If I started on Instagram from 0, this is what I'd do... | The 10k Follower Plan

if I had to start an Instagram account from scratch zero zilch NADA this would be my exact plan to hit 10,000 followers as fast as possible I'm talking step by step what I recommend doing on day one day two and so on not only have I grown my own Instagram account but I've worked with hundreds of students helping them grow I audit my students Instagram accounts every week and these are the changes that one must commit to if you're serious about growing as always time stamp and resources are below grab a pen and paper let's

jump in day one set up your account for a high follower conversion rate what is a follower conversion rate and how can you set up your account to get followers from the very beginning your follower conversion rate is the percentage of people who decide to follow you after they've visited your profile so if 100 people visit your profile you want as many of them to press that follow Button as possible if zero of them follow you that's an indication that something about your profile itself is off and needs to be fixed to set up your

account for a high follower conversion rate all you have to do is remember PBC positioning branding and clear bio call to action and category for positioning what type of content will you be creating and who is your content going to be for you have to know the answers to those questions if you can't clearly answer those questions then Instagram's algorithm is going to have a really hard time connecting your content to the right people here's proof from Instagram themselves that this is what you have to do to see success on their platform in a meta

article titled powered by AI Instagram's explor recommender system they say by building account embeddings we're able to more efficiently identify which accounts are topically similar to each other Instagram's algorithm first assigns a topic to your profile if they can not identify one topic for you you will likely be posting for years and see very very slow if any traction at all unfortunately I've seen this happen time and time again to creators who are truly amazing talented but they don't want to pick one topic they're posting in so many different topics lifestyle if you want to

call it that and they post for years and years and they're stuck at the same number it's because they refuse to pick a topic so if you want to scale and grow quickly you have to pick one topic then once Instagram can identify what topic your account falls under what happens next they say in that same article by applying the same techniques from their embedding framework we can predict accounts with which a person is likely to interact in a given session within the Instagram app AKA then they can start recommending your content to different people

on the app that are interested in your specific topic this is why everybody says to Niche down on Instagram because their algorithm is literally designed to favor accounts who have one clear Niche and if you don't want to Niche down that's okay that's fine just go to Tik Tok instead don't be on Instagram but if you're dead set on Instagram you have to Niche down so for the example in this video let's say that I'm setting up my account from zero let's do my positioning together what type of content will I be creating AKA what

topic am I going to create in running let's say I'm going to create a running account who will that content be for I could see myself creating running content for beginners or people who want to start their running Journey too and maybe don't have any experience now it's your turn pause this video write down your answers to those two questions because if you clearly can't answer those two questions then Instagram's algorithm won't be able to either next in PBC we have the B which is branding this is where you're going to communicate your positioning through

the app the photo username and name plate mainly for now my positioning is posting running content for beginners so how can I make that clear through my profile photo through maybe my username and especially my name plate with your profile photo you want to make sure that it is a clear representation of you with great lighting if you could match your photo to your Niche great so if I'm in the running space it would be cool to have a picture of me running or in running gear maybe Outdoors something that makes sense for the content

that I'm posting while your username doesn't have to be so Niche specific like I don't have to say running with Millie I could just say Millie Adrien you know it could be my name you still want your username to be simple easy to remember and easy to spell then the most important part is the name plate this is the Bold section of your profile the reason this is so important is because this section is actually the most searchable on Instagram so if I were to go to Instagram right now and type in running coach or

running tips anyone with that phrase in their name plate in the Bold part of their name will show up in my search results so ask yourself how do I want people to find me how do I want to be identified what are some Search terms that my audience might be typing into the search bar that I could put in the Bold part so I'm more discoverable we have my profile photo set up nice running pick we have my hand let's go with running with Millie and for my name plate I'm going to put Millie running

for beginners then finally the final letter in PBC is our C which is really three different C's we have clear bio category and call to action the bio is where a lot of people mess up and they make it about them they're like oh I'm from San Diego or like they put like Pinterest quotes and they're like follow your joy not me making fun of my own quote that would not be a good bio and your bio is actually like a strong selling point to increase your follower conversion so your bio is actually going to

be why somebody should follow you you're going to communicate the type of content that they can expect from you or what they will gain when they press that follow button you're basically telling them hey if you follow me this is what I will do for you this is how I'm going to show up for you this is what you will learn this is what you will gain so let's set up my bio I would probably say something like helping beginner Runners start their Journey with practical tips and daily motivation you know it could be as

simple as that but that clearly tells them hey if you are a beginner Runner and you want tips and inspiration you're going to want to press that follow button your category is something that you could select when setting up your profile because again it helps Instagram understand what your account is about literally under categories they say categories help people find accounts like yours so if there's a category that represents your Niche definitely use that and then finally CTA our strong call to action I recommend every content creator has a call to action leading their followers

