HOW TO GROW TO 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS

WHO AM I

Hey, I’m Jay! I’m an Australian born speaker, coach, and wingman to personal brands, helping them grow online the authentic way and the fast way.

Over the past 16 years, I’ve spoken in over 30 countries, grown my own personal brand to over 57 million views online, and gained 1 million followers through Instagram.

My goal has always been to help people get to the next level by finding out what they want to do and how I can help them get there.

And I do that by growing their personal brand through the media and getting people to know them, like them, and most importantly, trust them.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT GROWING TO 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS

Let’s get straight to it. 

Here’s the deal. Back in March 2020, I only had 5,331 Instagram followers.

During that time I noticed that lots of people around me were suddenly growing quickly and had these huge numbers on their profiles. Now obviously, I was just like everybody else, wondering how these guys were growing so fast. They weren’t even that good either. They weren’t posting much and weren’t anybody famous.

So seeing this happen, I did what I do best: I started using my big fat mouth to ask questions. And what I found out was that there are lots of different ways to grow your account. It isn’t just about being organic anymore, and down below I’m going to share with you what I learned.

PERCEPTION

I want to start by sharing what growing your account does to people's perception of you.

There are 3 things you gain with more followers: higher likeability, higher interest, and most importantly, higher trust.

I don’t care what anybody else says. At the end of the day, it’s all about trust online. However you get your followers depends on the individual person and strategy, but the end result is the same.

Imagine that you and I were going to a nightclub or getting a beautiful steak dinner. Or salmon, if you’re that kind of person. Let’s say we both drive up in a 1997 Toyota Nissan. What kind of reaction would we get from people? None. We would be invisible. Nobody would care that someone in an old car just drove up to their restaurant. 

But let’s say that the next day we drive up in a 2022 Lamborghini Aventador. What will people do now? They are going to be staring. Everybody will start asking questions. They will want to know who we are and what we do.

Why? Because people will perceive us as valuable. 

When it comes to social media, people don’t judge us based on the cars we drive (because posting a picture of a car online doesn’t necessarily mean it’s yours). People judge you based on the numbers they see on your account. More followers = more value. In a way, it’s the currency of social media. You can’t literally buy stuff with followers, but it really makes you look good. If lots of people follow you, that means you’re interesting, you’re worth noticing, and most importantly, you’re worth doing business with.

So at the end of the day, the perception of who you are and what you do online is crucial. And having high numbers will help you get to your goals way faster than the guy next to you who only has 437 followers.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GROW TO 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS?

There’s a good side to it and a bad side to it. Let's start with the bad side. 

CONS: Some people will assume that you’re faking it by only buying robots and might accuse you of being vain. Some will get jealous and think you don’t deserve it. Many people that have been in the game for longer than you and will complain (but not necessarily in front of your face) that it’s not fair that you get more followers than them.

PROS: Most people will finally see that you’re the real deal. When people come onto your profile, they will instantly trust you and respect your authority. You won’t have to deal with trust objections in your sales calls anymore.

STRATEGIES TO GROW

There are different ways you can grow on Instagram, some easier than others. Below I’m going to share with you some of the different methods you can use on your account.

ORGANIC GROWTH

Pros: You get real followers that will give you high engagement, and you have the potential to gain lots of customers from these followers.

Cons: It takes way too long and is hard to do because of how saturated Instagram is. Even if you put in lots of effort, it can end up being a waste of time if you don’t gain enough followers, and this method won't work if your content isn’t good.

INSTAGRAM LIVES

Instagram lives are my favorite because it’s a great way to get instant engagement. The real wins happen when you collaborate with other accounts and have discussions. By combining your accounts on a live, you gain followers from them and they gain followers from you. It’s a win-win for everyone.

How to do it:

Collaborate with other accounts and interview each other on IG lives.

Pros: It’s organic, you have the potential to gain lots of new, real followers, and you get lots of engagement.

Cons: It can take a long time to grow this way and you need to keep finding new people to collaborate with.

