Almost every day I get messages from all over, regarding people asking me tips about how they can increase followers on Instagram.
Well guys I swear, I don’t have a magic wand and I’m not an advisor or expert, I’m only a girl who started to post pics and became Influencer (because this is how the people call me now, but for me would be great to be called just Elena, I’m thankful anyway)
When I started, I never even imagine to be sitting here writing an article about my experience and how I got so many followers, asking me how I actually did it.
So here I am to satisfy all your questions.
For whoever just touched my blog and doesn’t know yet my IG page, check it out please if you want: https://www.instagram.com/dolcestellinaxx/
All your questions are below.
When did you open your page?
I started posted pictures in 2015, even if I had the account from 2013 but I barely used it.
One day, on May 2015 I posted a pic joking about the fact I had some fake mustache… well I had 100 followers and 200 likes on that pic, that day I understood that I could use my creativity and my simply concept of beauty to make a nice virtual gallery.
So I started working on it, posting regularly pics about me, my life, my travels etc. and I noticed they had quite success.
October 2015: I arrived at 1000 followers
So now I guess, you are thinking 1000 followers are nothing but for me two years ago, they were a lot and at the time IG was different; the algorithm was different, some people say that years ago was easier to increase followers but actually I don’t know, I only know my page was growing very fast back and it is still growing now, maybe I was just lucky.
Summer 2016: I arrived at 5000 followers and right after I started a specific course designed by Dario Vignali (but it’s only in Italian) and it helped me a lot thought.
How did you gain so many followers? Did you buy it?
I won’t tell you again.
I NEVER BOUGHT ANY SINGLE FOLLOWERS
I don’t even know how it works and I suggest you please don’t do it.
If you didn’t buy your followers how did you do it?
I worked my ass out guys.
I studied, I dedicated hours on my IG page, trying to find new and original contents and I never copied from other accounts.
More and more I’ve been seeing so many pages, that looks so alike and with the same pictures, layout and design etc. Terrible. I personally think it’s something, that nobody should do and I mean COPY.
Find your way to create interest, be original, take gorgeous pictures and be you!
How long did you take to arrive at 70K followers?
I took pretty much a year
Have you ever been followed by an expert or consultant?
Never, I did all by myself.
How did you become an Influencer?
When I arrived at 10K followers, I started to contact personally some companies, that I liked and vice versa .
Circa with 40K I started to earn something for my collaborations.
How can I contact a company?
Find the contact on their website and text them, some companies have a specific section for the Influencers, that would like to collaborate with them.
How many companies did you collaborate with?
Almost 50 in a year
Do you have another job or you are only an Influencer?
My real job is in luxury hotel in a beautiful location, then there is Instagram, my paid hobby.
What do you use to shoot your pictures?
I took almost all the pictures on my page with a camera.
I have two, a Canon Eos 950D and a compact one, that I take everywhere, a canon Powershot N2.
Sometimes I use my iPhone or GoPro.
Do you have a photographer?
I don’t have any photographer but a very nice boyfriend, that I trained a lot to do great pics.
I would love to be like you, but I don’t know where I could start from, can you help me?
At this point I have a question for you.
Why do you wanna be like me, because I have a lot of likes and followers?
You have to find your own personal way… don’t forget to be you
I am at the beginning and I don’t know which kind pictures I should post and which kind theme pick. Can you help me decide?
Really if you don’t know what do YOU like, how can I know such personal thing?
Ask yourself what do you like.
I tried, are months that I’m posting pictures but my followers are not growing. What do I have to do?
Again, I think you are doing something wrong.
Are you posting on weird hours while everybody is sleeping?
Are you taking poor pictures?
I think if you didn’t make it, maybe you didn’t try enough
TRY HARDER- AGAIN!
Let me give you a little tip…
If you really wanna be successful like me or many others out there, you have to be constant and truly focus on what you wanna achieve.
My Dad’s words: “If you commit yourself, you can do whatever you want”
So let’s just try to do more as my dad says, you may see some good results.
Don’t forget to be and believe in yourself!
#keeepondreaming #thepaperperfume
[Translation by Giada Calcagni]