Instagram Growth Hacks That Actually Work and Give Your Account Personality

What really drives growth on social media? It might not be what you think. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a niche or worried your content is too personal to help your business, you need to hear this. I’m sharing how my mentor Sara Wiles exploded her Instagram following just by posting what she’s passionate about, and how big brands are nailing social by being, well, more human. We’ll break down my top two Instagram growth hacks, focusing on bonding with your audience and creating content that’s all you, even if it feels a little uncomfortable. I’ll discuss real content examples for inspiration, and make sure you don’t miss your assignment at the end! Whether you’re a business owner, service provider, or just wanting to have more fun online, this episode is packed with advice to remind you why social media can be enjoyable and effective.

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• My two favorite Instagram growth hacks that I’ve been using for years. 
• How to get outside your niche to attract followers and boost your engagement.
• Reminder to include "I" and "my" in your content to humanize your brand.
• How authentic interactions can trigger organic Instagram follower growth.
• The importance of posting non-business content for relatable moments
• Why entertaining, personal posts drive brand awareness, ditching icky marketing tactics.
• Embracing trending challenges and sharing life moments to bond with others on social media.

Featured content in this episode:

• Reel: New trend!
• Carousel: Popular Juice Company

Other episodes you might have missed:

• Episode 062: Why You Don’t Need Fancy Content to Stand Out
• Episode 063: Was That an Ad? Even the Big Brands are Making it Personal
• Episode 064: POV: They’re hitting follow… Immediately
• Episode 067: The Importance of Belonging on Social Media

Join me in the Reels Lab!

