The secret to gaining more Followers on almost any social media site is the same: Follow others with similar interests, engage by liking, commenting, etc, on their feed, and hope for a follow back and return engagement. This takes a lot of time, effort and can honestly be a little tedious. If you don’t have time for that, but could really use a boost, it may be time to seek out an Instagram growth service, like Social Network Elite, and see how they can help you reach your social media goals.

I got the chance to try their service for free for one month. I started with 5,656 followers and ended the promotion with 7,642 followers. Nearly 2,000 followers in one month! And these weren’t fake accounts. These were real followers who were not only commenting on my photos, but also visiting the profile link in my blog, so an added bonus was that by blog traffic DOUBLED during the promo time! Plus, once the momentum was created, followers and likes continue to come in daily even after the SNE promotions stopped. I was pretty impressed by the whole experience, and it really upped my insta-game and pushed me to be more active on my Account.

So How Does it Work?

1. You have to give them your name and password, so I suggest creating a special password just for your promotions time.
2. You are basically giving up your account to your business or brand, it is no longer personal, so create a new one just for friends and family if you want to keep up with a smaller group of people. Otherwise, they will get lost in your feed.
3. Provide SNE with at least five hashtags that you want to focus on. What is your feed about? Who do you want to interact with? For example, a few I chose were: #MomLife, #MomBlog, #GeekMom
4. They will focus on accounts with those hashtags, follow them and like some of their photos. They will NOT leave those fake spammy comments like “Great content!” Or “So inspiring .” I made sure they didn’t do that before I signed on to try this.
5. Once the promo starts, sit back and watch the followers roll in.
6. Just kidding, don’t just sit there! Once the followers start coming in (and they will right away), it’s time for you to get to work to keep those followers and keep the momentum going!

From the first day you will notice your engagement and followers go up, as people start to follow back and return the favor of liking photos. At first I was worried because I noticed I was following some people I wouldn’t necessarily follow, but it’s easy enough to unfollow those. I found the best way to keep up with new followers and weed out the ones I didn’t want (besides just seeing them in my feed) was to use an app that keeps track of Instagram activity. The one I use is just called “Followers” and tells me who has followed me, unfollowed, who’s not following me back and who I’m not following back.

It can be overwhelming at first, to see 50 new followers in a day (or more) and try to keep up with all of the comments and messages. It’s like suddenly your account comes alive and it needs attention. And just like anything alive, you need to feed it and tend to it to help it keep growing. If you just ignore it, it will become stagnant and people will unfollow you because you don’t interact with them. You won’t get new comments or likes if you aren’t putting out good, regular content.

Here’s How to Make the Most of Your Promotion: 

1. Post at least once a day! It’s hard to promote an account with no activity.
2. Respond to comments on posts. This also helps up your engagement.
3. Return the favor and comment on those people’s accounts.
4. You will gets lots of direct messages. Most of them will sound like a form letter, because they probably are. I’m pretty sure there’s a fill-in-the-blank form somewhere for fitness coaches because they almost all sound the same. But you should read through them and answer back. You may find some new accounts you actually connect with.
5. Post an Instagram story. Stories only last 24 hours, but your photo will be at the top and it helps people take notice. Try to post a story every 12 hours.
6. People will start to find and follow you! Follow back if you like their feed. Don’t just blindly follow back. I find those people who have nothing in common with your interests just unfollow anyway.
7. Use an app and go through people who are not following you back or have unfollowed you. Unfollow those you wouldn’t follow in the first place. For those who look interesting, try liking and commenting on their feed and give them a little while to follow back before unfollowing.
8. Don’t expect a follow back from everyone, and keep following if you are actually interested in their content. Everybody doesn’t have to follow back!
9. If you continue doing this, and liking new accounts, you will see your account continue to grow, even after your promotion ends
10. If you let your account go quiet and need to rev things up again, go back to step one.

I was very hesitant to give Social Network Elite a try because I was afraid it would be “buying likes” which ruins your account and is really easy to spot. Buying fake likes doesn’t help! There’s no reason to have a bunch of fake accounts following you. They don’t interact and usually disappear anyway. I was very happy with the way SNE handled the promo and felt they brought me a real audience and gave me the boost I needed to get my Instagram mojo going. I’m happy to recommend their services!

Leave me a link to your Instagram page in the comments and I will happily give you a follow! Want to follow me to? Find me on IG at @SewGeekMama