Get your first 1,000 – and even up to 5,000 – followers as quickly as possible by applying 15 powerful Instagram growth methods to your account!
Works for any niche.
This addition to the Instagram Growth Sheet is part of the Instagram Growth Guide - and I’m certain you’re going to love it:
Your very own personal account growth tracking & analysis tools.
We’ve already gone through the workflow for producing the account data as the very first step of your preparation.
Now we’re going to expand on that and take a closer look at the ‘growth tracking’ & ‘analysis’ tabs within your Instagram Growth Sheet.
These tabs have many practical applications and can tell you a lot about your Instagram performance!
So let’s go!
“Only what gets measured gets done.”
The ‘growth tracking’ & ‘analysis’ tabs inside your Instagram Growth Sheet allow you to track your Instagram’s account growth and engagement in many ways.
But perhaps even more importantly:
These features help you to determine the causal elements of any highs or lows you experience in your account growth and/or engagement rate.
They allow you to analyze your account’s performance, and in turn maximize your growth.
I can’t stress enough how extremely helpful that is.
It’s only by finding the causal elements of your Instagram performance that you become scientific (like the Scientific Hashtag Strategy™️) and know which are the right triggers to pull to generate the results YOU desire with predictability.
The difference is night and day.
It’s operating blindly vs. operating with full lights on - you decide!
So in this final part, we’re going to discuss the one simple step it takes to track your account growth, and also how to interpret the various metrics and graphs that are provided for you.
Then, for a little entertainment as well as education (= edutainment), we’re going to be looking at the stats of the average user on Instagram and compare these with my own account, @complete.self.knowledge, which I’ve grown using a few of the strategies of the From 0 to 1K+ Followers ASAP guide initially, and all of the strategies from the Instagram Growth Guide finally.
From my own account’s performance you’ll be able to see the effectiveness of the Instagram strategies I teach in action.
This way you have the proof that all of this works - and, in fact, works really well!
And by adopting my effective strategies for your own account, you know you can do it, too.
Should be fun, so let’s go!
Tracking your account’s growth is extremely simple.
All you have to do is keep adding lines of data as you’ve already done and the graphs will be automatically drawn for you!
Again, you can utilize a simple data code to extract all the information you need from your account page with ease, and copy/paste it into your Instagram Growth Sheet.
Here’s the workflow for this:
Copy the ‘Account Growth Data’ data code
Go to the ‘data codes’ tab and copy the first data-code, entitled ‘Account Growth Data’.
Go to your Instagram profile page
Open up your Instagram profile page in a web browser (i.e. go to https://www.instagram.com/your.instagram.account/)
Open the Browser Developer Tools
On your profile page right click anywhere → ‘inspect’ to open up the Browser Developer Tools.
Paste the data code into the ‘Console’ tab
Go to the ‘Console’ tab within the Browser Developer Tools and paste the ‘Account Growth Data’ data code into the Console of the Browser Developer Tools.
Hit enter
Transfer the data to your Instagram Growth Sheet
Copy/paste the numbers that are generated as output into the first free ‘Date’ field in the ‘growth tracking’ tab of your Growth Sheet.
(When you go to paste the extracted data into your first free ‘Date’ field of the ‘growth tracking’ tab, do not double-click on that field or you will go too far into the field and the entire line of data will be pasted into that single field (or cell). Click only once on each field (or cell) to stay in top view and paste the extracted data into the sheet as desired. Furthermore, with some browsers it may be that you have to use a special paste command to not mess with the design of the sheet and avoid putting everything into a single field - namely: Right Click → Paste Special → Paste Values Only, or simply Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + v to keep the design of the sheet intact when copy/pasting.)
Notes:
You can triple-click on the data to easily select the entire line at once.
All you have to do now is keep adding this data every 2 or 3 days or so (or as often as you like but not more than once per day), and all of your account’s growth will be tracked - privately!
I suggest you make using the growth tracking’ & ‘analysis tools a habit by adding the Instagram Growth Sheet to your web browser bookmarks and coming back to it frequently to track and observe your account’s growth and performance.
It’s fun seeing your account grow! Trust me.
