From 0 To 1K+ Followers ASAP

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.




Part II: Action

Now we’re finally going to take action and profit from all the changes you’ve made so far.

1K+, here we come!

As you probably know, the more linear growth actions you perform, the more followers you get – hence the name linear growth.

Before we get overzealous, however, and perform too many of these actions in a short period of time, we’ll need to talk about action limits that exist on Instagram, so you avoid getting your account into trouble.

Let’s dive in!

Action limits

Instagram places certain restrictions on the number of actions you’re allowed to take with your account per hour & per day.

They do this to help prevent bots and automations from taking over and ruining the experience of real people on Instagram (they obviously haven’t done a very good job, though).

By adhering to the Action limits down below you can avoid being flagged by the Instagram algorithm and hurting your account.

If you break the action limits repeatedly, especially if your account is very new, you'll have to expect certain consequences:

  • You may get a warning

  • Your account may get temporarily action blocked

  • Your internal Instagram algorithm score may be reduced (a LOT of engagement depends on this)

  • Your account may get shadowbanned (i.e. you get banned without you “seeing” any changes)

  • You may get your account shut down completely as a last resort, if you keep breaking the limits.

The more persistently you break the limits, the more you’ll be punished.

The newer and “less trusted” your account, the more severe the repercussions.

(Trusted accounts, which means accounts that have been around for a while and proven to be human, can expect to have a little more leeway.)

It’s best not to go beyond these action limits altogether.

However, if it does happen accidently once or twice, it’s not the end of the world!

If you behave like a person, Instagram will be able to tell, and your account won’t experience any lasting bad effects from this.

That said, staying within the accepted boundaries shouldn’t be too difficult.

Here are the limits since 2021:

  • 7-13 follows/unfollows per hour or 100-150 follows/unfollows per day

  • 300-400 likes per day (of accounts you follow)

  • 2-5 comments per hour or 20-30 comments per day

  • up to 10 DMs per hour under strict considerations (never send the same message to many accounts, never attach a link to your DM if it’s your first interaction with that user.

Disclaimer:

These limits are based on the empirical value of many Instagrammers, who’ve shared their experience that when they go beyond these numbers they start receiving some type of noticeable punishment. Instagram has not officially revealed any precise limits, because it’s not in their interest to share these as it would allow certain people to easily design their bots & automations around the parameters. After all, the action limits are in place to stop bots from flooding the platform.

In any case, it’s best to stay on the safe side of doing a little less and always staying within the action limits, so you avoid being punished altogether.

Here’s a summary of all the action limits as an image that you can download and use as a background on your mobile phone (until you’re able to switch to organic growth methods, which don’t make extensive use of these actions), if you like:

Download your Instagram Limits mobile wallpaper here:
Left (blue version), Right (red version), Customize here (Figma file)

You notice the action limits aren’t huge.

They’ve gone down quite a bit over the years to fight the bots, but it’s fine!

Our strategies focus on QUALITY rather than quantity, and so these action limits will be more than sufficient for you to grow your account even up to 5K followers in a relatively short period of time using our linear growth methods.

So let’s introduce you to our 15 Effective Linear Instagram Growth Methods now!

15 Effective Linear Instagram Growth Methods

In this section we’re going to discuss 15 Effective Linear Instagram Growth Methods that you can use to grow your Instagram account From 0 To 1K+ Followers - and even up to 5K followers - as quickly as possible!

The growth methods are divided by their main means of achieving results.

These are:

  • Posts

  • Comments

  • Follow & Unfollow

  • Likes

  • Other

I highly encourage you to try all of these methods and see which ones work best for you, before you write any of them off just because you think they have a bad rep or that you don’t want to do them!

It all comes down to how you do it.

If done properly, these methods achieve great results and get you to 1K followers ASAP after all the prep work!

Once you’ve tried them all, it will be enough to pick just a few of the methods that you like best and to do them consistently to easily grow your account to over 1K+ followers in a matter of a few weeks!

So, have an open mind, test these methods for yourself, and pick the ones that resonate with you!

On average it takes students 1 month to get their first 1K followers with these methods.

Remember, in my own case it took me quite a lot of experimentation to get my account out of being stuck in low follower numbers for over 16 months - and then making it to over 105K real followers in less than a year after that.

