I’ve worked with thousands of creators over the years, and I’ve seen it time and time again.

Hitting the 1,000 follower mark on Instagram is NOT actually that hard…

IF you have the right strategy.

Here is the 6-step action plan I recommend to our clients.

How to Get 1K Followers on Instagram: A Proven Action Plan

Step #1: Niche Down

Before you even begin posting, ask yourself:

“Who am I posting for?” 

Without a clearly defined target audience, you’ll struggle to build a strong follower base that likes, comments, and shares everything you post. 

I’m not talking about just picking a niche—that’s easy. 

Instead, you’ll want to niche down even further and answer the question: 

“What sets my target audience apart from everyone else in the niche?” 

For example, if your niche is financial advice, you can niche down to financial advice for:

• Gen Z
• People with less than 10k savings
• People with MORE than 10k savings
• Older people who haven’t saved anything yet
• Immigrants
• Etc.

Another example, if you want to be a travel influencer, you can niche down to: 

• Budget travelers
• Scuba divers
• People who want to visit all 50 states
• People who want to visit all 197 countries
• People who love travel deals
• Etc.

Choose a specific group of people within your niche that you can help. 

Because if you try to please everyone, your content will come off as random, and you’ll struggle to build a solid community. 

Step #2: Hack The Algorithm

Once you know who your target audience is, the next question is…

What do you actually post? 

The good news is that there’s a very easy way to get an endless stream of content ideas. 

The secret?

Hack Instagram’s algorithm to show you what your target audience is watching!

Here’s how: 

1. Go to Instagram search
2. Type in a keyword relevant to your niche
3. Watch and save the top 10 to 15 reels that are doing well
4. Enjoy as your algorithm feeds you an endless stream of content ideas.

This will train Instagram’s algorithm to show you what your target audience enjoys watching. 

So whenever you hit the explore tab, you’ll be fed with a goldmine of ideas that you can recreate for your own channel. 

This will give you a strong idea of how to package your content in a way your audience likes. 

Step #3: Start Posting

Your first posts aren’t going to be perfect. 

But that’s okay! 

As long as you get started, you’ll figure things out eventually. 

Don’t know where to start?

Here are some well-known templates you can use to get the ball rolling:

• Intro Post — Your first post can be introducing yourself. Add a picture of yourself, and write a caption about what you do and what people can get by following you. Or, create a reel introducing yourself. 

• Simple Video, Simple Text — This is one of the hottest formats on Instagram right now. Take a simple video clip and add super simple text that’s relatable, funny, or interesting. These reels are short, easy to share, and have the potential to go viral. 

• Listicles — top 3, top 5, and top 10 lists do extremely well in Reels. People love simple listicles like these because they’re easy to consume, and they leave them feeling like they learned something new. 

• Authority Hacks — Authority Hacks are when you take someone everyone in your niche knows (such as Arnold Schwarzenegger for bodybuilders, or tycoons like Mark Cuban or Kevin O’Leary for financial advice) and talk about what people can learn from these authority figures. Come up with topics like “3 things Arnold Schwarzenegger did every morning while training,” or “The secret why Kevin O’Leary is so harsh.” 

Use these ideas and the ones you picked up from the algorithm, and you should see followers start to trickle in. 

As you continue posting, you’ll eventually develop your own style. 

But for starters, try mixing up all those templates to see what you enjoy and what works for you. 

Step #4: Avoid Common Starting Mistakes

As you start posting, you’ll probably run into a few mistakes. 

That’s normal. 

However, if you want to grow and eventually reach 1,000 followers, you’ll need to avoid these mistakes. 

Mistakes such as: 

Mistake #1. Being Afraid to Copy

Instagram is not a new platform. 

By now, people know the formats that work. 

So don’t be afraid to piggyback off of formats and ideas that are proven to work.

Study what popular accounts in your niche are posting. 

Check:

• What hooks do they use?
• What is the payoff of their reels?
• What format of video do they use? (talking head, short and simple, detailed guides, etc.)
• What are the comments saying?

Playing on popular ideas is one of the fastest ways to blast past the 500-follower mark. 

However, don’t just copy what people are doing word-for-word. Add your own unique spin to things as well.

Which brings us to the next mistake:

Mistake #2: Having Zero Originality

People love authenticity. 

If all you do is copy and paste viral videos, you’re not going to gain true followers. 

