How to grow an Instagram account from SCRATCH (With ZERO Followers!)

Key Takeaways

what is up everyone welcome back to my channel in today's video I'm going to answer a question that I surprisingly get a lot and that is Vanessa what would you do with an account that was starting from scratch so literally zero followers now if you are someone that is either asked yourself this question me this question or someone else this question well you're in luck because I'm gonna be covering that today so if you want to learn how I would grow an account from scratch then keep on watching now the first thing that I would do before even starting this account is really brainstorming what exactly is my niche or what is the direction that I really want to take this account now keep in mind for the purpose of this video the account that we're trying to build here is something that is going to become a business in the future if you're familiar with my channel I'm very much so business oriented so if you're trying to think about doing an account that's more so for a hobby or super personal then this might not be the best tip for you however if you are trying to start an account with a goal of potentially creating income later on then you definitely want to actually narrow down what your niche will be now I've given this piece of advice multiple times in my channel and the reason why I still stand by this is because when you are first starting out you really need to give someone a reason on why they want to follow you even think about your own following habits unless it's someone that you actually know and is a friend of yours you're generally following the accounts for a specific reason maybe their humor accounts and they have a lot of memes that make you laugh maybe they have posted a lot of beautiful selfies and you want to get inspo from them maybe it's a fashion account and that's why you follow them or maybe they're a travel account that really opens your eyes to what is out there in the world as you can see it truly does pay to have a niche especially when you are starting out now obviously when you look at the other influencers out there they kind of post whatever they want but I promise you when they first started out they were probably quite niche down now as you grow and as you develop an audience who truly loves you and your personality you're eventually going to have more flexibility to really post whatever you want however if you want to be strategic and smart about it it is quite quite advice to have a niche right from the get-go the second thing that I would do after I've narrowed down at least the direction of where I want to take this account in the valley that I want to give is I would actually think about my personal brand now if you are starting an account that has nothing to do with you nothing to do with a personal brand then you can skip this step but in my case and how I see it is that if this is an account that I'm gonna be managing and I'm gonna be potentially hopping on stories and showing my face I would really want to get some clarity on what exactly is my own personal brand now I've mentioned this piece of advice in this video right here so if you want to check it out definitely watch it to get the full picture however something that I would recommend you doing is considering the 3x3 method now if you have never watched my personal branding video that is totally okay in a nutshell what the 3x3 method means is that as a personal brand I personally believe that it's always nice to have three pillars and three values now in my own niche the three pillars that I have is social media personal branding and entrepreneurship what you'll notice is that in my account in my social media platforms in terms of content these are the three pillars that I constantly rotate around now let's say you're in fitness maybe your three pillars is mindset nutrition and exercising those can be really great pillars that you can rotate between in your content on the other hand what the three values mean is that these are the three values that internally as a content creator as a personal brand you will always uphold to your audience so in my case my three values are transparency generosity and high energy you'll notice that in a lot of my videos I have these three values that I always portray regardless if it's explicit or not by remembering the three by three method as a content creator as a business owner as the face of a certain brand you're constantly always going to be very consistent to your audience and you're gonna have a lot more clarity when you are producing content for your account now as I'm thinking of starting this account from scratch I already have my niche pack down I also have an idea of what my personal brand is going to be like the next thing that I'll probably do is actually optimize my bio within my Instagram bio these are the three main things that I would do the first is I would make sure that my name has a keyword that would make me searchable so instead of just putting Vanessa Lao I would put business coach or some sort of key word that I feel people would be typing into Instagram that would lead them to my page so if you are a hair stylist then put hair stylist if you are a fitness coach put fitness coach by having these keywords in your name it's going to increase the chances of someone finding you especially if they're typing those keywords in the search bar on Instagram the second thing that I would do within my Instagram bio is actually having a sort of sentence that kind of really tells someone exactly what I can help them with the value of that again or anything that will really mention what people can expect from my account as you know your Instagram bio is really the first thing that people