When you enter data into the ‘growth tracking’ tab, the data graphs will be automatically drawn for you in the ‘analysis’ tab - albeit some of the data graphs need two lines of data to be computed.
So perhaps now you’ll enter your 2nd line of data.
“What’s the benefit?”
If you consistently track your account data with this tool, you gain key insights into your performance on Instagram, and you’ll start to collect historical data about your growth, which you can use to further improve your strategies in the future.
The more you use this tool, the more powerful it becomes.
The ‘growth tracking’ tab also allows you to comment on any changes you’ve made to your Instagram strategies - which I recommend you do to log & record your progress.
Perhaps as your first entry in the ‘Changes Made / Comments’ field to the very right you’ll write:
“Implemented From 0 To 1K+ Followers ASAP Strategies”
Keeping track of your progress like this will help you tons in improving your Instagram performance in the long run.
Note that Instagram posts always show the date they were posted, so you can use them in conjunction with your ‘growth tracking’ & ‘analysis’ tools to determine the causal elements of any highs or lows you experience in your Instagram performance.
This enables you to make better decisions and improve your Content Strategy and your overall Instagram approach.
Consider the following scenario:
In your growth tracking & analysis sheets you see that 2 months ago your engagement rate was 2.5% higher than it is now.
Because you tracked your data, you’re well aware of this problem and you can go back in time to study the phenomenon and find the roots of it by asking the important questions and finding the answers.
Did I make any changes to my Instagram strategy to trigger this?
Check my comments in the sheet.
Did I change my posting frequency?
Check my data and comments.
Did I change the time of the day I make Instagram posts?
Check my comments.
Was my Instagram content better around this time?
Check my Instagram posts from 2 months ago and look at what I did differently compared to now.
Is there anything else I’ve done differently?
Check my comments.
Simply by tracking your account data, observing the output graphs and commenting on any changes you’ve made, you’re able to gain tremendous insight into the performance of your account.
You’ll be more pro than the top 1% of Instagram, if you do this - and you WILL see results because of it.
The ‘growth tracking’ & ‘analysis’ tabs truly become a close companion in your Instagram rise to the top of your niche through the effective strategies I teach.
Now, let’s discuss the key performance indicators (KPIs) when it comes to your Instagram performance, and also how to understand the 8 data graphs.
After that we’re going to have some fun and compare your at-the-moment results with the rest of Instagram, and from my own data you’ll be able to see where you can get in terms of results, if you just follow my footsteps.
So let’s continue.
Key performance indicators (or KPIs), as the name suggests, are the key indicators by which your account’s performance and your Instagram strategies’ success are measured.
KPIs help you to remain clear about where you’re going, and they give you crucial “at-a-glance” insight so you can make better adjustments to your account and maximize your growth.
They’re like a compass needle allowing your Instagram-growth-ship to navigate safely across the sea.
The two most important KPIs for tracking your Instagram performance are your account growth and your engagement rate, where
account growth refers to the number of followers you add to your account, and
engagement rate refers to the amount of likes plus comments you get on your posts divided by your total number of followers. (It’s expressed as a percentage of your current total number of followers.)
Out of the two, account growth gives you more of a quantitative feedback, while engagement rate gives you more of a qualitative feedback on your Instagram performance.
To measure, analyze and interpret these 2 KPIs for your account, you’re provided with a total of 8 graphs within the ‘analysis’ tab of your Instagram Growth Sheet - the first 4 of which give you insights on your account growth performance, while the second 4 graphs give you insights on your engagement performance.
The 8 data graphs are:
Account growth:
Followers Count
Followers Gained (Recent, per Day)
Followers Growth Rate (per Day, per Month)
Followers Growth Rate (per Year)
Engagement rate:
Likes (min, avg, max)
Engagement (Likes + Comments) Rate (min, avg, max)
Comments (min, avg, max)
Comments/Likes Ratio (min, avg, max)
All metrics in the sheet are calculated either directly within the designated ‘Use on your account page’ data code and copy/pasted into the sheet, or as a result of a computation within the sheet.
The more often you provide your data, the more accurate and detailed your metrics get.
