For so many creative starting out, the 10k following count is an elusive mark of “success”. You finally get a “k” instead of an exact follower count, and it unlocks the swipe-up feature for business and creator accounts, which can be a huge asset for a business and another way to drive up engagement. After months and months of creating a community, developing my photography skills, finding my niche and editing style, and figuring out the social media game, I recently reached 10,000 followers on Instagram. As time goes on and with constant algorithm changes, gaining a following has been more and more challenging, so I wanted to share 10 of my best tips on how to get to 10k followers on Instagram (because honestly the first 10k is the hardest!):

1. Engage and engage some more

You only gain a follower when someone 1) sees your post and decides to follow 2) sees your profile and hits follow or 3) sees your story and visits your profile via the story to follow. More eyes on your posts and profile will result in follows – it’s a sheer numbers game. This is not a very popular tip, but you won’t be an overnight success – if you’re not spending hours liking, commenting, responding to stories, sending DMs, you are not going to get noticed. Unfortunately you cannot just post and expect people to come to you, you must be the one to engage first. Leave meaningful comments, respond to their captions, and they are likely to reciprocate. Do not use bots at this stage and try to game the system – you are likely to get your account banned or deleted, and many brands and other users can see right through this.

2. Stick to a niche and develop your style

Until you are a much larger account and individual posts don’t matter as much if they do well or not, if you want to grow it’s best to stick to a single niche such as only travel, or only portraits, instead of a mix of all of your interests. Then develop a consistent editing style or use the same filter on all of your photographs and plan out your feed so that when someone visits your account all of your photographs have a consistent look or feel. Followers like knowing what to expect, and a beautiful feed helps get that final “follow” tap.

3. Create beautiful content

There is no getting around that beautiful content is still king. Practice your photography and editing, and post images that people will love on sight. For me, going out as often as I could to take photographs and meeting with other creators was huge for learning and developing my creative eye. Having a unique style has come with YEARS of editing and finding what I like, so don’t put pressure on yourself to suddenly come up with a standout style. Experiment, find what works and what you like, and keep in touch with what your audience engages with most.

4. Post consistently and often

You definitely want to be using all 30 of your hashtags, and you shouldn’t be using generic tags like #landscape or #love. Find niche-specific hashtags for your account, use hashtags from feature accounts in your niche, and make sure the tags you use are not too small nor too big. Too small and no one is searching for those hashtags, and too big and your post will immediately disappear into the noise. You also will want to switch them up occasionally; I usually have 20 main hashtags I slowly phase in or out, and the remaining 10 are location- or subject-specific.

5. Research your hashtags

As a photographer, most of your best shots are probably not going to be somewhere you just walk up to a location, in perfect weather, snap a shot and leave. Most times you are battling crazy weather, you probably haven’t slept much, and you’ve visited this location for three years straight before all the conditions lined up perfectly. As smartphones and cameras improve, it becomes harder and harder to stand out from the pack, which means pushing yourself to your creative limits. On the business front, you need to constantly be putting yourself out there. I get asked all the time how I get jobs with certain brands, and I would not have worked with any of them if I sat around and waited for them to come to me. I reach out every single week, facing rejection after rejection, all chasing the one single yes that leads to a job.

6. Write engaging captions

7. Be present in your stories

8. Be authentic

9. Respond to comments and DMs

10. Figure out what’s successful and re-create it

Social media is not the end-all-be-all, so please don’t place the value of your photographic skill or self-worth on these numbers. You never know what other people’s journeys are, and I know plenty of top-tier photographers with very low follower counts that are nevertheless very successful in their field. If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts on any of this, please leave me a comment below! I would love to know your thoughts on the elusive 10k mark.

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