How to get your first 1000 followers on Instagram

Getting your first 1,000 followers on Instagram may seem like a big hurdle when you only have 5 followers and one of them is your mom. There is also the problem of not knowing where to start. If you're talented enough to go viral, congratulations, but this isn't for you.

Organic growth happens when you start interacting with accounts that have similar content, as well as their followers. Why do I recommend doing this? Well, if 30,000 people like this guy's content (which is similar to yours), they'll probably like yours too!

There are a lot of expensive videos, articles, and webinars on YouTube that claim to give people success on Instagram. Maybe all the "go viral overnight" strategies are correct, but I doubt it.

All of the big Instagram accounts I studied took some time to grow unless they bought followers, went viral with a post, or even had follower-per-follower ratios.

Since my strategy is boring, I haven't tested it on any other platform besides Instagram. I'm an artist, so I also consider this platform the best medium for my target audience since it's visual.

However, I repeated this process 3 times with different types of Instagram accounts. I have experienced continued success.

The process of generating 1000 Instagram followers (organically) in about 2 months.

1. For 3 or 4 days, find content that is similar to what you want to post and interact with it through likes and comments. You should do this so that your browser page accurately represents what you want to view/see.

2. After a few days, go to the explorer page and find someone with similar content and more followers. It should be easier to find similar content now that you've told the Instagram algorithm what interests you.

3. Check the quality of parking. What is something they do differently? Maybe they use the same filter on all their photos (I don't think this matter as much as people think, but oh well) or they post at the same time every day.

Maybe they are too creative. Do you give gifts that ask for emails or likes/comments (ahem, shares)? Whatever they do, write it down and use it as a reference as your account grows.

4. Find related hashtags. Look at their hashtags and write down the ones they use. Then find another account like theirs, with similar followers, and do the same. If the account is large, you may not see any hashtags. Check out the first comments on the post, some people put it there.

If you don't see any hashtags yet, scroll to the beginning of your feed. If it's grown organically, they've probably used it regularly at some point. Copy all the hashtags and then paste them into a Google Doc or perhaps into your email notes.

5. Use hashtags correctly. You should now have a collection of high-quality, relevant hashtags to draw from. When you select your next post, you will base it around these hashtags. The key to avoiding shadow banning on Instagram is to avoid using the same hashtags every day (even if big accounts do). Larger accounts generally don't need to use hashtags to participate. For them, it's mostly about promotion.

Instagram runs an algorithm that favors high-quality content, engagement, and spam-free practices. As new updates roll out, Insta is constantly checking for “bot behavior” and can prevent you from posting the same hashtags every day.

When I say dock, I mean you won't appear in the feed for specific hashtags. This practice is similar to a website being criticized on Google for duplicate content, so be careful!

6. Find followers who have a genuine interest in your content. My advice is to look for slightly larger accounts, perhaps with 1,400-5,000 followers. Follow everyone they follow, not your followers.

We want to keep its dimensions at a reasonable place, but not while it's growing. You may have noticed that accounts that have more followers than you follow receive a lot of praise, engagement, and brand offers. To get there, you need to find people who like the type of content you produce.

7. When you interact with posts, leave thoughtful comments. Don't try to take shortcuts by automating your responses through a third-party system. I told you it was going to be a daunting task and I meant it.

You will get what you put into this. If you leave spam comments, don't expect genuine engagement/interest in your content. Why should anyone care about your posts, when you don't care about theirs?

A mutual friend once posted an unfortunate story about a deceased relative. Someone was using automated comments and commented, “How adorable 🥰👌” in a very personal post; Don't be that guy.

8. Repeat these steps every day for 30 days. By day 30, your engagement should be great, but your follower-to-follower ratio will look amazing.