In 2.5 years, I’ve grown my instagram to 137k followers. 2.5 years might seem like a long time and I know people who have grown bigger quicker, but this is my story.
Like most moms with a newborn, I was stuck at home in an endless eat, poop, sleep cycle and I was looking for a way to connect with other lifeforms and a creative outlet. My younger sister introduced me to the idea of “spam” accounts. Where you post anything you want without the pressure of it being picture perfect, so I thought to myself I’ll just start a mom spam. After I created my account and thought I had the leg up, I noticed there were other mom accounts as well! Who I now needed to be friends with. Before I procreated I always heard this thing about having “mom friends.” They we’re right.
Motherhood is nothing I expected it to be and so much more. I knew other moms had to feel the same way too. Am I perfect? No. Is motherhood pretty comical? Yes. There is just too much good material to keep to myself and you know the saying, “misery loves company.” I’m kidding, I’m not miserable, all the time.
So I began writing, and then deleting and writing and deleting and so on, until I found my voice. I wanted to be honest and (hopefully) funny. I wanted other mothers to feel seen. I’m a professionally trained graphic designer and waiting to find computer time to write out my ideas with children is a joke in itself. I downloaded an app with text features and picked a color palette I liked and stuck with it. Fruits of motherhood was born.
Everyday I would reflect on my experiences and write them down in the notes section of my phone. Then design the ones I felt strongest about in the app and post. Every post was a chance to win over new followers, so I made sure to post often, daily, hourly, whenever I felt excited about something. I also tried to keep my content relatable to my followers. I figured if it’s happening to me it’s has to be happening to someone else too. Slowly but surely my account was growing and other accounts liked my content and would share it too, this gave me the biggest boosts. In the beginning I would engage with the followers of similar accounts in hopes they would see my profile and follow me back. For the most part it worked and fewer times it didn’t.
I also opened up an Etsy shop, selling cool mom stuff. Aka hats and shirts with sayings. When someone purchases a product they get a thank you card with my social media attached to it. This is another opportunity for Instagram growth.
The biggest driving force is being relatable. I have no shame when I write from my life because I know I won’t be the only one experiencing this. We like to think of ourselves as being unique, but truth is, our experiences in motherhood are most likely not. The beauty in this is we are not alone and sharing our experiences can help another through some hard times.
Remember those mom friends I was talking about that we all need? Well I happened to meet some really great like-minded moms on Instagram that also have mom meme accounts. We share each other’s content and mention in the caption to give them a follow and that generates a ton of new followers.
If you are trying to grow your account, be consistent. Think about your followers and what relatable content you want to share. Not everything is going to be success, just stay true to your message. Try to analyze the posts that did really well and recreate from that feeling. It’s a rollercoaster and if you keep at it you’ll get where you want to be.
