Original content vs reposted;your experience?

I wanted to know what your experience has been growing accounts using either or, or a mix between both!
I currently am growing a meme page and a babes niche page, since a week back. Using reposts only, I am finding they're growing but its going pretty slow.
Since I have no way of doing OC content on this, I'm figuring I should just get used to the slow growing speeds.
What are your experiences? Do you grow faster with original content vs reposting content that's already strong and commenting on target big Instagram pages to follow you and following their target accounts?

reposting and tagging / mentioning profiles related to the original image gets good engagment. Tagging some users who liked the original, or commented the original, or follow the account that posted the original. You know they are already interested so should be low lying fruit to get them engaged