The 90 day influencer

How I grew my followers from 15k to 105K in around 90 days

I posted about this last week to my Instagram and promised a follow up, more detailed post with more details and some tips on how you can improve your own social media strategy. I don’t plan on coaching or posting about this too often honestly but hopefully this is helpful to some of you. If you’re struggling to get your content out to more than a handful of people and feeling discouraged, I've been there.. I was JUST there a few months ago.

For context, my background is in social media. I was running MySpace pages for nightclubs and DJs in the mid-2000s and eventually worked at digital agencies which led me to heading the digital department at a Sony record label. Being a social media expert doesn’t necessarily mean you can instantly crack the code to becoming an influencer though… I think it’s much easier to look at other people’s work and point out what is working and what isn’t than looking into your own plate and identifying what’s going wrong.

Here is the video which went viral. When I saw it starting to grow so rapidly, I got to work making more videos. I rode the wave of virality for the next 30 days, making videos that were reaching 4x my audience and rapidly growing my followers. I stopped thinking about what my original 15K followers might be thinking about this new wave of content and started thinking about all of the non-followers I would be reaching and how to present myself to them in a way that would be compelling enough for a follow. The roll-on effect this had on my business has been significant, through my personal content, I’ve had more direct sales to my customers than I ever had before.

I use a Fujifilm xt30ii, tripod and a Phottix S3II light panel. PLEASE do not go out and buy all new equipment after reading this, start with whatever gear you have, work in well-lit spaces and use your current camera or phone. I have propped my camera in boxes on top of chairs in the past, literally anything is possible when you get out of your own way and having the right gear is not going to grow your instagram following for you.

Make making content as fun and seamless as possible or you will burn out and then want to stop. It has to be sustainable long term and if you start simple, you can slowly make improvements to your gear, editing software etc.

I find people struggle the most with pulling the trigger on a piece of content you don’t feel is good enough, so make the lead up to that as simple as possible.

If you are already making content regularly and want to up your game, I found this video from Florian Gadsby to be very helpful with my own setup.

Tips:

• Work out how to make content easily and regularly

• Don’t be too precious about what you post, just because something doesn’t perform well, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good piece of content. There are so many factors that can affect a post’s performance.

• Reels are for reaching outside of your audience, Carousel posts are for cultivating a relationship with your followers, and story posts are for your inner circle following, your die-hards.

• Keep an eye on what is happening on Instagram. I know so many influencers who grew their audiences in the age of single photo posts who are now struggling with reach because they didn’t keep up with platform and algorithm changes. Don’t necessarily follow trends but be aware of what’s working so you don’t get left behind. I like to follow Adam Moserri, the head of Instagram, who gives daily updates on new features, algorithm changes and so much more. The idea that instagram is working against us is totally false, they lay out best practices for us loud and clear. If you can spend a morning reading through them, I think you’ll find a lot of useful information there. There are creators who’s focus is content trends which you can also follow, my favorite is @Ginnyfears

Here is a great video about growing with reels direct from instagram.

The algorithm is your friend! It wants to define what you’re about, that way it knows who to serve your content to. Work out what you’re about, what you’re going to be posting about, keep it simple (2 to 3 categories tops!). Stick to it for long enough that you give the algorithm a chance to catch up with you and work out what is working for your audience and what isn’t.

Using visual hooks such as title cards, captions, and angles in the first 3 seconds of your videos will help keep your audience from swiping away from your videos, the longer your audience watches, the more the algorithm will serve that content to other people. I will do a deeper dive on this next month!

Hope this was useful and helpful to you all

<3