might be looking at when they search for your account so if you aren't clear of terms of the value that you're going to or what people can expect then they have a higher chances of not really understanding the direction that you want ahead with your account and that will increase the chances of them not following you then lastly the third thing that I would do within my Instagram bio was adding an external link by adding an external link generally people will click on it and maybe get to know you a little bit better in my case I have a link to my free resources which would then link to my youtube channel and also link to my website and all these other things so that people can really understand who I am as you know because we're starting from scratch you can only really share so much in a short amount of time on Instagram so that's why by having that external link maybe it links to your about me page or something that really shows someone who exactly you are it would really help them to really get to know you better and potentially follow your account alright so the fourth thing that I would do when starting this account from scratch is having a profile photo that pops now we all know that Instagram is quite a competitive platform there are millions and millions and millions of people on that platform fighting for attention all the time now what you've noticed in my account is I was really intentional with a profile photo that I chose I specifically chose a profile photo that would show my face but not only this would have a bright blue background this compared to the other profile photos that exist on Instagram is something that is a little bit more eye-catching meaning that when I'm commenting on someone's work or I'm putting up a story it might increase the chances of someone actually clicking on my account because my profile photo is so eye-catching another cool thing to consider when you are choosing a profile picture that will really catch the attention of other people is considering to actually add a bright border around it I'll put some pictures up here to give you an example but I find that in my own personal scrolling habits I always tend to click on profiles that have a lot more of an eye-catching picture and just so you know pictures that actually have your face in it or a lot more captivating than those that don't so really keep this in mind when you are thinking about your profile photo on Instagram the fifth thing that I would do if I was starting this account from scratch is before I post anything I would actually pre plan the first 12 photos on the feed this means that I would use apps like later platinum or preview to actually aesthetically plan the first 12 photos on my feed and the reason why I'm suggesting this is because it really does take 12 photos to have a full feed and when you are starting out and you're starting to account from scratch you really want to give people a reason to follow you by having this feed already there when they reach your account how many of you actually follow accounts that only have one photo probably not many of you that's why it's really important to at least really plan out the first 12 photos and not only this I would actually also front-load the posting of those first 12 photos meaning that I would actually post at least once a day to kind of accelerate that feed to be fuller now once those first 12 photos are on your feet and you look like you have a full feet at that point then I would resume doing the regular posting schedule that you want be it once a week twice a week three times a week there's no need to post once a day if that doesn't match your lifestyle or it doesn't suit your preferences but I do recommend that if you are starting an account from scratch really make an effort to at least be intentional with the first 12 photos because that's kind of what really will set the tone for your feed when someone goes on it the six thing that I would do starting this account from scratch is I would actually compile at least five different hashtag groups within my niche now the reason why I'm recommending this tip is for multiple reasons some reasons of which I've mentioned in this video right here the first reason is more convenience I don't want to be scrambling last-minute finding hashtags and not being intentional I would rather pre plan this in advance and have five hashtag groups that I constantly rotate between not only this in terms of Instagram boosting algorithm purposes or whatever you want to call it I also want to do some major hashtag research to ensure that my hashtags are always in my niche and I'm reaching the right audiences now if you want to learn more about hashtag strategy and all of that make sure you download my free Instagram guide right here so that you can learn more specifically about this topic now the seventh thing that I would do to really jumpstart this account is I would actually make an effort to follow people within my niche and the reason why I'm doing this is because I'm trying to train Instagram to understand my preferences if I associate myself with other people that are within my niche then Instagram will show me more things within my niche on my explore page am I recommended so on and so forth which will increase the chances of me finding my ideal audience not only this over time as I use niche hashtags and as I post targeted content Instagram will also increase the chances of me showing up in recommended so for instance when my ideal audience is let's say my competitors profile and follows them I might show up and it's adjusted because I have now associated myself with that category or with that niche now obviously this isn't guaranteed because it's really dependent on your audience's preferences when they're