Here’s a step by step case study of how let’s say BEN took his brand’s IG account from 0-30k in just a few weeks from the first post (and how he’s using it to poll his audience on what they love so he can create products to sell to them)
Let’s start off by sharing some insights below👇
Okay.
Onwards, the article would change from a third person pronoun to a personal pronoun.
So I reserved my handle all the way back in June for my brand. I didn’t start posting until December 6th, 2020. I’m in a passion niche (cinema/entertainment).
Personally I choose tapping passions over solving problems everyday. People run from problems. People run towards passions.
With that being said, I decided to turn my brand account into a fan account.
I identified a trend on Instagram with these MASSIVE fan accounts with insane engagement and huge followings.
Digging deeper into the analytics of these accounts on Social Blade – I isolated a few accounts that were growing organically anywhere from 400/day all the way up to 3k/day.
I made the decision instead of posting my products to my feed, I would create fan edits like these accounts.
I studied their feeds. Their captions. Their CTA’s and their stories.
I absorbed as much as I could in a few weeks in November.
I built my list of accounts to reach out to for promotion (more on this in a second its going to blow your fucking mind..)
Now there was one thing I knew I could do better than all of these accounts. And that is post high-quality content. Most fan accounts use apps on their phones so the quality is piss poor.
I chose to use Adobe Premiere Pro for our fan edits.
I also chose to upload all of our content via Facebooks Creator Studio. There’s an app you can download, but I use the desktop version since I have all of our edits in our Google Drive and I can just drag them into Creator Studio.
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So week one goes by. And I’m in Premier Pro for 5 hours a day making edits for content I planned days out.
Fuck that.
I have a company to run.
I posted on Upwork.
Found an editor and told him to recreate my edits I’ve already posted.
He crushed it. I put him on a weekly trial period.
I provide him notes everyday and he takes my ideas and executes them with my sign-off.
I hired him for $3/hr.
I pay him $40/wk for 21 posts a week (3 posts a day)
Anybody who says posting once a day is fucking dumb.
You need quantity AND quality.
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So the goal was to get to 10k quick.
I wanted the swipe up stories feature to drive traffic organically to my store when it launches.
One of the accounts I identified on social blade had 560k followers, was growing 40k/month with 1.2-1.5k new followers everyday.
This is important.
If the account you want to buy a promo on isnt growing daily 1k+ it’s not worth it to buy a shoutout.
So I hit this guy up…
He said a 24 feed post was $80…
I was like bro are you missing a fucking zero?
Then my epiphany hit – and this is something you can look into if you want to start a fan account and use other fan accounts to grow yours for your brand…
Most of these fan accounts are run by people oversees in 3rd world countries…
Here I am expecting $500 post because the fucking Foundr course said “this is the ballpark range for this size of an account”
Bullshit.
Now IG has this feature up top if you tap the three dots and tap “About This Account”
Some of these accounts willingly share what country they are from. Use this to your advantage. If you find a huge account that has 15% engagement on a 560k following and is from India. You DM them and they charge $80 for a 24 feed post and an extra $20 for a story post, dont think twice.
*Just remember always ask for their account insights to confirm.*
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So we built up our feed with our first 12 posts.
I buy a promo from this huge account.
I write a juicy persuasive caption for the posts. I send him 5 of my top performing posts for a video carousel.
I got 10k followers sin 24 hours for $80.
I repeated this once a week for 3 weeks on two different accounts, averaging 8.6-9.5k followers.
All real followers. My peak engagement at one point was 24%.
I have rabid fans in my DM’s saying how much they love our content.
My stories are now seen on average by 6-9k of my followers.
I use polls, questions, top 10 lists and quizzes in my stories to learn more about my followers so I can develop products in the future that tickles that passion itch. One thing I have in the works is launching limited edition products in 100-200 piece quantities every month. Increase price. Increase urgency. I know exactly what to sell them. I can build hype and stroke their passion for cinema. Along with our hero product line that is always present, this strategy should easily help us hit 100k/months.
So I keep my feed for fan edits.
BUT
I post products in stories and get feedback and drive anticipation for launches.
And since I’m now “in” with all of these bigger fan accounts and I know how cheap they are… I can line up a day where a bunch of them post one of our products for super cheap and drive a stupid ROI. Or I can have them drive the followers to my account so I have them under my influence exclusively.
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Now we are growing organically 130-200 followers/day
AND, we hit Explore page on every post now.
My thinking was I wanted an initial boost on the platform so my organic followers could pump the numbers into the algorithm so it could serve my content to Explore feed. I wanted the velocity of numbers pouring into each post.
It worked. Beyond anything I could have anticipated.
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Lessons for you and your brand:
1. Build a fan account for your brand. You don’t have to be in a passion niche. You could sell those sleep masks. Build a fan account posting about sleep facts, meditation videos, psychedelic perpetual motion gifs. The whole idea of the fan account is to position the account to grow rapidly. I don’t go to IG to be sold to. I scroll my feed for content that I love. So build a content strategy with that in mind and tie it back to your products.
2. Look for other major fan accounts in your niche. See if their from Pakistan, India, Thailand, ect. If they are, they are cheap. Identify the top level metrics on Social Blade. If they grow 1k+ a day, DM them asking how much for a 24 hour feed post and ask for their account insights. Most of these guys are very friendly.
3. Have that 10k goal in mind so you can get the swipe up story feature. I post 3x/day. I will be rolling back to 2x/day when I hit about 60k and I’m growing 300-400/day organically.
4. Use video/reels. 4×5 video works best I’ve found through testing. Hire somebody for cheap to create video content. If you use other peoples posts, credit them but make sure the quality is A1. One of the reasons we grow so quickly is because our feed looks aesthetically pleasing but is also extremely high-quality.
5. Quantity matters. 1 post a day isn’t enough. Especially if you’re content is shit or you’re just posting a product hoping your hashtags will do the heavy lifting. Hashtags aren’t everything they are cracked up to be.
6. It’s hard fucking work. So outsource content creation. I’ll share my account below and you’ll see the passion and precision we put into each edit. It matters.
7. You have an unfair advantage if you’re in a passion niche.
8. Stories are important. They keep your brand top of mind. People want to engage. People want to share their opinions. Use this for product development research, angles and website copy (testimonial quotes for above the fold, ect. ect.)
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All in all – I spent $380 and got 30k active followers in 3 weeks.
It’s honestly been overwhelming to a point lol
But if you were tell me I’d have an engaged audience of 30k fans in the beginning of December I’d say you’re on one.
I guess its a great lesson to never doubt yourself, your strategy, or your ideas.
Get scrappy, get nimble. Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
I have 500k+ fan accounts in my niche following me and showing love and respect for our content. Leveraging these relationships for the future.
I have fucking celebrities following me.
I’ve had actors in movies like blockbuster movies DM me.
I’ve had directors who’ve directed A list celebrities DM me.
This is what I mean about passion.
Moving forward my goal is 100k by end of March.
Real quick: back to our high quality content. This by extension builds an aura around the brand. This will extend to our online store and product line.
Every touchpoint matters. If you go beyond what the majority will do you will build a beast of an account and build brand equity!
I want to drive six figures in revenue through Instagram alone this year in year one of my brand.
I want to hit 7 figures in revenue with other channels.
By December 2021 I expect 250k-300k IG followers.
Three years 750-1 million pumping six figures in revenue like clockwork.
Having that in the package when I sell the brand years from now is just icing on the cake.