TARGETED ADS 

Targeted ads are usually run on Facebook or Instagram but can also be run through Google, YouTube, and other platforms. 

How to do it:

Open a Facebook ads account and either research how to run ads or hire a specialist to do it for you.

Pros: You can directly measure your ROI, you immediately get money back for what you invest, and can easily see what is working and what isn’t.

Cons: It can get expensive because you often have to hire someone for it to be successful. And if an ad isn’t successful, you lose money.

MEME PAGES 

You can pay a meme page to give your account a shoutout, which directs people to follow your account.

How to do it:

Find an account that is in a similar niche as yours that does shout outs and reach out to them to discuss further. 

Pros: You have the potential to gain lots of real, interested followers very quickly.

Cons: Doesn’t guarantee new followers and can get very expensive.

CELEBRITY SHOUT OUTS

Celebrity shout outs are done by having an Instagram celebrity or influencer post a giveaway on their account. In order for their followers to get a chance at winning a prize, they have to follow your account. 

How to do it:

Get in touch with an agency (or with Ace of Spades) about getting you into an Instagram celebrity shoutout. 

Pros: The fastest and easiest way to gain lots of real followers very quickly (besides bots). You gain instant trust and credibility from anyone who sees your account because your account has so many real followers.

Cons: Because their reason for following you was to win a prize, these followers are not committed to you and you don’t get much engagement from them. About 10-20% of your followers will eventually drop off aka unfollow you. If you want to maintain your follower count you may need to pay for celebrity shout outs more than once.

BUYING FOLLOWERS

This version of buying followers is the easiest because the followers are all bot accounts. 

How to do it:

Simply put, do a quick Google search saying: buy followers on Instagram, and follow the prompts.

Pros: You gain instant credibility super quick. Within a few hours you’ll have more credibility than you’ve ever had before, and the followers will not drop off. They will stick there and stay there forever.

Cons: Because they are bot accounts, they will not interact with your content so your engagement will not line up with your follower count and you have the possibility of looking very fake. Instagram will also pick up on the fact that your engagement rates are low and will stop showing your content to your followers. If real people start looking into your account and clicking on the followers, they might also realize they are fake. There is also a chance that if you have too many fake followers, Instagram will shut down your account.

WHAT I THINK YOU SHOULD DO

Here’s what I would do if I was starting from scratch again, and what I recommend you do.

Step one: Grow your account to 10k followers through a celebrity shout out (preferably USA followers). This will give you a good base of real followers quickly. 

Step two: Once your account hits 10k followers, start doing IG lives with people in your space. Their followers will be more likely to follow you because you will already look credible with 10k followers. This way you’ll start getting real traction and quality with real, engaging followers.

Step three: Keep getting quality followers through IG lives, collaborations, or your own organic growth, and enter in small celebrity shout outs that will get you 3-5k followers every month. This will keep your account growing in a real and very natural looking way.

Optional step four: If you want to do what I did and really grow your account, then you have to either go big or go home. Use the same steps from one to four, but do bigger celebrity shout outs. Then once you hit your goal number, you can use some bots to keep the number up there. It’s natural for some followers to drop off with celebrity shout outs, so you want to stay consistent to keep the number up there. Make sure to continue doing IG lives and other organic methods so that you keep gaining quality followers as well.

OVERALL STRATEGY

At the end of the day, I wanted to create this guide because I’m not afraid to share the truth of how I grew so fast. Lots of people have done it the same way as I did, but not everyone is willing to share how they did it.

So look, whether you like it or not, higher numbers sell more. Look at the biggest celebrities. Do they have low numbers or high numbers? Look at how much interest people have when they see big numbers on their screens. They’re attracted to it. It’s just who we are as human nature. 

So whether you buy followers, do targeted messages, celebrity shout outs, or however you grow your account, instead of focusing on how you’ll get there, always remember why it’s important to you.

And listen, people are going to talk and they are going to judge you no matter how you do it. Just remember that those people don’t matter too much. The most important thing is your content and who you are as a person. Because if Instagram shuts down tomorrow, all you have is your content, your knowledge, and your character.

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