Among these 15 methods are some that I’ve used myself in the early stages of my account growth - such as the $1.80 strategy you’ll learn about below.

However, I’ve long since stopped doing any of these once I hit the crucial threshold of ~ 1K followers and switched to the more powerful and more sophisticated organic growth methods, which bring much better results with less effort…

… and we’re about to get you there as well!

So let’s start!



Posts

First, let’s talk about a few methods to get you more Instagram followers from the Instagram posts you’re already making!

Method #1 - Post more often in a day

The most important aspect of growing an Instagram account is posting content.

Preferably good content.

Check the successful accounts in your ‘niche research’ as well as your bookmarked BPPS to get an idea of what that might look like.

Unlike YouTube that has an algorithm and search function, which regularly makes even older videos receive lots of views and go viral, Instagram needs a constant stream of new content to grow your account.

Your Instagram posts receive about 98% of their total engagement within the first 48 hours of uploading.

After that the post is basically dead as far as new engagement and increasing your followers goes.

Still, posting is the #1 method for getting new followers, so an easy way of increasing your followers is simply by posting more!

And it’s easy to see why:

If one post brings you x amount of followers, then 2 posts will bring you 2x the amount of followers.

Simple math!

“How often should I post on my account?”

If you are serious about growing your account, at least once a day is a MUST for you - perhaps even twice a day or three times a day.

More often than that is likely to start annoying your followers a little, but it all depends on the niche you’re in - check how often other successful accounts in your niche post.

That said, I understand some individuals or businesses might not be able to or even want to post that many times a day - and that’s fine.

You can certainly go by with posting less than once a day - just don’t expect to get the fastest Instagram growth possible if you do so.

In the end, it’s about the growth YOU want, and there are many more methods besides posting to increase your followers (some of which are revealed only in the powerful Instagram Growth Guide).

So let’s continue!

Method #2 - Put CTAs in Post captions

Overlooked by many people:

You should always put CTAs (Call to Actions) into every single one of your Instagram post captions.

That means:

Simply tell people to follow you, to share your post, to like it, to tag their friends, to reply with some special emoji, or a ‘Yes’ if they agree with your question, to go visit your link in bio or send you a DM.

This really works - evident in the fact, for instance, that virtually every Youtuber tells you in every video to:

“Like, comment, subscribe and hit the notification button!”

I bet you’ve heard this line a million times already, haven’t you?

Well, it works!

Method #3 - Post at least one story every 24 hours

To put your account on people’s radar more often and receive many more profile views, you can leverage the fact that posting Instagram Stories gets you on people’s homescreens for the Story section - and pushes you to the #1 spot everytime you post a new story!

On top of that, by posting at least one Instagram Story every 24 hours, your account permanently retains the “new-Story-has-been-posted-circle” around your profile photo.

This is a MAJOR benefit for getting people onto your profile page.

The more people visit your profile, the more people are going to follow you!

Try this method, but avoid putting up trashy content.

Post what is valuable to your niche - you can even start building up your Instagram highlight reel this way.

Method #4 - Niche-specific hashtags

The next powerful growth method is to start using niche-specific hashtags.

We’ve already done the necessary Hashtag Research in the preparation - now I’ll tell you how to assemble your hashtag strategy of 30 hashtags out of those 80 that you’ve researched.

Open up your Instagram Growth Sheet, and select your hashtags in the following way:

  • Select 15 hashtags from the 15k-100k hashtag size range

  • Select 10 hashtags from 100k-250k hashtag size range

  • Select 5 hashtags with 250k+ hashtag size

The 15 smaller hashtags will help your account get more engagement, which ranks up your post and enables it to get into the 10 ‘medium’ hashtags, where your post ranks up again and gets into even bigger hashtags, and so on.

If you wish to maximize the results you get from hashtags, I refer you to the ground-breaking Scientific Hashtag Strategy™, which is a part of the full Instagram Growth Guide and has the power to the 10x the Post impressions you get with every post you make.

(If you decide to purchase the Scientific Hashtag Strategy™ and later decide to upgrade to the full Instagram Growth Guide, you’ll get the price of the SHS deducted.)

After the Scientific Hashtag Strategy™, you won’t need another Instagram hashtag strategy in your life!



Comments

Let’s talk about comments now.

Use your prepared Trojan Horse comments and continuously cycle through them, when you use the following methods.

