How I grew 40k followers in 3 days.

So it's been a busy couple few days. Probably spent more time on Instagram than I should have, but it's for a good reason:

I jumped from 25k to almost 65k (Probably 70 by tomorrow)

And I won't sit here and talk about how it's all about

CONSISTENCY!!!!!

and

HARD WORK AND SACRIFICE!!!!!!!!

because like, it's not.

In fact, I haven't posted in a month or 2 until just a few days ago. Because as I learned, it doesn't seem to be about posting just to post. It's about posting with intention, using little tricks that I'm sharing in this post.

Trial. Reels.

"What are trial reels?" Ok so here's the problem with Instagram: You post a reel, and it gets 5000 views. Amazing! But unless you go viral, 85% of those viewers are your existing followers. So in this example, only about 750 of those 5000 are watching with the possibility of following you.

This is where trial reels come in handy. They show only to people that do not follow you. This means that all 5000 view of those viewers are watching with the intention of following you. It's an option to let you test a reel before sharing with your followers, but this option is essential to how I grew my audience by 40k.

These reels do not appear on your page to the public, and are only shared to viewers who do not know you. This way, if you posted more than one, they don't take up space on your page.

Time-specific Trends

Use trends that force viewers to wait to get a result. This is because Instagram prioritizes time spent watching a reel over hashtags, type of post, view count. So using text first with a payoff, like "art vs artist" or "my art as a kid vs now" are key.

For my reel that went viral, I used a trend that said, “this reel had no tags. If it finds you, my animations are for you.”

I was recommended this by another artist who it worked for, but I would vouch for diversity in your trends over posting the same more than once.

So how did I get from 25 to 65k? 3 days ago, I posted a reel using the new trial reel feature with this type of trend using my short animations as a pay-off. It picked up, and since audiences had to wait to get a result, it continued to push and push this reel. Then since those who saw it and followed will no longer see my trial reels, I posted a second yesterday that also did well because Instagram did not repeat viewers.

I really believe that trial reels, if taken advantage of, should be your new way of posting almost every reel. Eventually you could share it to your own page, but you definitely don't have to.

I can go more in depth on general guidelines for how to post, how I chose what type of posts to make, and more "social media growth advice" if this is a topic that would interest all of you!

Best of luck in posting!