Feature Account Growth Without Bots

Hey all.

I'm about a month in with a feature account, 100% without bots.
Just using display purposes to put ~27 hashtags in my first comment and featuring good content.

I'm currently just under 2000 followers and get ~150-250 likes per photo, with some going "viral" and getting up to 1k.

What other tips do you have?

I'm wondering if I should spend time commenting / liking peoples photos manually?
Should I do giveaways?

Are you following relevant users? Also, commenting/liking other photos can only help your engagement.

How's the account's growth looking?

Definitely following relevant users.

Account is growing at ~30 a day regularly, but has had a few good days of 100+.

Good growth for a non-bot account. As to getting 1K likes on posts, that is not viral. Viral for you would be 30K-100K likes and 1K+ new followers in that week of going viral. But don't let that slow you down. Instagram is a steady game. Keep at it, in a year from know, You'll be getting 3K-5K likes and have 50K-75K followers.