How Do You Grow Your Instagram / Social Media Followers?

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Hi there guys,

I listened to too much of the "social media is evil" garbage in my college years and it resulted in me missing out on growing my Instagram account as well as facebook friend count. Now I see popular kids who had 1k+ friends and 1k+ followers on Instagram and I want to know how to get to that stage from where I am at (120 Instagram followers and 600 facebook friends).

How do I do this without resorting to gimmicks such as following and adding random strangers I haven't even met?

I understand that social media has a way of enraging a lot of guys who aren't popular on it and some guys have their emotionally heavy vendetta against it,
please keep that out of this thread because as Richard and Grand Pooba will tell you, moral lectures almost always fall on deaf ears when it comes to me and believe me, Richard and Grand Pooba are quite the eloquent and intelligent minds on here so if they have issues changing my goals then well, you guys should not waste your time trying to lecture me on the evils of social media.
 

trashKENNUT

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
6,553
Re: Chase: How do I legitimately grow my social media following?

Altair,

1)Stick to one goal

2)Don't deviate to many other goals

3)Don't make it personal

4)it's nothing personal

5)it's business

6)you not suppose to be "morally" "correct", ppl only care feelings, and ultimately, why they subscribe, the goal/objective of point 1).

7)Post everyday at least once.


Disobey all this rules, and see your instagram plane goes down. Fuck reality, that's the notion. You suppose to be utopian. But becareful of this. Litigation, Dangers can be on you despite people cheering for laundry.

when "stupid" people gather, you can be stupid too.


Zac
 

fog

Modern Human
Modern Human
Joined
Jul 20, 2015
Messages
1,533
Location
peru
Re: Chase: How do I legitimately grow my social media following?

AHEM, i do digital marketing and I have experience in social media management.

Growing your social media account is quite straightforward. What you're going to want to do is this lovely little tactic called community building. You create a community of people who have the same interest as you do.

If you're a gardener and post about flowers a lot, then you're gonna wanna follow and engage with other people who are gardeners.

You mentioned you're adverse to "gimmicks" like following and adding random strangers you've never met. However, following a ton of people in the same niche as you WHEN YOU'RE FIRST GETTING STARTED can be incredibly effective, up until a certain point.

Any other questions, let me know. There's lots of tactics.
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Re: Chase: How do I legitimately grow my social media following?

backstory said:
AHEM, i do digital marketing and I have experience in social media management.

Growing your social media account is quite straightforward. What you're going to want to do is this lovely little tactic called community building. You create a community of people who have the same interest as you do.

If you're a gardener and post about flowers a lot, then you're gonna wanna follow and engage with other people who are gardeners.

You mentioned you're adverse to "gimmicks" like following and adding random strangers you've never met. However, following a ton of people in the same niche as you WHEN YOU'RE FIRST GETTING STARTED can be incredibly effective, up until a certain point.

Any other questions, let me know. There's lots of tactics.

I am talking more meeting new people and then having them on social media.
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

I run into a few accounts that are mutual friends with my friends and they have over 1k followers as well as tons of likes on pics, like upwards of 300 and sometimes as much as 700. Now the vast majority of these accounts are hot girls in the 18-25 age range but I notice I occasionally come across guys who are in this situation too. Now I can see this being easy to do if you are in high school or in your college days where you are constantly running across the same people so you will add them on social media.

I want to be in that situation myself but I got a long way to go to get to 1k followers. Any ideas on how I can make it happen?

Do not want to buy any followers or do something scammy like that.
 

Smurf

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
732
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

A little research never hurt anyone, man. There's plenty of resources that explain exactly how you can gain a decent amount of followers if you look for it. I'll give a couple straight forward things.

-Use popular hashtags to get your stuff on more searches in general. The more popular hashtags you use, the more your stuff will be seen and exposed.

-Come up with a personal or group hashtag you can start using. If you come up with a hashtag that's trendy, you can create your own sort of "community" with that hashtag.

-Follow other people with stuff similar to yours. If you go on their page, like a few of their pics, they make like yours back. Then if you follow them, they will probably follow you back, and so forth.

-Time of day that you post matters. There's certain times of day that more people are scrolling instagram than not. If you post then, the likelyhood of you getting likes will go up naturally.

Try these things and see if you can grow a bit.

Jake.
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

But I mean people with 1k followers that they seem to know IRL.

So the other way I would have asked is how these people manage to know so many people in real life and have so many new friends, like do they do it?
 

readjusting

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Dec 25, 2016
Messages
619
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

Ask.