This will make you seem less spammy, and also Instagram doesn’t like people sending the same messages over and over again.

So the more you are going to comment, the more different variations of Trojan Horse comments you want to have in your “Trojan Horse war-chest”.

Of course, you can always mix in “witty, on-the-spot” comments for some more variation.

  • Action limit: 20 - 30 comments per day.

Method #5 - Leave polarizing comments on posts of big accounts

With this growth strategy the goal is to occupy all the limelight within the comment section of a popular post inside your niche.

You want to get as many likes on your comment as possible, which will rank your comment to the top of the comment section - giving it a lot of exposure.

See:

Regardless of how many followers you have:

Everybody has the same chance of getting viral in the comments!

The only thing this comment example above is lacking is a clear incentive to check out the account:

Because the personal story is missing, I can’t relate and connect on a deeper level.

That’s where your Trojan Horse comments come in!

The likes will have people intrigued and they’ll check out your profile to see what you’re all about.

The result: Many more followers.

Don’t be afraid to be polarizing with your comments, but don’t be condescending, negative or disrespectful.

Method #6 - Answer people’s questions in the comment sections of big accounts & provide value

Big accounts often get way over 100 comments on their posts - and they don’t have the time to reply to them all.

If you notice people have questions on posts, and you can answer them - go ahead and do it!

You’re providing direct value both for the big account and for the one with the question.

You’re bound to receive likes for this, and people WILL check out your account!

The best way to apply this method is by following the big accounts in your niche and hit up their posts in your home feed once a day.

You can reach your daily comment limit without relying solely on Trojan Horse comments with this method.

Make sure you don’t tick anyone off, especially the owner of the accounts if they’re active within their posts – stay humble, polite, respectful and actually provide value!

Method #7 - The “$1.80” strategy

The “$1.80 strategy” was invented by Gary Vee.

… and it’s all about getting yourself out there and being seen in your niche.

But first you have to know why it’s called the “$1.80” strategy:

The name comes from leaving your 2 “cents” (a comment) on the Top posts of relevant hashtags within your niche.

On desktop, there are only 9 posts in the Top posts section of every hashtag.

If you leave your 2 cents on all 9 of them, which means you drop a comment (you can also use your trojan horse comments for this), you’ll have left a total of “18 cents” worth of comments within your niche on a single hashtag page.

You repeat this process for 10 different relevant hashtags within your niche, and that way you go up to 18 * 10 cents = 180 cents or $1.80.

Or in other words: 90 comments per day.

Unfortunately, with the new action limits (20 - 30 comments per day), you can’t really do this anymore, but what we lack in quantity, we make up for in QUALITY!

Simply use your prepared Trojan Horse comments (and don’t forget to cycle them).

Spamming the same comment over and over again will be bad eventually!

Method #8 - Commenting on people’s stories

Commenting on people’s stories is a powerful means for attracting the attention of the one who posted the story - a powerful tool for reaching out and getting the attention of big accounts.

If they have below 100K followers, they’re almost guaranteed to read your reply to their story.

On the downside of this method, at most 1 person will read this comment.

On the upside, you can target who it is, and technically this doesn’t count as comment, but as DM!

20 - 30 DMs per day are allowed, and you can do this in addition to the comment limits.

This method works on Story Highlights, too! See example above.



Follow & Unfollow

Now for a few strategies regarding the infamous follow & unfollow method.

This method has a bad rep, because it’s seen as disingenuous.

To an extent it certainly is. In the end, however, you should only follow someone because you’re interested in their content - and not because they followed you.

So people who get offended by this method are really “following back” for the wrong reasons, which I’m not saying to justify this method, but simply to point out that everyone is responsible for their own actions.

The fact is, this method works well, as people are very interested to find out who’s following them - and they often end up following back.

That is their choice and there shouldn’t be hard feelings, if you unfollow.

The follow & unfollow method still works today!

And the way we’ll do it, it’s going to be even more effective and really maximize the results you’re able to get with the small amount of actions that are still allowed on Instagram.

  • Action limit: 100 - 150 follows/unfollows per day.

For these methods I suggest you don’t switch back and forth between follow & unfollow, so you can more easily keep track of the number of actions you’ve performed.

