Or when they add value to your posts by telling you what they know on this specific subject, or what they think about it? Just be that guy now.

You should stop focusing on your growth, and start focusing on driving conversations. People have forgotten that social media is all about being social. Be a conversation starter. You will truly make a difference that way and your effort will pay off.

You should earn these followers. If you do not think that you are followed enough, maybe it’s because you don’t care enough about others. People are looking for inspiring accounts and creators with whom they can have a conversation. If you become a conversation starter, followers will come — way quicker than you think, and unlike so many people on Instagram, you will have an actual, qualified audience.