A while ago, I uploaded a video to Youtube. Today I visited the account.
There was a comment.
"Hey, ______! What a great video! Please follow me on Instagram, my name is ______ or click here: instagram.com/______ Have a wonderful day, _______."
Curious, I clicked the link.
That dude had 227k follower.
 

fog

Modern Human
Modern Human
Joined
Jul 20, 2015
Messages
1,533
Location
peru
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

Altair said:
But I mean people with 1k followers that they seem to know IRL.

So the other way I would have asked is how these people manage to know so many people in real life and have so many new friends, like do they do it?

How do you know they know them IRL?
 

Mr.B

Space Monkey
space monkey
Joined
Nov 24, 2014
Messages
49
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

CuriosityKillsTheCat said:
Ask.

A while ago, I uploaded a video to Youtube. Today I visited the account.
There was a comment.
"Hey, ______! What a great video! Please follow me on Instagram, my name is ______ or click here: instagram.com/______ Have a wonderful day, _______."
Curious, I clicked the link.
That dude had 227k follower.

Thanks!!!! Haha!
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

I know they know them IRL because their followers actually comment on their pics, like their pics (they get a lot of likes per pic), and they are all from around the same area instead of random accounts. I've asked a few of them as well and they have said they added people they knew IRL so I am wondering how I can meet that many new people.
 

fog

Modern Human
Modern Human
Joined
Jul 20, 2015
Messages
1,533
Location
peru
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

Altair said:
I know they know them IRL because their followers actually comment on their pics, like their pics (they get a lot of likes per pic), and they are all from around the same area instead of random accounts. I've asked a few of them as well and they have said they added people they knew IRL so I am wondering how I can meet that many new people.

Listen, just because their followers comment on and like their pictures, and they are from the same area, DOES NOT mean that they know them in real life. Yes, they will know some of their followers from real life, but realistically there's no way that they know ALL of their followers from real life.

What is happening is they are doing online community building to get to that amount of followers and engagement. I mentioned this in your other thread. Start interacting with other locals on IG. Like their pictures, comment on their pictures, follow their account, direct message them to say hello, etc. When you build a relationship with them they will just naturally like your page, and like and comment on your photos especially if you got some cool pictures on there that provide value to them.

Try this out for a few weeks and let me know how it goes.
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

I don't know man...

I'll try it but I might have asked the wrong question, what I should have asked is how I meet a lot of new people IRL to the point where my Instagram account also reflects that. But thank you BackStory, and btw man, feel free to hop on over and check my journal, might be updating it soon!
 

Inbocca

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
263
Location
United States
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

Altair,

Backstory has a good point. Most of these people you see don't get nearly as many responses from their followers as you'd think, because they don't actually know these people or are only being followed for reasons of popularity. Here's a good example: at my last job there was this girl we hired almost exclusively because she was a social media expert. She had tons of friends on FB and followers on Instagram, and her Twitter page was insane (over 10k+ retweets regularly). Couple weeks ago, she makes a post with a caption complaining about how only 5% of her followers were going to like it. And she was right, when you look at her statistics (and those of many other high-follower accounts) you'll see a like-to-follower ratio of about 5-10%. And these are usually hot girls posting pictures of themselves, which is pretty much the most likeable thing on social media. By contrast, I've got a low follower count (less than 100) and have a like-to-follower ratio of about 15-20%. Granted, way fewer likes, but it shows me the people following my account are people who know me and probably genuinely like me.

If you're going for a high-follower count, there are plenty of guides out there that'll tell you to use trending hashtags, follow similar blogs and post regularly enough that they'll follow back, and unfollow blogs that don't follow back after a while (having more followers than followed blogs is seen as higher value). If you want more followers you actually know, you can't do that without getting to know more people. Join organizations or large groups where it's easy to meet people. Have more Facebook friends and follow them on IG. Keep in mind that as a guy, unless you become a celebrity you're never going to have the follower numbers that girls do, so hold yourself to a realistic standard. The guy I know with the most followers is a former frat boy turned business owner, high charisma, good looking, meets several new trainees and clients a day (that's how I met him), and posts semi-regularly - and he's still short of 1k followers. If you really want it, it's going to be hard. So make sure you know exactly why you want it, because odds are that four-digit number won't make you any happier.

Cheers,
Inbocca
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Re: How do people with 1k followers on Instagram do it?

Funny that you go to Arizona St man because I would think it would be so common to see kids with 1k followers there. At my alma mater (D1 southern school), I met more than enough people in Greek Life who had followers well over 1k and some had them even into 2k. Met a few guys who had over 1k followers and one has over 3k followers. It has always been my curiosity as to how they are meeting so many new people that add them on Instagram and when I see their page, photos are usually filed with comments with people (some who I know for sure know that person).

