How To Grow on Instagram From Scratch in 2021?

If you struggle to gain new followers, increase engagement on Instagram to scale your business online or to become a highly paid influencer Then keep reading! We have something interesting for you today!

Today I will tell you about the guy, who started from scratch on Instagram three times and blew up all the time.

It’s Mikhail Gribov, Russian online entrepreneur who had 220k followers on a Russian Instagram account and 6 months ago he traveled to the USA and created a brand new account in English for fun.

“I wanted to test myself and see whether my knowledge in social media is good enough to blow up again creating content in different language”

After 6 months he grew from 0 to 500k+ followers! He posts tips and tricks on Instagram growth and social media marketing.

“First 2 months were really difficult for me. My reels had 100 views maximum, no followers and engagement growth. It seemed like I tried everything and nothing worked. And then I decided to test as many content ideas as possible. I posted 30+ different reels within the next months and 2 of my reels went viral!”

Then Mike started growing extremely fast! From 100 new followers a month to 20k new followers a day! From 100 views on reels to 10+ mln views.

And then once he reached 500k followers he got some problems with his fake accounts and haters who constantly reported his account.

Then his account with 500k followers was disabled.

“It was sad. How would you react if your project that you put 6 months in will be taken away from you? But I didn’t give up and just created a brand new account where I post the same content that I posted to my old account!”

And guess what happened next? He blew up again! It’s been 3 weeks since he started his backup account and he already has 50k followers.

Here are some tips that he gives his followers to grow on Instagram:

1. Reels

Focus on reels. It’s #1 way to grow massively today because Instagram competes with Tiktok and encourages its users to create more short videos.

2. Call To Actions

Views and likes are not the same as follows. Sometimes people don’t follow you because of your good content but they will follow you if you ask them to do this! So use call to actions like “follow for more” or “check out my other ideas” to convert viewers into followers.

3. Value

It is the most important rule.

Hashtags or calls to actions alone won’t make people save and share your content. Thus won’t help you go viral.

So your content have to be super valuable! For example if you post entertaining content it should be hilarious, if you post educational content it should be something people never knew.

4. Eye Catching Hook

People’s attention span is a goldfish now. You have 3-5 seconds to grab viewers’ attention and make them watch your content. So make sure that your videos have eye catching hook: good quality + title + trendy music

My reel “How to make money on Instagram in 15 minutes” got 10million+ views. Why?

Good quality video + nice background + eye-catching tittle + trendy music!

5. Only Trendy Music

Mostly use trendy music in your videos as it increases your reach. Instagram tends to promote those videos that have a popular song first.

How to find trending music on reels?

Go to Instagram Audio Library when creating your reel and click on “see more”.

6. Time To Post

I didn’t care much about when to post and always posted in the mornings.

Once I analyzed my “insights' ', I saw that 10 p.m. is the time when my audience is most active and I started posting at this hour. My posts' reach increased by 30-40%

7. Video Length

I tried to create 15 sec videos, 30 sec, 1 min, IGTV and etc. But I got the most views when posted short 15-seconds videos.

It's easier to make people watch your video till the end when your content is up to 15 sec. And it's important because the more people watch your content till the end the bigger reach your video has.

8. Consistency

Consistency is important to:

1. Show up your followers and keep them.

2. Understand what content ideas perform better and worse and what you should post in the future.

That’s why I recommend posting daily to test as many content ideas as possible and find your “viral content” faster. BUT consistency alone will NOT get you followers.

If another “guru” says you should only “post consistently and it will happen” is a red flag that this person does not want to tell you what actually works.

9. Hashtags

Hashtags help Instagram to determine what people show your content to.

Here is my hashtags strategy:

• 20-30 hashtags

• 50% of them are related to a video

• 50% related to your niche

• third of them should have • another third < 100k reach • last third > 100k reach

10. Patience

On average, a video needs 5-7 days to get the maximum views. So don’t worry if it didn’t blow up immediately. I used to lose motivation after not seeing instant growth and skipped some days of posting. Hope these tips were useful for you!