I can’t even believe I am writing this; I really can’t. I’m not the girl who succeeds. I’m just your average Katie just blogging on the side as a hobby and running a little Instagram account. I’m going to share with you how to organically gain 1k a month on instagram; this is what I did to achieve that and what is somehow working for me. It does’t gurantee that it will work for you but I hope it does. First off here is my Instagram- @katieflossblog. I am writing this on 19th January and today I have hit 5.4k on Instagram. Last Monday I hit 5k. I actually can’t believe it.

I am going to put it into a list as I think each point has helped me build my followers equally. I will say following is not everything, you have to have the engagement and the community there too. Instagram would be crap if you just had tonnes of followers but no one commenting or supporting you. Anyway here are the ways I think have helped gain me over 1k of followers in a month.

1. Posting Daily. I love posting on my feed daily. I just love creating content and seeing it all come together. I find that if I miss a day my reach the next day back is around half of what it normally is. You can go into insights and see how many followers you gain per post and on average I gain between 5-10 daily from people just seeing my feed posts.
2. Follow people who’s accounts you love. I personally only follow accounts where I love the feed, stories or the person. If it’s not bringing me joy I unfollow. Instagram is a social media app, yes social. Meaning you’re meant to be social on there so you need to get social and get following. Since I’ve stopped trying to keep my following low and just followed who I wanted in any kind of category, I’ve noticed my reach has more than doubled. I have tonnes of different interests so I don’t only follow Beauty and Parenting accounts but also cleaning, cooking, photography, body positivity, the list is endless. Open those barriers and you will definitely notice an improvement, even if it’s just in the way you use the app. Worried about people unfollowing you if you unfollow them? Then they aren’t the kind of people you want following you anyway.
3. Engage. Again it’s a social page and Instagram promotes those that are social more than others. As long as you are doing it all organically, and not using any apps you should be fine. I try to spend around 30 mins every morning and evening going scrolling commenting on peoples posts and sharing etc. I also reply to every comment I get left on my recent posts and if I have time to go onto their pages and comment back too.
4. Be you. Sounds cringe but there is only one you. There is no point trying to be someone else and pretending to be someone you’re not. Yes I post cute homestyle photos on my feed and cute family photos but on my stories I show the realities. People respond to my real life posts way better than my style posts and it just shows exactly what people want to see. Real life. Just be you, everyone else is taken.
5. Guest Takeover on other pages. Now I’ve not personally done this but I also run @the.mama.project and have weekly guest takeovers and everyone has said they have found lots of like minded people through our page and gained a lovely little active following just from popping on for the day. TMP is a mama community so will only really work for other mamas but there are tonnes of group instagram accounts out there that could work for you. Definitely worth a try.
6. Social Sundays- again on TMP we hold Social Sundays. Now these are not follow loops in the slightest and sometimes get confused for them. It’s a feed post that we put up every Sunday where people leave a comment introducing themselves and people can click on your comment through to your feed and check you out. A following is not guaranteed as people will only follow you if they click through and like your page but its a great way to find other people to follow for yourself too. This is definitely how my following jumps each week by over 100 sometimes. You will get the occasional follow to unfollow people but as people don’t have to follow you its very organic and fun.
7. Use your hashtags. Make sure to use 30 hashtags on each post and that each post has relevant hashtags and your not just recycling them. I am definitely not the best person to teach you anything on hashtags but just keep switching them up and try and keep them under 100k.
8. Check your insights and see what your community wants to see. Personally I post a bit of everything as a Beauty, Lifestyle and Parenting blogger/influencer. One day it’ll be my baby bump, the next day its a beauty flatly the next day it’s my home style. It’s all mixed up and some posts do better than others and thats okay. If your posting because YOU enjoy it then thats all that matters. Personally anything with Elara, Bump and my home does super well. Where as my beauty posts sometimes struggle; I don’t mind as I love Beauty posts myself and its one of my interests so I’ll keep posting.
9. Enjoy it. You really do need to enjoy the platform and not put so much pressure on it. I use to get so hung up on followers and yes I still check and celebrate each milestone but actually chatting to the people I’ve made friends with and getting inspiration and joy from the platform is way more worthwhile. I currently post daily because I love it but if I stop enjoying it I take a break. Yes my followers then stall, stop or even decline but your joy always needs to come first.

I really hope this post is super helpful for you all and some of these tips work. It can be hard to start building your following but I truly think that enjoying the platform makes a much bigger impact. Others you’re just constantly aiming for that next milestone and never truly enjoying it. You’ll just burn yourself out for something that really doesn’t matter. Instagram can make you money too so that’s incredible but I do think it comes across if you don’t enjoy the platform. Feel free to leave your instagram handle below and I’ll check it out. If you’d like to read more from me you can find My 2021 Goals here, including some blogging goals.

Katie x