Yes, people who didn’t see the original might like your video, but it’s only a matter of time before they find out you’re copying someone else. 

That’s why whenever you post something, always add your own unique twist to it. 

This can be by giving your expertise, showing your personal side, sharing your unique experience—anything to make it slightly different from what’s already on Instagram. 

In fact, every once in a while, it’s a good idea to throw out an honest reel that’s 100% you. A reel where you don’t think about the algorithm or how many likes it’s going to get, but just something that you want to make. 

Don’t always do this, of course. It’s okay to do this about a third of the time to experiment and have some fun. 

It keeps your account unique and personal, and gives followers a reason to keep following you.

The formula for success is a healthy mix of following what’s working, while not shying away from showing your personality. 

Mistake #3: Ignoring Quantity

We all know quality is important, but something that’s often overlooked is quantity. 

There are thousands upon thousands of reels uploaded every single day. And if you aren’t constantly showing up for your target audience, they’ll very quickly forget about you. 

That’s why you’ll want to publish at least 5-6 reels and 1 carousel a week. 

Give your content a mix of high and low effort reels. And, of course, with a third of those, do whatever you want with your honest reels.

You’ll also want to post a bunch of trial reels. 

Trial reels don’t show up for people following you, but they can appear in the explore tab for non-followers. 

Posting 5-7 different variations of a low-effort idea on trial reels is a great way to see what clicks with your target audience. 

Most of your trial reels will probably flop, but that’s okay! Your main audience (your followers) won’t see it, and every now and then, one of these low-effort trial reels will click, and you can move it to your main feed. 

Mistake #4: Being Impatient for Success

Just because you do everything right doesn’t guarantee instant success. 

Let’s be real, your first few reels and posts aren’t going to be the best, which is normal since creating great reels is a learning process. 

But even if your first reels are perfect, it’s still going to take some time for people to find you.

Growing on Instagram is like joining a poker tournament (hear me out). 

The best poker players can do everything right, but still lose a hand because luck wasn’t on their side. 

But despite a few unlucky setbacks, the pros often end up winning more tournaments in the long run because of their skills and knowledge of the game. 

In the same way, doing everything right on Instagram might not click right away. Growth isn’t a linear path. 

You’re going to have some disappointment at first. But if one video goes viral, that can make all the difference.

As we like to say, “You’re one video away from success.”

So stay persistent! Keep on improving your content, find what your niche audience likes, and you will eventually take off. 

Step #5: Use Your Professional Tools for Help

Once you’ve performed steps 1-4, you should be well on your way to 1,000 followers. 

But to take things a step further, you can use the help of your professional tools. 

Instagram has a bunch of metrics you can study to learn more about your target audience. 

For example, if you click on the “view insights” button on your reels, you can see the percentage of people who watched past the first 3 seconds. 

If this number is lower than your average, it signals that your hook was weak. If it’s higher, that’s a sign of a strong hook. 

Suppose you notice that the people who watched past the first 3 seconds are high, but your engagement (likes, comments, shares) is lower than normal. 

In that case, that’s a sign that your hook was strong but your payoff was weak—meaning people were attracted to your reel, but didn’t feel like liking, commenting, saving, or sharing your video. 

Use these metrics as a way to learn what hooks your audience pays attention to, and what payoff works for them (educational, entertaining, shareable, etc.). 

Then, use trial reels so that you can post lots of videos and variations of those videos without bothering your followers. Then check the metrics for those as well! 

Step #6: Don’t Ignore Your Community

Last but not least, don’t ignore your community!

Instagram is about community. 

By the time you have 500 followers, you should be getting a few comments here and there. 

Don’t ignore them!

Answer every comment that pops up. 

One of the main reasons why people support smaller creators is for the sense of community. If you act like a large account and ignore messages when you’re still under 1,000 followers, growing will be much more difficult. 

Start small, but slowly but surely establish yourself as an expert in your community, and breaking 1,000 will come in no time. 

Ready To Reach 1,000 Followers?

1,000 followers is not just a milestone… 

Reaching this number of followers is a clear indicator that you’re on the right track and that it’s possible to grow even bigger from there. 

Follow the steps for each phase above, and you’ll reach this mark in no time. 

Still confused about what type of reel to try first? 

Check out our 60 viral reel templates that you can use to start testing your content!

60 Viral Templates