My First Instagram Journey - (Newbie)
- Thread starter MPSHURO
- Start date
?
MPSHURO
Registered Member
- Jan 6, 2016
- 86
- 46
Logged back into BHW and decided I should update what happened with this 2 year old thread.
The main niche account grew to over 150k followers and became an authority in my niche. I was selling shoutouts on a consistent basis with it, making around $500 a month or so. I stopped selling shout-outs because I noticed the quality of the content that people wanted me to advertise was just trash. I didn't want to negotiate the quality of my brand because I had become the authority in the niche and I felt like I had too many loyal followers to be cluttering up my feed with trash just for the sake of a quick buck. Eventually my niche got very saturated and the Instagram algorithm started going through "the change" and I decided to focus more on my personal account, which I was also growing throughout this journey. This account is still the authority in the niche in terms of follower count, but the engagement is poor. I may pick it back up again, but I have been focused more on the personal account. I'm glad I did because....
My personal account is now at only 65k followers, but it is actually the true success story. I'm not even sure where to begin describing how it has changed my life! This account was the launching point of my career and it has allowed me to quit my job and use the internet as my main source of income. Because it is a personal account, I have become a small celebrity in my niche and have been recognized by actual celebrities, legends, and companies in my industry. I have been able to travel the world. I have thousands of loyal fans. I was even featured (and compensated) in Instagram's first advertising campaign which launched last month!
I would give away my page name, but because I have gotten a bit of notoriety, I'm afraid of my name popping up in search results and people finding out how I used BHW to form the basis of my growth. Nothing wrong with that in our little marketing world, but the majority of people in my niche would call it "cheating." Either way, BHW is single-handedly responsible for my success and my new perspective on the world. Instagram is not dead, but it is changing quickly so I am looking to grow on another platform so I'm not screwed when Instagram becomes the next Facebook.
What's next? I am looking to grow more income streams online. Naturally, I came back to BHW to do that. While I may have seen success on Instagram, I am definitely not rich. I am lucky enough that the internet is my only job, but I still feel as though I'm in the rat race and I am ready to move up in the financial ranks. I'm getting ready to settle down with the girlfriend and have a nice home for a family.
The route I took with Instagram was definitely not what I expected and I know there are people making millions with it. I went in a different direction and focused it on growing myself as a person. I value the fact that it has created a life-long brand for myself as a person and business and that I now have a fanbase that won't disappear unless I dropped off the face of the earth or I did something totally scandalous and controversial.
Cheers.
The main niche account grew to over 150k followers and became an authority in my niche. I was selling shoutouts on a consistent basis with it, making around $500 a month or so. I stopped selling shout-outs because I noticed the quality of the content that people wanted me to advertise was just trash. I didn't want to negotiate the quality of my brand because I had become the authority in the niche and I felt like I had too many loyal followers to be cluttering up my feed with trash just for the sake of a quick buck. Eventually my niche got very saturated and the Instagram algorithm started going through "the change" and I decided to focus more on my personal account, which I was also growing throughout this journey. This account is still the authority in the niche in terms of follower count, but the engagement is poor. I may pick it back up again, but I have been focused more on the personal account. I'm glad I did because....
My personal account is now at only 65k followers, but it is actually the true success story. I'm not even sure where to begin describing how it has changed my life! This account was the launching point of my career and it has allowed me to quit my job and use the internet as my main source of income. Because it is a personal account, I have become a small celebrity in my niche and have been recognized by actual celebrities, legends, and companies in my industry. I have been able to travel the world. I have thousands of loyal fans. I was even featured (and compensated) in Instagram's first advertising campaign which launched last month!
I would give away my page name, but because I have gotten a bit of notoriety, I'm afraid of my name popping up in search results and people finding out how I used BHW to form the basis of my growth. Nothing wrong with that in our little marketing world, but the majority of people in my niche would call it "cheating." Either way, BHW is single-handedly responsible for my success and my new perspective on the world. Instagram is not dead, but it is changing quickly so I am looking to grow on another platform so I'm not screwed when Instagram becomes the next Facebook.
What's next? I am looking to grow more income streams online. Naturally, I came back to BHW to do that. While I may have seen success on Instagram, I am definitely not rich. I am lucky enough that the internet is my only job, but I still feel as though I'm in the rat race and I am ready to move up in the financial ranks. I'm getting ready to settle down with the girlfriend and have a nice home for a family.
The route I took with Instagram was definitely not what I expected and I know there are people making millions with it. I went in a different direction and focused it on growing myself as a person. I value the fact that it has created a life-long brand for myself as a person and business and that I now have a fanbase that won't disappear unless I dropped off the face of the earth or I did something totally scandalous and controversial.
Cheers.
CreativeGuesser
Newbie
- Mar 8, 2019
- 22
- 2
Can you PM me your IG name? Really interesting story.
Wow! what a journey.
Though i do not really have my eyes on Instagram monetization, i will definitely apply this your strategy in developing my website fan page
MPSHURO
Registered Member
- Jan 6, 2016
- 86
- 46
Done
Absolutely. This method (minus the follow/unfollow since that was just a little spammy trick for IG) is applicable to most social growth.
You mean to say the follow and unfollow method you used to grow your IG is spammy...? It's quite easy and thats the only method i can see from reading your story. So which other method did you use
MPSHURO
Registered Member
- Jan 6, 2016
- 86
- 46
What I mean is that at the time I did this journey, (2016 and 2017) Instagram was still relatively new and F/UF was extremely effective. Now, many people use F/UF to grow spam accounts and do CPA, but I'm not entirely sure of its effectiveness for growing a personal or legitimate brand. Other authority pages in my niche use F/UF and their engagement is poor. Take that with a grain of salt though, because engagement overall on Instagram has fallen for lots of pages.
Either way, I would absolutely use F/UF on any social platform if I was starting from 0 followers, but I wouldn't advise it for an account that already has a large audience. Buying shoutouts and IG ads is much more effective and a less spammy way to grow after having a core audience. At the end of the day, content is king and consistently posting high quality viral content is what will make an account popular.
My experience from the IG algorithm is that if done too much, F/UF can lead to shadow ban. But I would experiment and see what works for you.
Thanks for clarifying.