Here’s a better way of doing it:

You could do 7 days of following people at a rate of about 100 - 150 follows per day, adding roughly 1,000 people to your following count, and then on the next 7 days you unfollow these people again at the same rate starting from “Date Followed: Earliest” in the sorting method.

(Beware that especially if your account is less than 3 months old, that you go easy on the number of actions per hour and per day.)

Doing it this way also means you can avoid all 3rd party apps, and you never run the risk of hurting your Instagram algorithm score.

Apparently there are 3rd party apps that you can use to have an easier time with following and unfollowing people, but I’ve never used them so I can’t advocate any. A good app might make your life a little easier for this method, but absolutely no guarantees it’s risk-free. Use your own judgement.

You also only unfollow people after 7 days with this approach, which conceals the method a little.

(I’m not the biggest fan of this method either and haven’t used it to grow my account, but the fact is, it works rather well and it’ll help you to get to 1K+ quickly so you can switch to organic and you won’t have to do this anymore.

Remember, it’s just for helping you out in the initial stages of your account growth and get the extra boost. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet to help yourself out a little.)

So let’s discuss the various ways in which you can implement this powerful method!

Method #9 - Follow & unfollow people who engaged with WPPs in your niche

In the preparation part I introduced you to the concept of WPPs, or Worst Performing Posts, on successful accounts within your niche.

As a reminder, these are posts that perform significantly below the average post on an account.

You can use WPPs to find the most hardcore & active of users and potential followers in your niche.

“Why does it work like this?”

Because engagement on a post is structured like an onion - the more likes it has compared to the average post, the more layers of “not-so-hardcore followers” have been reached.

If the post has only very few likes compared with the average - meaning it’s a Worst Performing Post - only the most loyal & hardcore followers will have engaged.

These hardcore followers are super active on Instagram and within your niche, and so these are people who are also very likely to follow you.

Makes sense?

Now here’s what you do:

  1. Go to the profile of one of the successful accounts within your niche

  2. Find a WPP

  3. Check who has liked this post

  4. Open up the profiles of the people who liked the post: Look for people with followers to following ratio that’s about equal. Avoid people with very high following numbers (1,000+).

  5. Follow these people, and like their 2-3 most recent posts

The reason you want the followers to following ratio to be about equal is so that they’re more likely to follow back.

Here are a few guidelines for who you should NOT follow:

  • An account with very few people in Following (below 100 let’s say) is not likely to follow back, because apparently they don’t readily follow other accounts - unless perhaps their followers are equally low.

  • An account with 1,000+ people in Following is not likely to engage with your content even if they do follow, so getting these to follow you is almost like buying a fake follower.

  • An account with tens of Ks of followers won’t even notice your follow, so don’t expect big accounts to follow back - but you can follow for SEO purposes (though you might want to get it mixed up with the whole follow & unfollow process that stretches over days).

We can take this approach even one level deeper:

Method #10 - Follow & unfollow people who follow small accounts in your niche

In the approach above you followed people that had engaged with a WPP of a successful account according to certain criteria.

Let’s call these people “WPP engagers” for now.

While doing this you might notice that some of these “WPP engagers” are actually content providers for your niche themselves - only they don’t have huge followings yet.

These accounts are actually goldmines, because the people that engage with and follow these types of accounts are not only very active on Instagram, but they STILL follow accounts in your niche with low follower counts, which makes it very likely they’ll also follow you.

Here is what you need to do for this method:

  1. Open the profile of a “WPP engager” who posts content relevant for your niche (= an active account in your niche with low followers)

  2. Follow the people that engage with their content

This method should really give you a nice following with all the powerful preparation we’ve done beforehand!

Moving on.



Likes

Let’s discuss a few strategies you can do with likes on Instagram.

  • Action limit: 300 - 400 likes per day

Method #11 - Liking people’s comments & pictures within your niche

A great way to get noticed by people in your niche is to like their comments and pictures.

Most people haven’t turned off their Instagram notifications and will be notified when you like their comments or pictures - often resulting in them checking out your account.

Example of liking comments:

Recommendation:

When liking people’s pictures, always like 2 or 3 at once - 1 or 2 of their most recent pictures and also an older one to really give the impression you have been checking out what they’re doing.

See:

(You want to be doing this on smaller accounts than my own, though! Big accounts get so many likes everyday I can’t possibly keep track of who is liking my posts.)

