How I Got to 5000 Followers

And how you can grow your Instagram following too

This post refers to @TotalCatskills which is my personal hiking brand on Instagram.

Okay, here’s how I got to 5000 Instagram followers

• I understood that organic growth takes time
  Instagram is an incredible brand builder but there are no shortcuts to developing real connections with real people
• I knew I wanted supporters not followers
  I‘d prefer to have 100 potential customers who will actually support me rather than 10,000 Insta-followers who will never buy my offers — understand this now and you’ll free yourself from ever worrying about vanity metrics (and, no, you don’t need a huge following to monetize your feed)
• I focused on creating great content
  The more I chose quality over quantity the faster my account grew: best-of lists, educational carousels, tips, memes — these were the most efficient content types for generating shares and follows; now I spend less time on the ’gram but see way more results
• I made my story feed worth the visit
  Instagram’s story feed is where accounts engage with their audiences directly: quizzes, polls, community updates, behind-the-scenes, content teases, fun! Keep it useful, keep it fun, the views will come. (BTW, the story feed is also a powerful sales channel.)
• I tracked my successes and analyzed my failures
  I keep a log of successful content so the same content can be run again every 60 or 90 days to generate new followers with no additional content creation required — I also found that when a piece of content didn’t hit, usually there was a clear reason, and the content could be clarified and polished and improved upon
• I asked for comments and DMs, and then I replied
  I showed up for my audience and they showed up for me: the more I share my personal journey with my audience, the more we interact about it, and the deeper our connection grows
• I overcame my shyness
  Personality-wise, I’m an introvert and yet, still, I get the kind of interactions on my @TotalCatskills account that brands would kill for — “When are you doing your next Instagram Live?” is a DM I get regularly — and, yes, you can absolutely generate this level of interaction for your brand too
• I was strategic
  I cross-fertilized my online assets and built an email list of 2300+ dedicated subscribers, because I’m here to build a business — I also auto-cross-post to Facebook and have built an audience there (currently 2000+ followers) with zero additional effort

So that’s how I got to 5000 Instagram followers: strategically, organically, and patiently

“You gotta show up if you wanna get it done.”

I showed up.

Community-building on Instagram is not a sprint. It’s definitely a marathon.

But it can be a super fun marathon that never feels like a slog, because there’s great company all along the road.

This was a broad strategic overview.

For a more tactical look at the practical day-to-day things you can do for your own account, read Hack Your Instagram Growth in 55 Minutes.

Wanna hire a kick-ass Social Media Strategist? Contact me here or say hello on my Instagram.