Experiment Dates: Jan 21, 2019 – Feb 11, 2019
Hypothesis
I can increase my Instagram following by 20% in 4 weeks without spending any money.
Materials
- My personal brand account @laceyjlively
- @tailwindapp Instagram scheduler
- Professional photoshoot by @photosbyablondie
Method
- Post twice per day every day for 4 weeks
- Respond to all comments and messages within the platform
- Use higher powered hashtags to get more reach (these are recommended within the Tailwind application)
- Engage with content creators that align with my brand values

Data
Initial follower count: 395
Amount needed to reach 20% increase: 474
Total new followers needed to reach goal: 77
Day 7 increase: 40
Day 14 increase: 20
Day 21 increase: 18
Day 28 increase: 27
Total increase: 27
Final follower count: 422
Actual increase in followers: 7%
Conclusions
It is possible to get more Instagram followers without spending any money, but the growth rate is less than some may expect.
Observations to Consider:
- I observed double the expected follower growth in the first week.
- I observed a significant decrease in followers
between day 7 and day 21.
- Why?
- All the photos shared from the first 3 weeks came from one photoshoot. I did wear 3 different outfits and had different “hair-do’s” for the shoot, but they all looked similar in setting and emotion. Perhaps the lack of variability led to less perceived authenticity.
- Why?
- I observed a slight increase in followers
between day 22 and day 28.
- Why?
- I dropped my number of posts down to approximately one per day and increased the visual variability of the posts.
- Why?
Thanks for checking out this experiment! Did you learn something from it? Anything you’re going to adjust within your own Instagram marketing? I hope so!
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