Method #12 - Liking posts of small accounts in niche-specific hashtags

If you’re looking for more posts to like, because you haven’t made use of all the liking actions you’re allowed to take each day, go ahead and like the low performing posts in your niche hashtags.

You can simply use the ‘Most recent’ section on hashtag pages for this method, because:

  1. The posts are very likely to be from accounts with low amounts of followers (no need to check, actually).

  2. They’ve just recently posted and will be likely to see the interaction right away.

Don’t go completely overboard with this, however, and like 100+ posts in 10 minutes!

I know this method goes fast, but this is what we want to avoid, so slow down some.

Method #13 - Reactivating “old” or inactive followers

If you had your account for a while and made let’s say 100+ posts it can happen that some people eventually lose track of your account and no longer engage with it despite still being a follower.

To get old or inactive followers to take note of you again, you can like a few of their posts.

… just like in the first Likes method!

Only this time around you source them from your older posts - about 100 posts back (or whatever number you feel makes sense).

Just look up who liked your older posts, visit their profiles, and like one or two of their pictures.

(I don’t recommend liking really old comments someone has left, though).

With this method you can increase your engagement rate by reactivating some of your inactive followers.

This concludes our main methods!

Give these a try, and now let’s talk about a few outside-the-box growth methods that you can use.



Other

Let’s discuss ways of increasing your followers that do not happen on the Instagram platform itself.

Method #14 - Leverage friends and off-platform followers

Whether it’s real life friends, friends on Facebook, or followers and subscribers you’ve got elsewhere:

Simply tell them about your Instagram account, and what they stand to gain from following you.

Make it fun, exciting, and be optimistic - with the game-changing preparation you’ve done you have all the reason to be!

Most people can definitely get a few more followers from these sources.

This includes your websites and email lists!

Method #15 - Put an Instagram sign in your brick and mortar store!

If you have a brick and mortar store, or some other physical location that potential followers go to, put up an Instagram sign with your account handle, a QR code, and a ‘Follow’ Call to Action.

There are a few businesses that create these sorts of things and you can order such a sign - or you can simply make it yourself.

You may even print your Instagram on your business cards, or include it in your email signature.

A powerful feature of Instagram that is often overlooked by many businesses is that it's an amazing tool for following up (no pun intended) with people and potential prospects and business partners.

If they see your Instagram posts and stories, they’re constantly reminded of you - making you the go-to person to solve their problem.

Now let’s round things off with a bonus method!

Bonus Method - Boosting Your Posts

Boosting your posts by clicking “Promote” (requires a business account) is a powerful paid method that can lead to a tremendous boost in your growth and help you to reach the 1K+ followers milestone a LOT faster – especially after you’ve optimized everything as we’ve done.

The only downside: It costs a little bit of money.

But hey!

Would you rather spend 100 bucks, or do 50 more hours of repetitive tasks?

Sometimes spending money is a blessing - especially when it’s on something that helps you make progress towards the thing you’re looking to achieve:

It’s another form of investing in yourself.

I suggest you definitely try this method for a few posts and see how well it works for you - and you might just be able to find yourself at 1K+ followers a lot sooner than anticipated!

For the record, I haven’t used this method to grow my own account, but that’s because I started from 500 followers, when I got serious.

With fewer followers, however, I would definitely consider boosting my posts, because you can get quite a bang for your buck.

And as soon as you hit 1K+ followers boosting your posts will no longer be necessary to quickly grow your account:

It’s only for a short time to give you that much needed boost in the beginning, which is what this guide is all about.

Let’s get to it:

Boosting one of your posts is essentially running Instagram (Facebook) Ads for your content.

In other words, you give Instagram (Facebook) money to artificially increase your reach – and especially when your natural reach is low, you can multiply your reach by A LOT with only a few dollars.

Here’s the math:

Boosting a post with $5 you can reach an additional ~1,500 people (depending on the exact parameters you’ve selected).

That’s quite a lot if your followers are very low and your reach otherwise is only 30, 100 or even 500 people.

Do you see what kind of multiplication you can get with just $5? Compare with your post insights.

On the other hand, if your account is already big like mine and you routinely reach hundreds of thousands of people with your posts, those $5 are not going to do much at all and you’d have to spend way more in order for it to have any real impact.

In other words:

The more you spend, the more you get - another linear growth method!

