People are starting to take Instagram VERY seriously. And for good reason – Instagram is one of the top platforms that promotes organic growth and reach. If you play your cards right, your content can reach millions of users every single day for $0.00 spend, and you can leverage this exposure to gain thousands of followers per day or send attention to your product/service.
After growing a collective following of over 450,000 followers by leveraging the algorithm to go viral, I’ve been able to nail down a reliable method to boost your organic reach on every single post WITHOUT spending a dime on advertising or “boosts”….
So how can YOU replicate these results on your account?
In the next 5 minutes, I’m going to give you a no-fluff guide that shows you exactly what it takes to go viral on Instagram.
Contrary to popular belief, it actually has nothing to do with the amount of followers you have. It’s possible to go viral on a brand-new account with zero followers – you just need to follow the right steps.
It all comes down to two things:
1.) Your CONTENT
2.) Your NETWORK
Let’s start with content. I know you are thinking “how do I KNOW if my content will go viral or not?”
Well, there’s no way to predict or “know” what will go viral (or flop miserably) – UNLESS – you study viral content in your niche first. You need to do your due diligence and check out what posts are trending – are they video skits? Memes? Specifically posed selfies? Travel shots at a certain location? Etc.
You can check out trending posts on the “Explore Page” — where Instagram puts all content that it thinks you’ll like based on your past behavior. (P.s. – The “Explore Page” will be your golden ticket into going viral…. so keep that in mind moving forward…)
Then, using your research data, you can choose to do 2 things to ensure that your content has potential to go viral and get MILLIONS of eyeballs:
1.) RE-POST
or…..
2.) RE-CREATE
Pretty self explanatory. Either re-post the image and give credit to photographer/artist (a method that many pages use at their own risk), or re-create in your own style. When re-creating viral content, make sure your content has the same basic style or elements that the original content had.
Here’s an example of how I re-created a viral photo successfully:
This is the first step to making sure your content has a fighting chance in Instagram’s competitive landscape.
The next ingredient you need to implement is a NETWORK.
Here’s what you need to know about having a network: you need one.
A network is a group of people that will exchange engagement with you. The idea is that you can get a relevant group of people to like and comment on your content when you first post it, so that your posts are boosted in the algorithm and you have an opportunity to reach larger audiences. Basically, “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”.
It’s a non-negotiable if you actually want to reach more users outside of your immediate “followers” list. There is a few factors that contribute to IF your post gets a lot of traction, a couple of them are:
1.) How fast people engage with your content
2.) WHO engages with your content (meaning the size and quality of their engagement)
If you can nail down both, you will grow. FAST and furiously.
That’s because your content will be recognized as a “trending” post and be pushed to the Explore page of many audiences, because Instagram wants its users to see up-and-coming content. This is how we grow accounts 10,000+ followers in less than 30 days, and sometimes have days where we gain 2k-5k followers from a single post!
Imagine what that would feel like?
(Spoiler alert: It feels good.)
So…. how can you start building a network?
It is simple, but takes work – and if you’re serious about growing your account, completely worth it. Follow these steps today:
- Find 20 accounts in your niche who have a slightly larger following than you.
- Check to make sure their engagement is good (you don’t want to waste your time engaging with a “dead” account).
- Like and comment on their 3 most recent posts.
- Direct message them with this message: “Hey! Want to exchange likes & comments? It will help us reach more users and go viral. I got your last 3 :)”
They’ll likely say “sure” since you’ve already provided value. Boom, you just gained a network member. If they say “no”, simply message more relevant users until you have a solid network of active users. As you gain more followers, keep upgrading your DM groups and adding users with bigger followings.
And that’s it. When your content is viral and your network is strong, any level of growth is possible. This is how we grow from 0-100K in less than 12 months — hustling in the direct message feature and continuously providing value to our network.
Yes, it truly does “go down in the DM”. 😉
