It seems like I am always getting asked how to get more Instagram (IG) followers. People reach out and say that they have a goal, they want to have 5000 or 10,000 or 20,000 followers.
They think that people with followers ‘look cool’ or they read somewhere on a travel blog about how people with an audience get free trips or swag, and they want that too.
They reach out to me having seen my various feeds on IG and think that getting to around 80,000 combined followers must have happened overnight…
I always help everyone who asks because people did that for me. I usually spend the next 5 minutes giving them some advice that will help them with growing their audience.
I tell them to find a niche.
I tell them to post consistently.
I tell them to research the competition and see what they are doing.
I tell them how to leverage the insights from their feed to post at the right time.
I tell them how to research hashtags.
I tell them how to engage with others.
Aside from taking the photos for them and uploading the pics to their Instagram account, I feel I usually provide a pretty thorough explanation on how to build up followers over time.
But most people’s response is…
“So…is there another way to do it? “
I usually review what I discussed with them, and ask if there is something more specific they are wondering about.?
And they say…
“You know, is there a way to get followers without having to do all that?”
Even if I had a PhD in gaining Instagram followers or a Master’s Degree in social media marketing people would still think there’s a quick fix to gain 10,000 followers.
It doesn’t take much to start building an IG following. Take some decent photos, post at the right time and use some hashtags.
But people get hung up on reaching a certain number, and they think they don’t have to do anything to get there. Most of the time they don’t even know why they want to have a certain number of followers.
90% of the time the people asking are just looking for the secret sauce to grow their accounts immediately…
That’s a common societal problem, people just want a quick fix.
Sure, there are some one-off situations where an account blows up quick, but usually, at some point, you have to actually do the work, there’s no ‘top secret classified method’ that will do it for you. There’s a reason the people reaching out don’t have an audience, it’s because they aren’t doing anything to create one.
A couple weeks later it’s always the same thing, the person hasn’t posted pictures consistently, and they are sending me links to posts on Foundr or Social Media Examiner asking me if these are faster ways to build an audience to 10,000?…
I wonder if they even noticed that for the most part, it’s the same points that I suggested to them, to begin with…
I can only imagine this person will continue to search for the magic pill of gaining followers without putting in the work. Next thing you know they will be buying fake followers from a click farm in China.
It’s all about small inputs over time, the long game. There’s nothing wrong with gaining a follower a day and doing the work to build an engaged audience and gain traction. That’s what I am doing over on Vero starting from scratch.
You have to start somewhere. But everyone is obsessed with the short game and immediate gratification. They continue to do endless amounts of researching trying to find a Voodoo way to gain followers, to avoid putting in the work.
Them: “I’ve posted 3 photos since we talked why don’t I have 5000 followers yet?”
Me: “It’s numerous inputs over time that will grow your following.”
Them: “But when will I get to 10,000 followers?”
I wish I knew how to shift people’s mindset from the idea of wanting to attain a certain number of followers to instead focusing on the systems that achieve those goals. Goals are results focused. Which people tend to want immediately.
Having a goal of gaining followers online won’t miraculously make them appear. It’s the system or process, not the goal, that makes people successful.