Now here’s how this method works:

You boost your posts in order to achieve one of three main objectives:

  1. More Profile Visits

  2. More Website Visits

  3. More Messages

In most cases #1 and #2 will be what you’re after, and for the purpose of increasing your followers in particular, you’ll be interested in optimizing the “ad” for profile visits, so click this option.

Next you specify which people you would like to advertise to.

Either you let it select these people automatically, which might be good, if you already have a lot of followers, or you create a custom targeting, which I recommend in most cases.

Try to narrow it down as much as you can by interest, location, age and so on, but don’t make it too narrow.

After you’ve done that, it’s time to select how much you would like to spend on the ad by picking the duration and how much you would like to spend per day:

The first 24 hours are most important, because then the boosted engagement gets a chance to contribute to the natural virality of your post.

Keep in mind that it also takes a small amount of money in order for the advertising algorithm to figure out who are the best people to show your ad to based on its results, so go anywhere from $5 to $10 per day as well as 1 day to 4 days max - it really depends on your budget and how often you post.

If you have no other idea, I suggest going with $5 daily for 1 day and seeing how it performs - should increase your reach by roughly ~1,500!

Once you’ve decided how much you’d like to spend it’s time to boost your post:

Keep in mind that the people who see the post as a result of your promotion will see that in small print underneath your account handle in the top left of your post within their home screens, but if your post is good, it shouldn’t matter!

Now, which posts should you promote?

Obviously, to get the best results from your money you only want to boost your best posts, which means your BPPs.

If you have a hunch that the post you want to promote is one of your BPPs, then go with that one.

At any rate I strongly recommend that you purchase access to our premium Instagram Content Board to help you craft the best possible content through 30+ expertly designed and proven content templates, if you haven’t already!

You can do that here:

Instagram Content Board

Content creation has never been easier.

With step-by-step instructions.



Now let’s talk about what NOT to do, shall we?



5 Don’ts

Let’s talk about a few things I’ve seen people do to get followers, which you should definitely NOT do.

These methods will give your account a bad look, hurt your engagement rate for good and simply piss many people and potential followers off.

Let’s go - 5 things you should NOT do!

Don't #1 - Buying fake followers & engagement

This should go without saying, but buying fake followers & engagement gives your account a really unnatural look, which makes people suspicious and reluctant to follow you or engage with your account.

Furthermore, Instagram is cracking down hard on fake accounts and removing them, which means if you’ve bought fake followers in the end you’ve paid for nothing.

In fact, you may even get punished for it and your account is ranked down in the Instagram algorithm or even shut down completely.

Don't #2 - Using automations

Automations, especially those that leave fake comments, piss people off.

They also heavily spoil your reputation with the Instagram algorithm - so avoid at all cost!

If your Instagram algorithm score is hurt badly, you may see yourself unable to ever grow your account beyond the fakeness you’ve accumulated through these means.

It’s dreadful!

You also run the risk of getting your account shut down, and potentially IP/phone number banned from Instagram for good.

Don't #3 - Posting spammy comments

This is something you might end up doing with this guide, so beware!!

Don’t go around leaving completely unrelated comments in people’s comment sections.

That is NOT what we have created the Trojan Horse comments for!

They should be relevant to your niche, and you should have enough variations so you can accommodate them to whatever type of content you’re using it on.

You also should have enough Trojan Horse comments to be able to cycle them frequently.

In addition to that, pay attention that you don’t leave the same Trojan Horse comment on different posts of a single account - or you might piss off the owner of the account, who could report you for spam.

This will (slightly) harm your algorithm score!

Besides, sometimes leaving a Trojan Horse comment isn’t the best choice anyway.

Sometimes, actually engaging with the piece of content and leaving a thoughtful comment is the better choice - or answering people’s questions.

Of course, you always want to give people an incentive to come check out your account, but keep it low-key and don’t push too hard.

Don't #4 - Tagging absurd amounts of people

A ridiculous thing I’ve seen is some people will create an Instagram post and abuse the tagging feature on it.

They’ll literally tag 20+ accounts on every post - most of these people they’ve never even spoken to and are completely unrelated to the piece of content.

👆 This is not you being smart - this is you being reckless and about to be reported by at least one individual.

You’re very likely to be reported this way by a large number of people especially, if you do it consistently - PLUS other people won’t find it a good look discovering how you abuse the tagging feature on your posts.