The graphs give you a visual and meaningful interpretation of your metrics, except for the standard deviation (sd), which is only used for the Post likes distribution for the Scientific Hashtag Strategy™ - should you decide to switch at some point, you can do it easily..
Let’s go through the 8 output graphs one-by-one now to see what they’re able to tell you:
(All 8 graphs display data over the same period of time.)
Followers Count
… is simply the number of Instagram followers you have over a period of time you track your data.
Followers Gained (Recent, per Day)
… shows you the difference in followers between two of your data entries, labelled ‘Recent’. It also computes it on an average ‘per Day’ basis for you, should you skip days in your entries.
Followers Growth Rate (per Day, per Month)
… shows your growth in followers from one data entry to the next expressed as a percentage increase of your total followers at the time of recording. Like with followers Gained, the ‘Recent’ data is broken down into an average daily growth rate, as it is better suited to interpret your account’s performance. To make even better sense of your growth rate, you can find this number also expressed as a monthly growth rate. This shows you the monthly growth you can expect, if your growth rate were to stay the same throughout the entire month. This number is an extrapolation using your Daily growth rate, and in that sense it is fictitious. However, you’ll find it helpful in understanding your account’s performance.
Followers Growth Rate (per Year)
… expresses your daily growth rate as a yearly growth rate, if your daily growth would stay the same over the entire year. Like the ‘per Month’ expression, this number is also fictitious. Again, it’s useful for interpreting your current growth levels, and determining where your current growth levels would get you, if they remained the same for a year.
Note:
Due to compounding interest, daily growth rates do not translate linearly into monthly or yearly growth rates. Example: A daily growth rate of 0.5% over a period of 1 year corresponds to a yearly increase in followers of 517%, while a daily growth rate of 1% corresponds to a yearly increase in followers of 3680%.
The sheet will do the math for you. Use the monthly and yearly numbers to better understand your Instagram account growth and see where you are headed.
Very helpful and interesting to know indeed!
(This data always looks at the moving averages of your 12 most recent posts. If you see spikes or patterns in these graphs, look within your Instagram post feed for the individual posts that may have caused the spikes. If you go for more than 12 posts without reporting on your data, then these data points will simply be missing in your account growth history.)
Likes (min, avg, max)
… is the number of likes you get based on your 12 most recent posts. You see the average, minimum and maximum amount of likes of those 12 posts depicted.
Engagement (Likes + Comments) Rate (min, avg, max)
… is your engagement divided by your followers Count. Engagement is understood to include both like and comment activity, each contributing “1 enagement” to your Post. Note that this number can also be greater than 100%. You see the average, minimum and maximum engagement rate of your 12 most recent posts depicted.
Comments (min, avg, max)
… is the number of comments you get based on your 12 most recent posts. You see the average, minimum and maximum number of comments of these 12 posts depicted.
Comments/Likes Ratio (min, avg, max)
… shows you how “strong” the comment activity is on your post compared to the likes it has received. This gives you an indication of how engaging your post is in the comment section. To come up with this metric in a meaningful way, a database of over 110 Million Instagram posts was consulted to see what the average amount of likes and comments is on Instagram. I found that the average Instagram post received 55.13 likes for every comment it’s got (not that that is how it works, but it’s how the numbers work out). I’ve used this factor of 55.13 for constructing a sensible Comments/Likes Ratio for you. If your Comments/Likes Ratio is equal to 1, that means you have exactly 55.13 likes for every comment on your posts. If the number is greater than 1, your comment section is relatively strong. If it is less than 1, it’s relatively weak. As you can see, I always go the extra mile in creating the best products for you. ;-) Again, only your 12 most recent posts are considered in this. Feel free to consult your Instagram Post history for further investigation on any spikes that occur.
And that’s it!
All of these graphs will help you tremendously in navigating your account and making sense of your performance to maximize your growth.
Take your time now to familiarize yourself with the graphs, and picture yourself using these tools to rise to the top of your niche on Instagram.
It’s all about that vision.
;-)
Let’s take a look now at what’s possible for your account by seeing how the average person on Instagram performs, and comparing it to my own growth, which is a result of the strategies & principles outlined in the Instagram Growth Guide, which you’ll be able to get access to.