someplace else I'm bias I am always going to encourage creators even if you're starting from zero create a freebie get them onto your email list make a digital product you know like take them somewhere that's beneficial to you and your business as you grow not just oh follow my YouTube go check out my Tik Tok not just things like that so this is going to lead me to what I would do on day two and that that is create a money magnet technically this step is optional depending on what your specific goals are with Instagram

for me I know when I was starting an Instagram account my end goal was to make money I wanted to be able to monetize being a content creator so if that's also you then I would do this step basically what we're going to be doing is setting up one stream of passive income now so that as your account grows your income is growing with you this is something that does not have to be hard to do at all all you have to do is pick some sort of low ticket offer that you think your ideal

follower would find valuable for example I'm creating running content targeted towards beginners I'm going to start thinking about how can I monetize that a few options I could offer one-on-one coaching if I'm qualified to do that I could create a guide or downloadable with running plans maybe like a0 to 5K done for you running plan or even a 30-day running check challenge if teaching and educating isn't the direction that I want to go maybe I want to start a membership which can act as like a virtual run Club if I'm already running every week it

would be fun to have a membership where once a week I'm like all right everybody this is our run together let's take pictures let's share our Journeys with each other how far did we run today you know just having a virtual run Club could be fun or I could create more of like a running Essentials guide where I list out all the essential products that you would need to get started and throughout your running journey and all those products are linked to affiliate links literally just start exploring all the different ways that you could provide

something of value and sell it to a future audience if your answer is oh I don't really think there's a way to monetize this or to monetize or sell anything or to create anything you probably have some sort of limiting money belief happening because there is always a way if you don't know what to sell you could one look at other people in your industry other creator is in your Niche check out their links in BIO check out to see how they're making money and see if there's anything you can Implement too or to you

can literally ask chat GPT I know so many people refuse to use AI but I love chat GPT chat GPT is so cool you can literally be like hey I'm a content creator I create running content to encourage beginners how to I want to create a low ticket digital product what should I create give me a list of 25 digital product ideas that I could start selling to my audience for $10 for $47 right like give it as much information as possible ask it to come up with a list of digital product ideas for you

and it will spit out that list once you have a product or some sort of idea for how you want to monetize as you grow the setup for it is super simple all you have to do is set up a stand store Stan literally lets you monetize in almost every thinkable way as a content creator so stand store acts as your link in BIO whether you're going to start a membership sell a digital product sell an online course offer one-on-one coaching no matter what it is you can set that up on your stand store and

have everything be handled paid directly through there there's like little to no Tech involvement needed at all so what I would do I would create my digital product in canva once I have it finished I'm going to export it as a PDF head over to my stand store create a new product select the digital product option and then fill in my digital product info going to give it a good title good description I'm going to say how much it's going to be let's say it's $27 I'm going to upload that PDF right there and publish

it onto my stand store then going to go back a step we're going to add our call to action to our bio saying download your 0 to 5K running plan here then when people click on my link in BIO they could easily purchase the product right there one click of a button it is that simple I love Stan I'm obsessed I've been obsessed for years I'm very excited to say that this video is sponsored by Stan I've been talking about them for forever without them sponsoring my content so I'm stoked to be able to work

with them a little bit closer so if you want to set up your own stand store I'll be sure to leave a link down below okay now that your account is officially set up to convert followers and sales it's time to move on to day three day three you're going to preload your content Bank this day is about 1 starting to create your content Bank AKA The Never Ending list of video ideas that you could pull from for when you you choose to film and two choosing your first nine videos to prepare before you post

let's create our content bank for the time being we will be focusing on reals if your goal is growth focus on reals for the time being that's because reals is the only piece of content that was created with the algorithm and intention to reach new people Instagram has said time and time again that reals is to help you reach new eyes so in the beginning focus on reals don't worry about photos carousels Etc what you're going to do is open Instagram search and type in the type of content you're going to be creating in my

case it is running we're going to just take a look at what those other suggested Search terms are we see running tips running motivation running outfits anything that feels in alignment with the type of content you're going to create just select it I'm going to take a look at running tips we're going to make sure we're studying just reals here and as we scroll we're going to look at some of the most popular viral reels and save some of the most popular viral ones to a folder to analyze and maybe recreate later this folder I'm

going to create is going to be running tips and again I'm going to just save some of the most popular reels to this folder if you want to take an extra step you can make sure that you're only saving recent reels as opposed to Reels that are showing up from like over a year ago so if you could save reels within the past 3 months that are performing well you're going to have recent proof of what is currently working in your industry after I finish going through those reels I'm going to go back to ser

search and do the same thing again with those other suggested terms so now instead of running tips I'm going to take a look at running outfits create a new folder start saving some videos there I could do this with the suggested search results or other ideas that I have so if I don't see running gear I can still type in running gear and look for the top performing videos there save we're just kind of going into batch save mode finding videos that we like ooh I like that that makes sense for me let me recreate