Love this conversation? Make sure to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:00]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. Okay, so you know how a few weeks ago we talked about belonging and the importance of that on social media? Right. I want to touch on that a little bit more, but with it give you some Instagram growth hacks. Because a lot of people are saying right now it's just like their engagement's good. They're just like, but can't get people to hit follow.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:37]:
And it was cool. I was actually on a call earlier today with my mentor, Sara Wiles, and she has seen incredible growth, especially in the past six months. Now she teaches business owners service providers typically like virtual assistants, social media managers. Right. When I was a social media manager, completely burnt out, I hired her as my mentor. Cause I was like, well, she seems to understand how to run a business and I don't know what I'm doing. And she literally changed my life.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:03]:
Um, she's incredible. But you know, her account, you know, it was about, it was like virtual assistant tips and talking about courses and things like that, which she loves. I mean, she's passionate about it. But recently she started doing more talk to cameras, B roll with trending audios, right? Like the typical stuff I teach here, but more about who she is as a mom, as a woman, and as someone who's really passionate about politics. So what she's been doing is using her voice to talk about things she's really passionate about. Her account has blown up, right? One of her reels that she just talked right to the camera, kind of giving information to people that she wasn't sure if people knew in her community. And she got 14,000 followers off that one reel. Again, just talking to the camera.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:45]:
Obviously her hook was great, she's a marketing genius. But it was interesting. We were talking and I was like, you know, it really goes to show you, when you kind of make a switch from feeling like you have to stay in this box, this niche that you built for yourself, that you can't talk about anything else. And that's what so many people taught. And I've never taught that over all these years. I've never say it, I've never said a niche down. When I see a funny trend and I want to use it about motherhood or husband wife humor, I do it. And guess what? I get a ton of followers from them.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:14]:
I had A reel that went viral about a year ago with 7 million views. I got so many followers, it was about my public speech sandwich, okay. Went crazy. Now I know in my heart of hearts, like all those people that followed now, years ago you would have said, nope, stay in your lane. Because then you're going to get people following you who aren't about what you sell or do. It's not true anymore. And I again, like I said, I've always created content.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:37]:
I've always shared personal content. Again, I'll post like dumps from like a vacation, Easter, things like that, right? I'll do behind the scenes. I've always done that all these years. And that's why people know me, not just what I do. They people, really. I've bonded with my audience and we're getting to the hack in a second with that. Keep that in mind. But I'm not just a social media marketer.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:57]:
I'm someone who they bond over with my faith or will bond over something with where I'm from or my story or being a mom or loving chips and queso, right? Like my husband with his golf obsession. I bond with people over so many things. So when I first started teaching social media Marketing back in 2014, 2015, yes, I am a dinosaur. Mainly I was working with realtors and I would tell them be like, don't just talk about the house. I can go to Zillow for that. Don't just talk about the market. Literally no one cares. And if they do care, they want to know something local.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:29]:
Just in their own subdivision, right? They just want to know what the house down the street sold for. I told all the realtors, this is from literally 2015. I have posts to prove that this is what I was talking about. And any realtor who's been in my world since then knows I was like, I want y' all maybe once a week, if you're at an open house, sure. Do a photo dump. Give us a tour throughout the week. Show me where you're going in the neighborhood, what your favorite places are to go. If you're the realtor with dogs, you love your dog.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:54]:
Tell me the trails you go to. Tell me the dog parks, the dog friendly patios, right? Same with my husband. He's a realtor, loves golf. I'm like, your content should be about golf in North Carolina, period. Show the houses you sell. That's what I call happenings, right? When I talk about the four H's. And if you look now, most of the successful realtors, they're a personal brand. All the network marketers out there who I coached that sold Rodan and Fields Beauty Counter, I was like, I don't care what you sell.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:17]:
I don't care about the makeup you use. When I look at a video of you talking about your day or your new favorite target find and your skin looks great, I'm going to ask you what you're doing. That is how it works. That is called bonding on a personal level. And all this happened. And all this came to a head the other day when I shared a post about it, and it's going semi viral for me about how Minute Maid on threads put a post up. Okay, again, I'm getting to the growth hacks in a second, but a little lesson first. We're in class right now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:43]:
The good stuff's coming, I promise. So as soon as Sara Wiles started talking about things she's super passionate about and wants to talk about, account exploded. And then in stories, she reminds people what she does for a living as a virtual assistant coach. And she did a post today about, hi, I know I talk a lot about this and that, but I'm also a virtual assistant coach, right? So, like, and Gary V. Said it best on stage about a year ago. He said how, you know, I don't care if you're a plumber. You love a certain show. Get on there and talk about how you hated the results of whatever happened, Right? And then in the caption, you'd be like, by the way, I'm a plumber.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:15]:
And Boise, Ohio, like, we bond over mundane. We bond over things that we can attach to. Right? Again, if you're a mortgage lender telling me all these mortgage rates, it's going over my head because I don't know. And my husband's a realtor. I still don't understand any of that stuff. I want to bond with you over the fact that we both go to the same coffee shop and yet sprinkle in mortgage stuff once in a while. So let me get to it. Let me get to the point I'm trying to make, because I know y', all, you want a quick win, and I got you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:39]:
