My Secret Strategy for Gaining 87K Instagram Followers in 8 Months

Can you believe there’s actually a way to grow insanely fast on Instagram? I just went from 18k to more than 100k followers in 8 months! That is bananas. But it didn’t happen by chance–it took a very specific and consistent strategy that I will share with you! Here’s my secret strategy for gaining 87K Instagram followers in 8 months. 

 

 

Why am I sharing my secret strategy with you? Great question. I am a brand and marketing strategist and I help women in business every day learn how to grow their influence and reach. This is super important to me because I care about you and your journey. You are working so hard day in and day out and you deserve to get all the insight you can in order to find the success you are looking for. 

 

 

My Secret Strategy for Gaining 87K Instagram Followers in 8 Months

About 10 months ago, I decided to switch up my Instagram strategy. I used to talk about ALL the tools you can use to grow a business (blogging, email marketing, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.). And if you’ve been following me for a while you may know one thing I say often is how powerful niching down can be–and you can probably niche down even more than you realize. 

It was time for me to take my own advice. It felt scary to stop talking about all the marketing tools I use and love, but I wanted to see if my hypothesis was right. I stopped talking about all the things and only talked about how to use Instagram to grow a business. 

About two weeks later I posted a reel using this niched-down content strategy and it went viral. And then another went viral, and another. I took this as my answer that what I was shifting was working and that I needed to keep doing it. 

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #1: Niche down.

With that opener, it’s only fitting to have niching down as the first tip! I know it can be hard to niche down, especially when you have so much you can offer to your audience. How could you possibly just talk about one thing, right? 

But I promise if you want to grow quickly, niching down is one of the best things you can do. The algorithm will do a much better job of putting your content in front of the right people and you’ll soon start to see those numbers skyrocket. 

Also, talking about just one thing will not be the one thing you talk about forever. Once you grow to a point that you are happy with and are really well-known for that one thing, you can start to branch out again. For example, I told myself I would talk about only Instagram for about a year or two and then slowly start to add other things back in. This is totally something you can do in your niche too.

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #2: Create content for the “not-yet” followers.

This tip to create content for people who do NOT follow you may come as a shock at first. This is a strategy tip not a lot of people are talking about. But this is something I figured out as I switched up my Instagram strategy. 

If you think about it, the whole purpose of your account is to nurture your audience and bring new people in. If we only talk to the people who already follow us, then those people will continue to stick around and love what we share. BUT this will not do us any good in growing our account. 

To create content for your not-yet followers, I recommend going to the edges of your niche. Think about what type of content you could create for the person you want to follow you, but doesn’t yet. This will help you work WITH the algorithm and finally get the right content in front of those new people who will come to know you and join your community. 

 

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #3: Create carousel posts that will be saved and shared.

I use my carousels for nurture content. These posts set me up as the expert and reassure my audience that I can serve them. As part of my reinvented Instagram strategy, I had a goal to have my carousel posts go viral. These are a bit harder to go viral than a reel simply because the algorithm is different. 

It took some work to meet this goal, but I did it! And I found that if you create really good valuable content that people save and share then it is more likely to show up in the explore feed on Instagram. And the followers that find your content this way are actually more valuable because they are intentionally searching for your deep content and are ready for it. 

The first thing you need for a valuable carousel post is a powerful hook. A good hook adds value and warrants curiosity. The next thing your post needs is to be as specific as possible. Really hone in on the very specific problem you are solving and then finish it by telling them where you want them to go and what you want them to do. 

This could look like numbering your slides (⅕, ⅖, etc.) so your audience knows how many slides to expect to go through until they are done reading your content. And then on the last slide, you give them a call to action. This could be telling them to leave a comment, like, share, or save your post. You can check out some of my carousel posts HERE for ideas! 

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #4: Use short-form video. 

If you want to go viral you’ve got to master the art of short-form video. These are 7-second videos that get shared and viewed more. A lot of my short-form videos include a b-roll, trending audio, and valuable content across the screen. These are the videos that get shared, saved, and seen way more than other longer videos. 

There are easy tricks you can include in these videos to help keep people engaged as well. Use transitions, switch up how the text shows up on your screen, and–as always–use a good hook. You can actually get my FREE 131 Hooks Guide HERE if you want an extra boost in this department! And you will love the results you get from these hooks! I’ve heard so many amazing stories from people who have already started using them.

 

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #5: You must create content. 

You might think it’s silly that I’m including this as one of the tips, but I say it because the more content you create the better content creator you will be. Consistency plays a larger role than you probably think. I actually had a call with someone from Instagram and they said one of the things they look for in content creators is how consistent they are. The more consistent you are the more Instagram can trust you as someone who will create valuable content and help people stay on the app because of it. 

 

Secret Instagram Strategy Tip #6: Use my secret weapon, ManyChat. 

ManyChat is a way for you to automate your comments and your dms. Doesn’t that sound like a dream? It is. It is super easy to set this up too. You start by creating a ManyChat account and then connecting your Instagram account to it. Once that is set up, you will set up a workflow. 

In your workflow, you can set up keywords that people will leave in your Instagram comments and ManyChat will automatically send them a dm that you created because of it. You can also set up 10 automated responses to comments that ManyChat will post for you. This will help you stay on top of getting back to your followers and I love that it’s a variety of responses and not the same one for every comment. 

I’ve been using ManyChat for the last few months and it is THE thing that is growing my email list, getting more views, and pushing my content out to more people. And it helps with this because it’s boosting my engagement. If you’re interested in setting up a ManyChat account, you can check out my affiliate link HERE! 

 

 

My Secret Strategy for Gaining 87K Instagram Followers in 8 Months

I know you can nail down this strategy too. It takes time, focus, and consistency, and I know you can do it. And don’t forget to laugh along the way! My secret strategy for gaining 87K Instagram followers in 8 months is not something that will only work for me. It’ll work for whoever is willing to put it to the test and keep working until they see the results they want. And I’m here to cheer you on every step of the way. Make sure to follow me on Instagram @iammichellegifford so you can keep getting the best tips and so we can keep in touch!