that later and just saving them to folders after about 30 minutes of building up all this inspiration you're going to go to your saved folders look through all of them and you're going to pick nine videos to be your first nine that you post the first nine does not have to be perfect no no no no that's not where we're going for here we are simply finding nine different video types to create and test so one video that you're going to create in your first nine is going to be a talking head video maybe another

video from the first nine is more of a voiceover video another one could be trending audio where there's Just b-roll Happening another one could be a lip sync video where you kind of lip sync what the audio is saying and then add some relatable text you could also play around with delivering different types of value in your content so one video in the first nine could be educational one video could be more inspirational another one could be focused on entertainment maybe kind of like a more run with me Vlog and another one could be more

like that lip sync with the relatable text you just want to have as much Variety in your first night nine as possible to one push your boundaries a little bit challenge yourself as a Creator create content that you wouldn't normally create but also two test to see what's going to work well in your industry for you what feels good to create and you're just going to be in like test mode as you're going through your folders and you're finding videos that are like ooh this would be a good one for my first nine you could

add it to any sort of content calendar or Notes app that you want so that you could keep track of like okay these are the first nine videos that I'm going to film a lot of people like to use Notes app when I was a solopreneur I was a DieHard Trello fan right now I'm using clickup because I have a team but find something that works for you where you can keep track of all the videos you'll be working on if you've learned something new so far be sure to give this video a thumbs up

because then YouTube can push this video to other creators like yourself who might find this valuable and if you learn two new things by the end of this video consider subscribing it's a great way to support me my channel helps encourage me to continue to create free content like this for you every week now for day four I'm going to focus on batch filming as many videos as I can day five is when I'm going to batch edit when you are filming and editing your video the one thing that I'll say here is to make

sure you implement hook layering I don't want to spend too much time on this because I already have a video that covers hook layering in depth but to see the best results with short form content these days you really need to master the art of a good hook and not just a good hook but hook hook layering hook layering is when you layer multiple types of hooks within the first 3 seconds of your video you have the text hook which is the text that appears on screen of your reel at the very beginning the audible

hook which is what somebody hears at the beginning of the video and the visual hook which is what the person actually sees when watching your video If You Could Implement all three of those things really really well you are golden you are winning you have really mastered The Hook and the Art of short form content again I'm kind of brazing over filming and editing because I kind of want to keep this video as strategy focused as possible and I already have lots of videos talking about hook layering and I also have a video talking about

how to film and edit aesthetic reels so I'll be sure to link them all the places card above description below so that you could watch those videos next for a further Deep dive on those day six we're going to prep our drafts this is where we're getting ideally our first nine in to Instagram in the drafts with the text with the captions with everything set and ready to post first thing you're going to do when you have a video uploaded to your drafts is to save the backup I cannot tell you how many times I've

had students be like oh my gosh Instagram just deleted all of my drafts and I'm like yeah that happens sometimes so save your video even if it's like perfect you're going to post it in an hour just save a backup without the audio that's fine do that next let's talk about captions with your captions again if you're your goal is growth you want to put in as many keywords as possible yes there are creators that have fun in the captions and say things like Ang anyone else relate I've done that but if you're trying to

grow quicker you want to help feed the algorithm what your video is going to be about so if the video you created was inspired by the Instagram search phrase running tips make sure you use that phrase in your caption in your popup text and maybe even your hashtags this is important because not only does this help Instagram understand what type of content you're creating and know who to push your content to but it also helps potentially rank your content in Instagram search so if I go to Instagram search and I look up sourdough bread if

a video has sourdough bread with pop-up text or in the captions they're going to pop up in my search results because that Creator was very intentional with summarizing what that video was going to be about they utilized SEO as part of their strategy so try to be as intentional with keywords as possible if this whole keywords thing is confusing to you again I have a video teaching about Instagram SEO so go watch that video next since I did touch on hashtags what I would say for my strategy if I was starting from zero I would

have zero hashtag strategy I would not care I would not care I would ignore them I don't care I would spend maybe 10 seconds being like um hash running tips # Amazon running gear hash running done how long was that what was the timer that's how long I would spend worrying about hashtags because Instagram themselves have said before time and time again hashtags do not help with growth they do not help getting you followers it is just an extra tool that you could use but is not the Make It or Break It point it's just

not so I wouldn't even worry about hashtags other than 20 seconds of thinking about them truly with your cover photo on your reals I would make sure that all of my cover photos clearly explain what that real is going to be about that way when somebody lands on my profile their first impression with my first nine they see exactly five running tips for beginners how to breathe while running they see exactly what each real is and they know exactly the type of content that I will be delivering therefore it increases that follower conversion rate even