Don’t do it.

It’s silly.

Don't #5 - Following thousands of people

Avoid getting your following counts up into the thousands.

Cycle between following and unfollowing as mentioned!

Having thousands of followers looks unnatural - especially if you haven’t been on Instagram for YEARS.

Try to keep it under 1,000 at all times, if you can.

Following too many accounts will make people think less of your profile - that’s a fact.

And this is the last of the Don’ts I have for you!

If you have any questions regarding the growth methods & principles you’ve learned in this guide, don’t forget to visit the official IG² Community Facebook Group and ask for help from your fellow community members.

Now let me try to somewhat subjectively rank all these methods, so you have a clue where to start!

Ranking The Linear Growth Methods

I thought a little ranking might be helpful, so you know which methods to try first - though they all have merit and some people prefer certain methods over others and it comes down to taste in some cases.

Anyway, let me try to rank the 15 linear growth methods in terms of benefit vs. time & effort involved - also including the 2 exclusive linear growth methods you’ll only find in the Instagram Growth Guide:

  1. Method #1

    Post more often in a day

  2. Method #16

    Exclusive Instagram Growth Guide Method #1

  3. Method #17

    Exclusive Instagram Growth Guide Method #2

  4. Method #4

    Niche-specific hashtags

  5. Method #9

    Follow & unfollow people who engaged with WPPs in your niche

  6. Method #10

    Follow & unfollow people who follow small accounts in your niche

  7. Method #3

    Post at least one story every 24 hours

  8. Method #6

    Answer people’s questions in comment sections of big accounts & provide value

  9. Method #5

    Leave polarizing comments on posts of big accounts

  10. Method #11

    Liking people’s comments & pictures within your niche

  11. Method #2

    Put CTAs in post captions

  12. Method #7

    The “$1.80” Strategy

  13. Method #12

    Liking posts of small accounts in niche-specific hashtags

  14. Method #13

    Reactivating “old” or inactive followers

  15. Method #14

    Leverage friends and off-platform followers

  16. Method #15

    Put an Instagram sign in your brick and mortar store!

  17. Method #8

    Commenting on People’s stories

So there you have it:

Apply these methods daily and BOOM! – you’ll be at 1K+ followers in no time.

Here’s your last action step:

Once you hit your first 1K followers, “Ring The Bell” inside the Facebook group & share your success with the community.

Now what comes next?

You’re almost at 1K+ followers… What’s next?

(You may skip this chapter and watch the FREE Training in the menu bar at the top!)

Your account is approaching the 1K followers mark – perhaps even the 5K followers mark – and now you’re wondering what’s next for your account growth?

How can you quickly take it further from here?

As you approach the important 1K+ followers milestone, you will notice the linear growth methods of this guide are going to pay off less and less in terms of how many followers you get, compared with the time and effort you have to put in to make them work.

Now the time is ripe to switch to organic growth methods to massively accelerate the growth of your account.

By switching to organic growth methods – and utilizing the momentum you’ve built up – you can grow much faster with only a fraction of the time and effort now.

I’m sure you’ll remember the graph from the intro, which showed us that by switching from linear to organic growth methods at the right time (~ 1K followers) you can unlock super-fast growth and put your account on the optimal growth trajectory:

Making this switch and ending up on the Linear + Organic line is the final step towards claiming your Instagram success and growing your account to tens of thousands of engaged followers as quickly as possible, so you can make a fortune doing what you love.

To help you make this important transition, without falling into any of the many potential pitfalls that lie ahead of you, I’ve created the Instagram Growth Guide, which reveals exactly how it’s done and comes with everything you need to turn fast organic Instagram growth - as well as easy & effective monetization - into a reality for you.

The Instagram Growth Guide is the continuation of this free guide and will show you how to transform your Instagram account into a full-blown “passion-business” in only 4 weeks.

The switch itself will transform not just your Instagram account, but your career and business life – and as a result your personal life – as you make ever-increasing amounts of money with your passion or business.

Here are the two guides in comparison:

Both the Instagram Growth Guide and the From 0 To 1K+ Followers ASAP guide start out (more or less) the same – but the difference in the destination they end up taking you to in the long run is day and night!