scrolling on Instagram but it will increase your chances the more you associate yourself with a certain category so that Instagram can really categorize you properly within the algorithm the eighth step that I would take now is to follow niche hashtags at this point in the game you would have already done your hashtag research and now you are more knowledgeable in terms of which hashtags are within your niche now why not just take that extra step and use instagrams function to actually follow those hashtags this will make community engagement a lot easier and the reason why this will make community engagement a lot easier is because by following these hashtags posts will naturally go on to your home page and your home feed so you don't have to waste time actually looking for new people to engage with it'll naturally show up on your feet and if you like the content you'll like it you'll comment on it you'll engage with that person and that will increase the chances of them potentially following you at the end of the day if you really want to grow an account you got to put that sweat equity in and you really got to put in the work and engage with your community within your niche now obviously you can do follow and follow you can by boss and you can automate everything but personally if you want to grow your account organically and you really want to grow something that is real this is the way to do it all right so if you're still here and you're still following these steps the nice thing that I would do is leverage Instagram story and not only just showing up on story I would actually also leverage hashtags and locations now personally in my own account I don't do this just because I already have an established account but definitely if I was starting from zero and really trying to grow this account I will hop on Instagram story a little bit more and also incorporate hashtags and locations and the reason for this is that this is really going to expand your reach to new audiences not only this when you show up on Instagram stories a lot more you become a lot more visible to other people Instagram stories is the only thing within Instagram that is still in a chronological order so you're not fighting against any algorithm that's going to increase the chances of someone actually recognizing you because they're constantly watching your stories which will then help them feel a sort of relatability with you and therefore will increase the chances of them actually liking your content or following you a bit more because you are a lot more familiar to them not only this the reason why being on Instagram story is so powerful and a really good Niq for the instagram algorithm is because it will increase the chances of people actually DMing you and you really want to have those one-on-one conversations through the DM because based on instagrams algorithm the way that post show up on your feet is truly based on your preferences so if your DMing people privately through the DM that's signaling to Instagram that that person enjoys interacting with your account and therefore when you post something on Instagram it's going to increase the chances of you actually showing up on their feed because Instagram now knows that you are a content creator or you are an account that they already like to interact with alright so now the tenth and last step that I would take in order to grow this account from scratch is actually to get off Instagram what I mean by this is that my personal philosophy on how to grow accounts on social media is that it takes a platform to grow a platform that's why if my intention is to really grow this account what I would do is to make sure all my other social media platforms are optimized and that I'm mentioning that I do have an Instagram account for starters on Facebook I would make sure that my cover banner has my Instagram account my links will have my Instagram account my bio section will have my Instagram account if I had a YouTube channel I would make sure that all my links are optimized and includes my Instagram account if I wanted to even my email signature I would include my Instagram account as well there is no such thing as shameless plugging this is something that if you want to grow you need to make sure that you're increasing the visibility of it and increasing the chances of external traffic to go to your account on Instagram not only this if my other social media platforms are optimized and are giving visibility to my new Instagram account what I'd also do is really increase my activity on other platforms so for instance I would be way more active in other people's Facebook groups I would be really active on YouTube comments anything that will really get my name out there to increase the chances of someone visiting my profile and then finding my Instagram account and then going to my Instagram account and then following me this is the last step that I would do if I was growing an account from scratch now if you liked this video and you want to learn a little bit more about me in terms of how I think when it comes to Instagram strategy then make sure you hit the notification bell because in my next video I'm gonna walk through the five things I believe most people are doing wrong when they're writing Instagram captions so if you don't want to miss it make sure you hit the notification bell and not only this while you're waiting for that next video make sure you also check out these two videos which are also super awesome I guarantee you're gonna learn a little bit more about social media business and just life in general so with that being said as always guys thank you so much for watching I hope you guys have a great day a great week and a great life and I'll see you in the next one bye guys