Let’s jump into this!
Now we’re going to do something very fun and interesting!
We’re going to look at statistics for account growth and engagement rates on Instagram for the average user and compare them with my own account @complete.self.knowledge, so you can see the power of my strategies in action.
We look at account growth first, and then we do the engagement rates.
Consulting various sources it’s generally agreed upon that the monthly growth rate of an Instagram account is judged like this (taken from influencerdb.com):
These numbers mean that if you’re at 10.000 followers now and you have a 5% monthly growth rate, then you’ll have 10.500 followers a month from now, which is considered to be “fairly good” monthly Instagram growth.
The website which I’ve taken these interpretations from also provided some graphs to illustrate what these common account growth rates will get you in about a year’s time:
(Organic growth, by the way, has a cumulative effect, which is why these growth curves aren’t straight, but bent upwards - they’re exponential, remember.)
Starting at around 110.000 Followers, you can see that with a 5% growth rate you will end up at approximately 179.000 followers after 10 months of growth (blue curve).
Or - after 12 months instead of just 10 - you’ll have a total 197.000 followers (which for some reason isn’t included on this graph anymore, but I wanted to use some external sources for proof in this section).
That means that the 5% monthly increase translates into an 80% increase in followers over a period of one year, because 110.000 times 1,8 for 80% increase equals about 197.000 followers.
This is considered “fairly good” by most people.
Let’s see what kind of growth numbers I get in comparison.
Here are my growth rates tracked within the Instagram Growth Sheet:
At the time of writing this guide I have a monthly growth rate of roughly 17%.
That translates into a 550% increase in followers over a one year period.
So the 115K followers I have now won’t end up at 200K, which would be “fairly good” as we’ve discovered above, corresponding to a 5% monthly growth rate or an 80% yearly growth rate - but instead I’ll actually end up at about 750K Instagram followers, which isn’t fairly good, but amazing.
(Assuming, of course, that my niche is actually large enough for that.)
I think you’ll agree 750K is quite a lot better than 200K.
“How’s that possible?”
Well, simply, my monthly growth rate isn’t 5% and it’s not even 7.5% - which would be considered “Very good” by normal standards.
It’s actually 17%, which is more than double of what is considered ”Very good”, so I guess that makes it “Very, very good” or perhaps “Very, very, very good”.
Obviously, this means I must know quite a lot more about Instagram and how to grow than the average or “Very good” guy or girl out there.
More than doubling the best growth rates on the platform is quite phenomenal and outrageous in itself.
As you can see from the sheet data above, I’ve added over 12K followers to my account in as little as 17 days - posting only once per day, which on average takes me less than 5 minutes:
This is the power of the Instagram Growth Guide.
The organic strategies require quite a lot less effort and time than the linear growth methods to execute, but they’re much more sophisticated and work together as one complete system.
“But Jonathan, your numbers and followers are very high! Surely it was different for you when you just started out and had less followers. I don’t think I can relate to this.”
Yes, you’re right, it was different - but not like you imagine.
Let me take you back to my beginnings and show you:
Fortunately, I recorded my account growth numbers back when I started testing all of my new Instagram strategies to try to transform my account - remember my story? - as I was determined to find out what works, so I put all my growth numbers in a rudimentary sheet until I hit my first 10K followers.
As it turned out, going from 690 to 10K followers took me only 10 weeks with the new strategies I had developed (which, by the way, aren’t nearly as refined back as what you can get now from the Instagram Growth Guide).
Here’s a list of my number of followers in those days - I was posting once or twice a day back then:
The red numbers mark Sundays.
As you can see, in just 10 weeks I went from 690 followers to 10.000 engaged Instagram followers.
Do you know what kind of MONTHLY growth rate that amounts to?
Roughly 300%.
… Yes, 300%!
We’re talking monthly, not yearly here.
That’s literally 40 (!!!) times higher than the monthly growth rate of 7.5%, which is considered “Very good” by other people’s standards.
40 times!
I won’t even bother calculating the yearly growth rate that this number is equal to, because it’s truly ridiculous.
(It’s over 1.6 Billion % annual increase... Yep.)