On average, here’s the kind of difference you can expect after ~ 3 Months of continuing to grow your account without and with with the Instagram Growth Guide:

Instead of growing your account to ~ 5K followers using labor-intensive linear growth methods that require A LOT of action each day, you can grow your account to ~ 16K followers in the same amount of time with organic growth methods that take only a couple of minutes each day to execute once you’ve set them up correctly.

(~ 16K, you’ll notice, is not on the graph anymore, but that’s where the Linear + Organic line would end up, if you extended it further upwards. These are, by the way, the actual numbers I and many others have achieved by using these effective organic growth strategies. Refer to the Bonus section “Proof Is In the Stats” for more detail.)

But it doesn’t just stop there!

After a year of growth you can expect your account to be at 100K+ followers using the strategies of the Instagram Growth Guide, whereas the linear growth methods will get you only to around 20K… with a heck of A LOT more effort.

That’s quite a big difference:

80K+ followers large!

Thus if you’re serious about growing your Instagram account and making a living from your passion or business, the Instagram Growth Guide is what you need to take you there:

It shows you step-by-step how to transform your account from 0 to 100K+ followers, and supports you in many ways so that your rise on Instagram is not only quick, but comfortable & manageable as well!

The Instagram Growth Guide is the best Instagram growth & monetization resource ever created and unparalleled in its quality, effectiveness and comprehensiveness.

It will quickly take you to your goal of setting up an Instagram income-stream of “passion-money”, so you can make a fortune doing what you love.

Suffice it to say the Instagram Growth Guide is my “magnum opus” and contains absolutely everything you can learn about quickly growing your account AND effectively monetizing your following.

So let’s see now what it’s actually all about and what it can do for YOU!

Introducing...
The Instagram Growth Guide

Grow tens of thousands of followers in only a few short months & make a fortune doing what you love.

With step-by-step instructions.




The Instagram Growth Guide is a comprehensive guide for turning Instagram success into a reality.

It teaches you in fine detail all aspects of Instagram growth that are essential for turning your account into a top-performer within your niche as well as a lucrative empire for your passion or business.

It saves you months, if not years, of painful trial-and-error and instead enables you to get real results from day one.

The Instagram Growth Guide covers everything from the first steps of creating an account to growing it to 100K+ followers and monetizing your following in various efficient ways.

And it does all of that in a high quality you’ve never seen before in all the Instagram space - you have my word on that!

On top of that, it will even allow you to reach the 1K+ followers milestone faster, should you not yet be there!

Here’s what you get with the Instagram Growth Guide:

  • How to take your account to the next level and grow From 1K+ To 100K+ Followers ASAP with minimum effort and at record speeds! (Discover the secrets and growth strategies that the top 1% on Instagram have been using for YEARS… but that are ignored by 99% of other Instagramers!)

  • Take your Content Strategy, Profile & Content Design and Branding to the next level, and get access to 30+ beautifully designed & 100% customizable Instagram content templates that are battle-tested and proven to work by BIG accounts! (Save yourself 100+ hours of difficult design work and get better looking content without the effort!)

  • How to monetize your account irrespective of your follower-numbers, so you can start making serious amounts of money doing what you love TODAY. (This might be the most important thing you learn in your business-life!)

  • Many transformative tools & proven procedures to remove all the “hard work” from your transformation and give you an almost unfair advantage over your competition. (Pshhht… For members of the Instagram Growth Guide only!)

  • Exclusive access to the IG² Inner Circle Facebook group where you meet like-minded growth warriors, bounce ideas with the community, collaborate, make new friends and receive expert help & mentorship by Jonathan himself to ensure you get the success you’re looking for!

  • And much, MUCH more!







Grow Your Instagram Account & Make A Fortune From Your Passion!


If you’re looking to turn your own passion & dreams into a wildly profitable online business that never stops growing and takes only a few minutes each day to run, click the button below NOW!







What Your Fellow Instagrammers Say About The Instagram Growth Guide




Irina Stolyarova

“I struggled for a long time with getting followers on Instagram, but once I applied the methods from the Instagram Growth Guide I saw my reach increase instantly, and in less than 2 months my account went from only 200 followers to over 1,400!”

Marcus Papa

“I grew two accounts to over 20K followers in less than 4 months by following Jonathan’s blueprint. This guide gives you a HUGE advantage over those who don’t use it!”




Much love & I see you in the Instagram Growth Guide to get your complete account transformation started right away,

Jonathan