This is the first time I'm sharing my Instagram success story. It's a story about persistency, patience, kindness, adaptability and a little bit of luck!

The story

The Beginning

I'm not even sure where and when the beginning began! It must've been years and years ago, when I still had an iPhone in stead of a Samsung and I decided to install Instagram for fun. I made some photos around the house and in Amsterdam, but I never gained serious followers. I didn't really get the point of Instagram so I stopped using it...

Until about a year ago!

Over a year ago I heard more and more success stories, I saw Instagrammers travelling the world making pictures, living the good life! I started thinking that maybe I should take my Instagram account more serious. First thing I did was clean up my account, removing all the photos. I wanted to focus on what I like, that what I really enjoy most in life: ART!

TIP: Focus on what you really LOVE

I knew that if my account would turn into a success, I'd better be focussing on something I enjoy doing. You really don't want to be posting daily about something you're not passionate about.

What to post about?

At the time I started posting on my Instagram account again, around november of last year, I was pretty excited about handlettering. So I decided my creations would make great posts on Instagram.

I participated in a 30-day challenge, making new handlettering work every day and I connected with other people that were excited about handlettering.

Once the challenge was over, I felt like I needed to move on to something else and created my own challenge. In December I decided to create a new creature every day. I kinda felt like giving up on Instagram, but this way I forced myself to paint or draw daily.

TIP: Whatever you do, DON'T GIVE UP!

Gaining followers

I gained some pretty enthusiastic followers with my crazy creatures and I had a lot of fun creating these. Once my challenge was over, I had around 3000 to 4000 followers. Pretty decent ofcourse, but it was still my big dream to get noticed by a larger audience, having my art get published by a big account or maybe hitting explore on Instagram?

Feeling lost

Once my challenge was over, I felt kind of lost. What was I supposed to post? What did my followers want to see? What did I want to make? I got my inspiration from Bored Panda, they shared this speed challenge that Mike Crilley came up with. Since it was a popular article and it seemed like a lot of fun to do, I decided to give it a go. I painted an eye, lips and an ear which all got a decent amount of likes, which made me decide to continue doing these speed challenges for a while. And then this happened...

The Day my Instagram life changed

It was the day I became Insta-famous! My post hit the Explore page of Instagram and I gained a massive amount of followers. It was all pretty overwhelming I must say.

After that, all I had to do was sit back and relax...

NO OF COURSE NOT!!

A lot of work has gone into my Instagram account since then. I'm growing more and more aware of what the success factors of growing an Instagram account are. Like I said in the beginning: persistency, patience, kindness and adaptability are important factors.

More posts about these success factors will follow soon

STAY TUNED!

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How I Got 225K INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS - Part 1 -- The Beginning