All right, so my carousel said a popular juice company just exposed why so many people fail on social media. And I go on to show what Minute Maid did. They were on threads. Okay, I saw this thread as I was scrolling threads the other day. The thread, it says, from Minute Maid. And here we go. Are y' all ready? I've been saying it forever. I can now say boom.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:57]:
To all the people that try to say, well, Shannon so and so told me this, don't listen. I got you. I'm studying what's working right now, right? We're not talking about what worked in 2020. My. The first word my. Remember how I'm always saying my? I. I don't care if you're a company with billions of people. 10 people, 2 people, 1 person.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:15]:
Start adding in the word my and I when you can or when it makes sense. My boss said, can we start posting more about the actual product? And I said, absolutely, and then did not. Okay, first of all, the social media managers in the world went nuts over this. We loved it. We're like, thank you. Because I'm telling you, for years, all, especially the realtors I used to work with were like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, trust me, trust me. We are on Instagram, Facebook, all this to follow humans.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:43]:
And when you give your product a personality, you give your account a personality. Even if it's one, you're one person, like Sara Wiles or your minute made with Lord knows how many people. We want to feel like we're following a person. And that doesn't mean big personality. It just means person, person, personality. I even say in this thing, I say, you don't have to have a huge personality. You just need to be personal. Like, what is that to you? So here's what happened.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:07]:
Beyond Meat wrote back, hilarious. They said, not only do I not really promote our products, but I've somehow convinced other companies to also not promote their products. What an honor. We're talking thousands of likes. Someone elsewhere. Are you guys ready? This user, her name is Maxine, makes it. It says, tell your Boss they're writing 2 Minute Maid that unless you came up with new juice, entertaining us keeps your brand name at the forefront of our minds, not shoving advertisements in our face. Everything is backwards in social media marketing.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:37]:
I literally screamed. Cause again, you know, in. In your world, whatever that is, that moment where you're like, yes, thank you, validation. That was it for me. I was like, hallelujah. I was like, I cannot wait to share this on the podcast. And someone else said, tell your boss that I'm getting myself minute made just because of this post. Again, when I am at the store next time and I see Minute Maid, I'm probably grabbing it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:55]:
Just one. I used to love when my after school sitter had Minute Maid. My mom, like, was a non sugar person. Like never had the fun treat. So I would get like so stoked about Minute Maid with that Minute Maid stays top of mind. But not only that, they're having a conversation. So people are conversing with Minute Maid because they feel like they're chatting with a friend. Or at least a human that they can bond with.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:14]:
Okay, so the big Instagram growth hack that I want to talk about, there's two of them, and the overall theme is the biggest hack, the biggest hack. And I actually said this on Instagram or on, like, back when Twitter was Twitter, like, we're talking five years ago. I tried to find it. Oh, yeah, there it is. 4, 8, 20. So April 8th 2020. Instagram algorithm hack. Bond with your audience.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:35]:
Cause I was like, I was seeing all these hacks, hacks, hacks. And I was like, yeah, I love a good hack, but the ultimate hack is to bond with people. Now, here's two ways to do it. Number one, and this is the ultimate hack, because this is how I grew people's accounts before reels and all that, right? It was. It used to be a struggle. Still did it, but it was a struggle. Is the comment section. If y' all are not in that.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:59]:
In the comment section, I want you to take your booty to the comment section. There is a creator who wrote under my posts a few days ago, I'm actually gonna do a reel about this. She commented. Cause she. I was, like, giving out people ideas on this reel of, like, content for them. And this. She goes, can you help me? I teach. She teaches.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:20]:
I forget what language it was she teaches, but she teaches the language, right? And she explains who she teaches it to. Like, she actually said, like, her, basically her I help statement, right? And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I gave her an idea. People were under the comments going, oh, my gosh, I'm so interested. New follower. Got a new follower here. Ooh, I'm interested. We're up in the comment section.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:38]:
We're looking. I can't tell you how many times I will comment on some silly meme about. Maybe it is about margaritas or queso or bravo, right? Whatever it is. And I'll say something, and my comment will get like a hundred something likes. And I get a few followers from it. Again, they're not liking it because my comment, they're like, wow, that they either relate to it. They. It made them laugh.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:57]:
They'll go to my profile, see what I do, and be like, oh, hmm. Okay, so now they've seen a little bit of my personality in the comment I left, right? I'm telling you right now, this is how I grew real Estate agents, especially back in the day accounts was commenting. And what I would do is I would comment on local accounts. So local blogs, local magazines, accounts that I knew. Local people who might be buying or selling a house are following the local coffee shop, the yoga place they go to, right? So let's say you're a business coach and you coach women. Okay? Your people might be following Flodesk Honeybook, right? You want to comment on those? Mel Robbins, I don't know, like, those types of things that you think your people are up in. Be commenting, bond with people in the comment section. Join conversations already happening in the comment section.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:40]:
