Gary Vee’s Secret to Growing 7 Million Followers on Instagram

April 2, 2020

Do you feel like the Instagram algorithm is plotting against you? Do you want to build a solid online audience but can’t seem to find the secret recipe to a successful Instagram growth?

Gary Vee has built a whopping 7 million followers on Instagram. He is also famous for taking his wine business from $3 million annual revenue to an incredible $60 million. All with simple social media strategies that we’re going to talk about in this post.

And these don’t involve any cringey follow-unfollow techniques, paid followers or automated comments. All the strategies are completely organic. The only way you should be aiming to grow.

Be Social

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According to Gary, one certain way of growing big on social media is… drumroll… to be social. Shocker, I know.

With 95 million posts uploaded every single day on Instagram, the message is clear, people want to be seen. Yet only a few are using this platform to actively engage in conversation and build relationships. And it is the engagement that wins the followers over.

The secret answer is a simple one. Comment, like, message, tag and share as much as you can.

Be Useful

As much as Instagram is about perfect pictures, focusing on providing value to your audience will make you stand out. Being informative, entertaining and creative is something your followers will appreciate, will keep them interested and make them share your posts with others.

Online content on Instagram is free. But that doesn’t mean it has to be worthless. Providing your followers with value before asking them for money is going to establish your authority and boost your following.

And since you’ve already provided them with a lot of value, they know they can trust you and it will be easier to convert them into paying customers later.

Research the Most Popular Hashtags

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Take the time to research the most popular hashtags within your industry. Focus on the ones that summarise your niche, for example, #fitness. But also find longer, less generic ones that are less competitive, such as #strengthtraining.

Finding the most popular hashtags on Instagram is easy. Simply type in your keyword into the discover page and Instagram will suggest other similar hashtags that are also popular within your field.

It’s important to keep track of the relevant hashtags and look at what kind of posts they include. The insights can be surprising.

The hashtags you thought were a good choice can turn out spammy, full of ads and something you don’t want to associate with. Keep the track of the hashtag trends and don’t forget to update the facts since they are constantly changing.

The $1.8 strategy

The problem with most people looking for Instagram growth is that they are searching for “quick-fix” solutions that would take them from nothing to thousands of followers with minimal effort.

Gary’s famous $1.8 strategy says the opposite. This technique is based on leaving a comment on 9 top posts of the 10 most popular hashtags within your niche. This means leaving your 0.02 cent impact on each post.

According to Gary, there is an equation behind Instagram growth. Leaving a comment on 9 posts multiplied by 10 hashtags and thus leaving your $0.02 of the impact equals $1.80 of your daily effort in building online relationships.

The process is simple. Search for a hashtag of your interest, click on one of the 9 most popular posts, read the caption, glance at the user’s profile and leave a personal message. Stay away from spammy comments like “let’s connect, follow my page”, they are easy to spot.

Your focus should be on building meaningful networks and relationships with other users. Because apart from having more value, these users are the ones who will go on to rave about your brand to others and make them follow you too.

Engagement is King

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Focus on the accounts that take the time to craft meaningful captions and have a lot of comments. This signals that they have an engaged community of followers and is valued more than the accounts that are popular but have a low engagement rate.

When leaving a comment, focus on providing value rather than stating a generic sentence like “great post”. This could be picking up on one of the things the user said in the caption or insight that comes to your mind regarding the subject of the post.

The best strategies for leaving an engaging comment are getting personal, asking open questions or sharing experiences. This will sound genuine and build trust with others.

Once you are done, repeat 8 more times and then do the whole process again on the other 9 hashtags. Sounds like too much work? Well, guess what, there is work involved.

It can seem a bit off-putting, but in reality, each of those actions should only take you a few seconds. Then the process is simple, do it again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If you stay consistent and stick to this strategy, Gary says, the results are bound to follow.

Embrace the Learning Process

Not only will you gain followers, but you will also learn more about the platform each time you use this strategy. You will learn which comments people usually respond to, what kind of tone works, which users are worth dropping a DM to. And that’s all valuable experience that will enhance your growth.

The learning doesn’t stop there. Apart from teaching you how to connect with people and what makes them follow you back, by constantly checking the posts that do well within your industry, you’ll learn what makes the post successful and helps it go viral.

By consuming and diving into 90 most popular posts on Instagram every single day, your own strategy on this platform will inevitably improve and you will develop a skill of knowing what kind of post is most likely to make the audience engaged.

Online, content is king but on Instagram, engagement is king. It is even more important than your following since Instagram algorithm favours the accounts that people comment on, DM and share with others.

This is essentially how organic growth works. If you have followers but no one actually engages with your posts, Instagram will soon bury those posts and even the users who follow you won’t see them anymore.

So what is Gary Vee’s secret to growing a 7 million audience on Instagram?

Being social, starting a conversation, keeping your insights unique, authentic and genuine, thus building meaningful relationships with your followers.

Apart from producing aesthetically pleasing content that everyone associates Instagram with, focus on providing value as well.

Most importantly, put in work, research the most popular hashtags and implement Gary Vee’s $1.80 strategy and the results will follow. Gary says so.

So let’s start investing and getting social!

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