How to Gain 101K Instagram Followers in 50 Days (Real Case Study)

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Instagram Marketing

6 min readJun 24, 2019

What strategies are you using to grow your Instagram followers?

2019 has just begun with Instagram reaching up to 1 billion users on its platform. We can say without a doubt that brands are getting more exposure to potential customers on Instagram. But, why are brands focusing on Instagram Marketing? Why are they putting all their efforts to grow their Instagram followers?

The answer is simple. It is because marketers know that using Instagram as a marketing channel, they can extend their reach to potential customers after which they can easily convert them to quality leads. I’m pretty sure, and if you are a brand, you don’t want to miss out on such a huge opportunity. Would you?

In this blog, I would like to share the proven strategies that have helped me grow my followers on Instagram from a big ‘0’ to ‘100k+’ followers in just a short time. Won’t you like to know how I manage to do it all? You want to know how. So, let’s dive into the world of Instagram marketing.

Set Up Your Instagram Business Profile

Never underestimate the power of an Instagram Business Profile. It is not just the image or business description, but it is all about your first impression. It’s all about how well-organized your brand is.

On my Instagram account at @firifashion, I have included an attractive profile picture along with my bio which tells clearly what my brand is all about. Remember, don’t try to fluff your audience. Just show them who you are!

My recommendation to you is to keep your username as short and straightforward as possible. It helps your followers to memorize your username quickly.

Explore Accounts That Comes Under Your Niche

Have you heard about “Instagram Explore Page?” If not, then you’re probably leaving an essential factor of Instagram marketing. The Instagram Explore Page is that page which opens while tapping on the search icon. The Instagram platform is designed to show only relevant content to users when they search for something.

Instagram algorithms keep track of users activities and show them relevant content accordingly.

Thus, our next strategy is to search for big accounts in your niche. Since Instagram algorithms always keep an eye on every activity you do on the platform when next you search for something; the search algorithm will show you posts that are related to your previous searches.

We have searched for a few makeup accounts and then analyze their posts critically. We then pick out 12 posts from those accounts that have gained a considerable amount of likes and are viral among followers.

*Remember one thing* While posting your content on Instagram, your post should be the preferably square size.

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Post Content Using Relevant Hashtags & Caption

We have copied that content so that we may also gain substantial fan followings. While posting such content, never forget to give content credit to the photo or video original owner. We have also followed the same process.

In this way, using proper caption and hashtags, people have also started engaging with our content–leading to generating quality leads.

How we target hashtags

Using proper hashtags in your posts will help you in categorizing your brand. It allows potential customers to find you out from the crowd. Thus, the relevancy of hashtags matters a lot.

Not only will hashtags make it easier for your followers to find you but, it also enables Instagram algorithms to understand your brand categorization and niche. It allows Instagram algorithms to distribute one relevant content to your followers.

At first, we searched for 5~10 hashtags that were not too popular because targeting them can be a little tricky. Since everyone is using popular hashtags, the chances are that users will not see the brand new content of our new Instagram account at the top among millions of search results.

For this reason, we have searched for and used hashtags that are not too generic but are relevant to our business category.

Joined Direct Message (DM), Groups

The next step is to join some DM groups. And you’ll be surprised to know that DM groups have diverted a massive amount of traffic to my site.

Wanna know how?

Well, I must say you should first clearly understand what the DM groups are. In the Instagram business account, DM stands for Direct Message. That means when you message someone directly to join their group or to give an invitation to enter your group, it is called a DM.

Hence, the name “DM groups.” Now that you’re aware of an Instagram DM group, you need to enhance your thought process and use it as part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

Here is how we have done it.

We approached those DM groups who have huge fan followings and are also related to our niche. Remember, those groups might be your competitors’ or other influencers. In any case, we have become one of the members of such quality groups where it is easy for us to get a good deal of traffic.

While doing this, we have identified our competitors.

We observed thoroughly which posts or accounts have gained more likes and comments. Now it’s time to join their DM groups. We approached them directly and asked to join them.

In some cases, you need to pay some pennies to join the groups. After joining, each member collaborates their likes and comments to each other’s posts.

Create your DM groups

Another way to drive more traffic and acquire quality followers via your Instagram business account is to create your DM group(s). This step requires you to approach your competitors or other influencers personally to join your group.

For example, while creating our DM group, we approached our competitors by saying, “I’m creating a 5k DM group. Would you like to join it?”

*Important* When you want to ask them to join your group, give proper attention to your message tone because it will influence them in many ways. So, try to keep your message tone soft.

At first, we added up to 20 to 25 members leaving other 4 or 5 vacancies for big competitors. Further, our strategy involved sending 3 or 5 messages only per hour. Gradually, we started growing it.

Here is how to add people to your DM group.

One-to-one engagement

Involving in 1 to 1 engagement gives you a more personal touch and is very useful because it enables you to build a quality relationship with your competitors. This strategy has helped us to grow our accounts dramatically.

We invited our competitors to like and comment on our recent posts. And when they do this, they DM us saying, “Done yours, just posted like and comment.”

We did the same for them as well. In this way, we both got each other’s likes and comments. You may craft your style to DM others. The benefit of applying this method is to grow our accounts.

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Wrapping t Up

Instagram is a remarkable social media marketing site where growing your followers is a lot easier than you can imagine. By using the steps in this article, we have been able to grow our followings on Instagram Business account. Therefore, apply these steps to your Instagram marketing strategy.

Nonetheless, our recommendation for you is to get involved in Instagram marketing activities without violating the norms of Instagram algorithms. You will, gradually, start growing your account

This article originally appeared at Moss Media