That is one of the biggest growth hacks. Get in the comments. I would spend about 30 minutes to an hour back in the day before reels just literally being like, okay, who should I comment? Obviously any account, any content from Adam Mosseri of Instagram. You know, back then it was like we had the big wigs like Tyler McCall, Jasmine Starr and I would be commenting on their stuff. And not to poach, not to be like. But literally joining in on the conversation saying, thank you for that tip. Here's what I have found too. And other people will be like, oh, my gosh.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:07]:
And then the creator writing back, it's a conversation. It's not icky. We're not doing this to be icky. We're doing this to actually bond with humans. So that's hack number one. Hack number two, I want you to test out something this week, and this is gonna be probably a little uncomfortable for some of you. I want you to create a piece of content that has nothing to do with your business. Again, I want you to do something like Gary Vee said.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:29]:
Oh, you're a huge fan of Dancing with the Stars. Talk about it. You're a huge fan of this pool sandwich you discovered. Oh, but you're a wedding planner. Okay, I still wanna know my favorite pool sandwich. And the I'm telling you, something like that goes viral, people will find your account through it. There is a money coach right now. I cannot think of her name.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:48]:
She's blowing up like crazy. She's like a money budgeting. She does reels. Like she did a funny reel. Like, comparing her tan to her husband who's of a different ethnicity. Cause she's like, ooh, look how tan I am. He's like, yeah, let me see. And then she's like, darn it, now I'm not tan at all.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:02]:
Blew up. Went crazy for her. Got followers. They go to her page, they see, oh, she shares. Everyone needs money. Tips, right? You never know who's going to land in front of when I do my. Okay, like I just. Today I just shared a reel about helping my daughter find a toy.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:16]:
Pretending to help my daughter find a toy, knowing darn well I like tossed it yesterday when I was overstimulated and people are loving it. It's already at 10,000 views and I posted it like literally 30 minutes ago. It's going crazy. Nothing to do with my business, but it will still bring in followers. And that's not just me telling you, oh, go viral for no reason. No. As long as your bio is optimized, they're going to go, they're going to decide if they want to follow you. And in the caption you can always say, oh, by the way, I'm so and so.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:41]:
I live in Connecticut and I do this. We'll love it. That's the way to bond with people. What is something personal about you that you love or a funny thing and grab a trend that's going around or do a photo dump or whatever it is. I want you to just post something that you would post if you weren't trying to sell something and watch it actually sell something. And again, the social media market, it's a back like that girl said on the Minute Maid. It's, it's all backwards, but it's true. And it just shows Minute Maid making a funny post about how their boss is trying to push them to post more about the product and not doing it goes bananas.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:11]:
Because that's not how social media works. We want to bond with you just like people are bonding with Sara over that. People are bonding with me today over throwing out their kids toys and they're overstimulated. People bond with my husband. One of my husband's reels is he has another golf account and it's going crazy right now. Just a 10 second silly video. It's okay to create content outside of your niche and that is why people are so bored on social media. Because it's.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:36]:
We're not knowing the human anymore. We just know the product. We know what it does. But why do we want to follow you? So those are the hacks. Get in there, create something. And again, it could be a funny family memory. Something funny happens on your summer vacation. It's a 10 second funny clip.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:52]:
Throw it up there. You never know. And we are smart enough to know how to use Instagram now to not. I'm not like, I'm gonna look at your profile and then I'll be like, oh, My gosh, she's. He sells that. I need that. Right. So there you go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:05]:
Bond with people. Let's go back to what social media was always about. I'm not saying that's your whole strategy again. I'm just saying have some fun again. And to help you with this, I want you to hop on this new trend. I just shared it on my page. It will be in the show notes as well. It is a trend where you're essentially walking down a Runway like you're a model and men.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:22]:
Yes. I want you to do this, too. And you act like you get to the end of the Runway and you pose and you turn around. Essentially, what it is is you saying you're walking to do something, and then you decide to bail. So there's so many funny ways you can do this. But again, it doesn't have to be about your business. It can be. It absolutely can be.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:39]:
But it could also just be. I made it about pretending to help Chloe find a toy that I've already thrown away when I was overstimulated. Right. There's so many other ideas I want to do. Like, another one we might do, which we probably will, is me and my husband are going to walk in a room. I haven't crafted it yet, but walking into a room ready for bed and seeing and realizing the sheets are still in the dryer and decide, and basically the caption will say, couch. It is like being like, yeah, we're not doing that, and we're going to bail on the bed and bail on doing any of that. I see a lot of people in corporate America doing it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:09]:
It's really funny being like, you know, walking to a meeting and realizing it could have been an email and then, you know, walking off or, like, about to quit my job but remembering, you know, I have rent to pay. Like, there's dog owners doing it. Like, walking down the street. They're like, pov. You're walking down the street and see another or see someone else walking toward you with another dog, and they're like, peace out. So many ways you guys can do it. I want you to test that one or test any of the trends that are going around right now and just do something about you. You love golf, you love movies, you love whatever.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:36]:
You love the Superman franchise. I don't know. It can be anything. Lean on Chat GPT. Tell Chat GPT the actual trend and say, can you make some about this and just see what it comes up with and take the best one. So that's your assignment. This week. I love you, friend.