As some of you may or may not know, I just moved back to Wisconsin after playing college baseball. I’m not focusing on any one thing as much as I am throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
Spray and pray 🙏 aka the shotgun method 🔫
I have lots of projects in the works.
I manage social media pages for local companies
I write blogs (who knew 🤷♂️)
I manage over 20 different Instagram accounts
I’m trying to get jacked (it’s a work in progress)
But most importantly, I’m trying to growth hack my Instagram theme pages to get over a million followers (like @whipfuel), and quickly (can you tell I’m impatient?)
Out of all my projects, this one is the most difficult. Simply because Instagram it is not as straight forward as the others.
Managing social media comes with clear goals. Writing blogs has an obvious outcome. But in 2023, what does it take to get millions of people to follow your Instagram page? What’s the secret sauce?
I have no idea. Which is ironic because it’s what I do for a living. But when I manage a page, it’s normally with the goal of driving traffic and sales. Not to get famous.
That being said, I do know a lot about building IG pages quickly. So I’m trying to figure out a way to reconcile that knowledge into becoming a powerhouse on the gram.
Some solutions:
Steal content from cool people with interesting posts
I’m totally fine with stealing content from other Instagram pages and pretending we’re friends. And you should be too.
One thing you probably already know about social media is it’s fake. Not South Beach Tow fake, but exaggerated fake. Let’s be real, you’re not actually friends with this person, you were just together for a few hours and decided to flick up to look popular on the gram.
So basically what I do is use Instagram’s search feature to find hashtags that are relevant to my niche. #supercars, #audi, #americanmuscle… you get the gist.
And when I find good content? It goes straight to my own page. Of course I give credit to the poster and maybe hype them up a bit, but I still post it on my page.
What’s that saying? Good artists copy, great artists steal.
This takes the time (and pressure) off me to spend hours creating perfect content, editing, brainstorming, and coming up with the amazing thought-out caption. Until I live in LA and have time to go to car shows every day, posting the cars I see in Wisconsin will be pretty boring.
Post at least 3x per day or more to penetrate the algorithm.
Grant Cardone famously said, "Your biggest enemy is obscurity.”
Basically, if no one knows who you are, they ain’t going to buy from you. Plain and simple.
3 times a day is about what I can handle between all my pages and my ungodly amount of bicep curls. The total time it takes shouldn’t be more than 30 mins a day.
The next thing I do is find content that I think would crush it on IG. And the best part is you already know what will crush it, because you’re borrowing other people’s content. You don’t have to come up with the goods on your own, you just do a quick search to find what’s trending and repost.
So what does well on Instagram?
These days, anything that is eye-catching, especially reels (short-form videos for those living under a rock).
It’s pretty obvious that you only have a second to capture someone’s attention. I’ve seen people scroll before they even had a chance to read what the post said. How can people’s attention spans be lazier than my 12 year old cousin? (sorry Rico)
Your content needs to appeal to them on a primal level and get their lizard brain activated.
I make these jokes about getting jacked, but think about it. If someone’s scrolling through their feed and they see a guy like Mike O Hearn, their brain is gonna stop and say damn.
When it comes to marketing your whole goal is to buy yourself a few more seconds. Each sentence is designed to get the person to viewer to read the next sentence.
Sales pros will tell you the same thing.
And social media is no different. If you want them to read your post, you better have a good picture or video. If you want them to follow you, your profile better be spot on. And they’re not gonna do that if you post boring BS about “Fourth of July sale, stop by for an unbelievable 15% off!!!!”
Now if your day to day doesn’t look like Dan Bilzerian, don’t fret. You can post viral videos with a caption that ties into your brand.
This way, you’re taking advantage of content that’s proven to get people’s attention all while directing it to your own brand.
Posting videos will be more engaging
Here’s the million dollar tip that I’ll give out for free: videos > pictures.
They get more views, more comments, and are easier to go viral. Which means your page grows faster.
Why? I dunno. I personally don’t like videos and would rather read about it. But I’m the minority. Your average Instagrammer is an 18 year old girl with a screen time of 13 hours inhaling new content all day long. Yes, I’ve seen it.
Working adults don’t spend as much time on IG because they’re busy contributing to society. That’s your target audience. So better get their attention while you can, before they close the app and hit the sack at 8:36pm.
So post videos, capiche?
Control minds with long-captions
This isn’t always common practice on IG, but do it.
When you post with a short caption, people read it for a sec and move on.
When you write a damn manuscript in your captions, you’ll start getting people that come back every day to read what you have to say.
Take advantage of IG’s large audience to get your message out there.
Since starting this, I’ve been getting DMs from people saying they love my content. Sure, it’s a nice stroke to my ego, but it tells you something.
Use all 30 hashtags so people find your stupid page
Oh, you don’t like hashtags because they look spammy? Listen up.
Stop caring what people think
Don’t be an idiot, use the five dots strategy:
When you use this strategy, it breaks up the post so it looks less spammy. Hashtags, combined with an engaging picture/video and good caption will make your page pop off.
Anyways, those are my tips. Now off to the gym to take some mirror selfies. 💪