On the other hand, with an average growth rate of only 5%, getting from 500 to 10K followers will take you 62 months.
That’s over 5 years! Instead of just 10 weeks.
Do you see now why nobody is getting results on Instagram? They think that mediocre is good.
Let that sink in, and think about how long YOU want to take to get to your first 10K followers on Instagram.
This tremendous growth, however, is only possible with the strategies from the Instagram Growth Guide - the From 0 To 1K+ Followers guide won’t take you there, even though it’s your very important first step in that direction.
What’s more regarding my growth numbers:
The niche that I’m in - Spirituality - is actually rather small compared with a lot of other niches on Instagram.
This has a reducing effect on my results as I reach the ‘market cap’ a lot sooner than many other accounts would.
I reckon if I were in fashion instead of spirituality, for instance, I would be close to 1M engaged Instagram followers by now.
So don’t think that YOU can’t do it, because you definitely can.
However, to hit these amazing growth numbers for yourself you HAVE to utilize the strategies from my Instagram Growth Guide.
It’s an absolute necessity, and the little investment it costs is easily worth the HUGE upside of enabling yourself to make a living doing what you love, which is really the whole point of this.
(And you’ll make your money back from this investment anyways.)
I trust these growth numbers tell my Instagram-rise-to-the-top-story from another angle, and remind you why you should invest in learning from me the few simple techniques it takes to accomplish this outstanding growth for your Instagram account, because that’ll take you there.
You obviously want to learn from the guy who literally 40x’s results that are considered ‘Very good’.
Now, let’s look at engagement rates and see how the average on Instagram performs there, and how my account holds up in comparison, so you can see it’s not just quantity that you’re getting, but also quality.
;-)
Below you see the average engagement rates on Instagram across different account sizes (taken from phlanx.com):
Engagement rates drop naturally with increasing numbers of followers.
This happens for a variety of reasons: Instagram algorithm, people losing interest, etc...
At the moment of writing this guide my account has 115K followers, and so my engagement rate should be about 2% according to these statistics.
Let’s see where I actually fit in.
This time around I’m able to use an outside source to report on my engagement rates and confirm the validity of my stats, as these numbers can be calculated very easily and you don’t have to track anything over a period of time that happened in the past.
I’m going to show you the Growth Sheet results as well, however, just so you can see they’re actually congruent.
From phlanx.com:
As you can see, at 7.17% my engagement rate is more than 3.5x higher than for the average Instagram account with 100k+ followers, where the engagement rate is about 2%.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Am I special, or are my strategies just really good?
I think it’s the latter.
And just so you see that the Growth Sheet data is indeed legit (of course) - my own calculated engagement rate is 7.43%.
The reason it’s slightly different is because the screenshot above was taken roughly 2 days after the screenshots below, and results changed a little:
Now for the final cherry on top, here you can see my earnings per post according to influencermarketinghub.com:
We’ll go into more detail about monetizing your following in the full Instagram Growth Guide, so making a living from your passion becomes not only tangible, but realistic and easy.
Let’s say I’m on the lower side and make only 350$ per post. If I make one monetized post per day, that translates into making 10,500$ per month!
A very decent income for spending only a few minutes a day managing this account, isn’t it?
Now, where do YOU stand compared with the rest of Instagram?
Do you 2x other people’s results with your account? Do you 3x them? Do you 40x them?
You should!
There’s absolutely no reason for taking longer than is necessary and performing worse than you could.
I trust if there’s one point I’ve really hit home with this guide, then it’s that YOU can grow your account a lot faster than you ever thought possible!
The From 0 To 1K+ Followers guide is only your first step in that transformation.
There are more changes to be made to your account, if you really want to maximally increase your following through proven and effective growth methods - growth methods that have brought me over 105K followers in just under a year and which still continue to grow my account about ten thousand followers per month.
What these growth methods are, and how you can apply them to your own account is what the complete Instagram Growth Guide is all about, so check it out:
Remember:
A strong social following is all it takes to make a living doing what you love.
It’s what I’ve done, and what you can do as well.
Much love & and I see you in the complete Instagram Growth Guide,
Jonathan