I've met people who did it the fake way and have over 10k followers but I can just tell it is fake a lot of times. With some sorority girls and others of a more popular crowd, it doesn't seem to be like that. It seems like they have the standard 1k to 2k followers, a lot of whom they seem to know. The average amount of likes is around 300 to 700 for a pic, at times even over 1k.

I know it is going to be hard as fuck man, at times I have many doubts given that I am in a medium sized city now and no longer a college setting but I guess if there is a will there is a way. Currently I am looking into some hobbies for the weekend that can help me meet people, it is most definitely a grind dude and there is zero doubt in my mind about that.

It is just something that I want for myself and who knows, maybe I don't get it and fall way short. Maybe all the shit they say about social life after college is true, that there are no longer fun people to be around and everyone becomes that boring old adult fast but at least I put up a fight. Going to take a while for me to get there for sure if I am doing it but what better way to come out of my shell even more.
 

Indian Race Troll (IRT)

Rookie
Rookie
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
3,225
Lets discuss strategies for growing social media/building personal brand

I feel that this is something a lot of us, even experts on Girlschase, have struggled with.

Why are we doing this?

I think that there is a strong chance with where we are going, in the future your personal brand is going to be very important. We kinda see it with dating apps but so much attention has shifted to social media, especially for the under 30 age group. I have met guys who have had success and inflated status due to a high follower count as well as a ton of likes on their pics. I guess there is some psychology associated with why women like men with a lot of followers and likes on these platforms. IMO, it is going to be something we need to get good at in the future.

Now moving forward.

I have found that of all the social media platforms, Instagram has been the toughest for me to have success on in regards to gaining followers as well as getting likes.

I see hot girls on the younger end as well as the occasional guy who have the kind of success I am aiming for which includes around 2k followers and 500 likes per pic. To be honest, I wonder what these people are doing!

Granted, a lot of these happen to be college kids, particularly in Greek Life, but I have met exceptions there.

What we don't want is spammy followers and a fake following.

Whether it is Facebook or Instagram, we don't want fake followers and spam accounts so I don't think some random software online is going to achieve the purpose. My goal would actually be to meet enough people in real life and have them engage on social media but that is seeming like it is tougher to do than usual.

So if I haven't posted about it already before, I want to know of some strategies from you guys.
 

Chase

Chieftan
Staff member
tribal-elder
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
5,482
Merged Altair's two prior threads and Oh Pry's new thread to keep these all in one place.

-C
 

Seppuku

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
1,149
Location
Middle East, Asia, Africa
I like this topic!

I started my own Instagram a year ago and got to 960 followers (and slept with a few of them already LOL). It's not 1k (yet) but close enough. Here is what I discovered.

I tried the strategy which consist in following plenty of random dudes in the hope they follow back. For me it was very inefficient, maybe 1 in 15 or 1 in 20 follow back, so I gave up, and focused on building content. But it seems that some other people have managed to make this strategy work.

It seems that new followers come essentially from the suggested on the Search page, or from the suggested for you on the main feed. The first will feature some of your most recent pictures which are similar to that person's recent likes. The second is usually taken from the followers of your followers. I also put hashtags on all my pics, but I'm not sure how much that contributed to my follower count.

So you get followers by (i) posting new pics, and (ii) through your followers.

It means you have to maintain a publishing pace. I do one pic a day - it's already hard to maintain this pace if you want to stick to quality. But if you can do two pics a day (evenly spaced during the day) it's better. More than that, you are probably spamming other people's account. I personally unfollow those who spam me in this way, and I'm surely not the only one.

After a while you have already posted all your good quality pictures. But since most people only ever see your most recent 9 pictures (the top of your profile), you can regularly re-post some of the older pictures and no-one will notice.

I noticed also there is some kind of momentum effect. You just gained a few followers, that makes it more likely to get more. My follower count didn't grow linearly, but by bursts of 20 - 30 new followers, sometimes 50, coming at once, followed by more quiet periods. Once you have the momentum, it is important to keep the pace of posting, and keep the quality.

Some principles I stick to:

* Have a consistent theme around your pictures, and stick to it
* You need reasonable quality pictures
* It is difficult to consistently predict which picture will be more successful. Sometimes a picture you liked less will have a surprisingly good response, and sometimes the opposite
* Pictures with vivid colors seems to perform better
* Pictures featuring people and faces will usually get higher attention
* Engage your followers. Like their pictures, comment on their pictures, engage them with Direct Messages. That will help them become loyal.

Seppuku
 
Top
>