more because there is so much Clarity behind the content that I'm creating so yes be intentional with your cover photos make sure the text is easy to read especially from the feed view with our drafts prepared now and a backlog of ideas ready for you to film how often should you post day seven let's talk about start your posting schedule the goal is to post as often as possible without getting burnt out obviously we know the more you post the more likely you'll grow quicker but longevity is more important going viral rapidly yeah great woo

love that but what's more important for being a content creator is finding a schedule that is realistic for for you to keep up with for 2 years if you want to grow on Instagram be an Instagram Creator you got to keep it up you don't just do it for 2 months and be like wo I did it and then never post again you have to find a rhythm and a way to create on a consistent hamster wheel that doesn't burn you out in a way that matches your life and your unique lifestyle that you have

even Adam aeri head of Instagram has emphasized this and it's funny because he was directly asked how often should I post and he doesn't give you a number I don't think it's because he's ignoring hey you should post this much I think he just doesn't want to say an unrealistic number for some people and then they burn themselves out because there's truly no magic number it's do what works for you for me on my it's Modern Millie account I post three times a week but we're talking about our running account today our running account that

we're creating let's say also for that account I only want to post three times a week Monday Wednesday Friday that works well for me that means that's three posts a week if I have my first nine created I'm actually set for 3 weeks 3 6 9 I'm set for 3 weeks now I could go in and schedule those reels to autopost for me or just post live every morning Monday Wednesday Friday which actually gets you better results for me I've tested Auto posting and posting live and I feel like posting live my engagement is always

better now days 8 through 14 you're going to be mastering the hamster wheel now that you have started posting in order to maintain whatever schedule you've created you have to master that content creator hamster wheel because it never stops you got to keep posting and you got to find a system that works for you if you were able to easily batch nine videos in a day after doing your content research maybe that's your routine maybe every other week is batching nine videos if that did not work out for you the first time around and you're

like I did not batch nine videos I got three done that's fine you tested you tried to see what you were capable of for that day three videos in a batch session works for you great ask yourself should I do batch sessions once a week maybe twice a week continue to test and see how content creation can fit into your day-to-day lifestyle if you want to be a day-to-day content creator day 15 learn from the data and level up your strategy I put this at day 15 but you might not have enough analytics yet depending

on how often you're posting ideally day whatever you're going to analyze the first nine after they've been posted you're going to study three signals in your insights likes shares and watch time with watch time actually being the most valuable signal I feel like everybody says oh Instagram says shares is the most valuable but recently Adam aeri posted this real he does say likes shares watch time they're all great but he says watch time is actually the most valuable signal watch time is basically how much of your video did somebody watch check to see of your

nine videos which video received the best watch time keep that in in the back of your mind which video received the most shares keep that in the back of your mind you could even check to see which video got you the most follows because if it got you follows and you recreate that same type of content you'll probably get more follows so keep that in the back of your mind not only are you going to study which posts are working well and performed well but you also want to keep an eye on the posts that

didn't perform well so that you don't go down that same path of trying to create that same type of content or you could learn and be like okay why didn't these perform well was it my hook was my hook laying lazy was I being lazy when I created that what do you need to do to improve on that concept studying your analytics is going to be key in unlocking the secrets to your specific growth because everybody's account is so different and the type of content that's going to work for you is going to look differently

than your friend and me so I recommend studying your analytics a minimum at least once every 30 days if you're posting every day Monday through Friday maybe make it a routine at the end of the week check that whole week's performance and see which videos were performing well and didn't perform well you have to be willing to dive into your content from an unbiased perspective and very analytical to study and be curious and ask yourself okay what could I do what's working what are the numbers saying so just get comfortable with studying and being curious

about your content day 16 keep learning and trying new things if you're a Creator who is wanting to grow as quickly as possible on Instagram I get it I have been there I remember being in the depths of like like okay how do I make this dang thing happen the one thing that I know worked for me was just continuing to educate myself and being open to trying new things trying new video Styles adapting to Instagram updates follow creators that teach Instagram strategies some of my favorite creators are Monty I love Monty's content he has

an amazing membership where he helps you with creating reals that'll help you go viral Monty is such a great not only human but resource when it comes to Instagram he has both an Instagram and YouTube so check both of those out you could also follow Jade Jade is a dear friend of mine I love her so much and I love how practical straightforward she is with her teachings on Instagram she has again Instagram and YouTube hey Dominic here on YouTube I love his style of teaching it's very analytical practical straightforward again I love the no

fluff type of approach and I just love that he teaches based off of facts stats numbers and proven methods that have worked those are some of my top people that I recommend following whether on Instagram or YouTube and if you do check out their content and you do love what they're creating just let them know I sent you be like hey heard about you from Milly so stoked that we're connected now that now the next thing that you're going to do is you're going to watch this video next because YouTube thinks you'll like it thank

you so much for watching I will see you in the next one all your joy bye