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The $100 MBA Show
MBA2602 How to Grow an Instagram Account in 2025 (Even if you have 0 Followers)
00:12:15
Think it’s too late to grow your Instagram from scratch? Wondering if the platform is still worth your time for business? If you’ve been asking yourself these questions, this episode is exactly what you need to get started.
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- [00:01]
Jim
And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.
- [00:06]
Colleague 1
His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time?
- [00:12]
Jim
He's going for it.
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Colleague 1
Is that his phone?
- [00:14]
Colleague 2
He's snapping a pic.
- [00:15]
Jim
He's texting Ramp.
- [00:16]
Colleague 1
Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.
- [00:18]
Colleague 2
That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.
- [00:21]
Ramp Representative
On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.
- [00:31]
Omar Zenholm
For years, I neglected social media. I just saw it as a place people showed off a vanity game. A place where people flexed their success instead of actually helping others. But I was wrong. When I finally got over myself and got out of my own way, I started to treat Instagram as another way to serve my audience by sharing valuable educational content. My account grew from less than 300 followers on Instagram to nearly 100,000 in under a year. And here's the best part. You can do the same. I know this because my account stagnated for like eight years. I didn't do much with it. And once I applied what I'm going to teach you today, things changed tremendously. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, where I deliver practical business less three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow and scale your business. So I'm going to show you exactly how to grow on Instagram, even if you're just starting out totally from scratch. A lot of people think it's either too late to start on Instagram because it's so crowded, or that it's dead. But it's not true. Instagram is still one of the most engaged platforms for business. Reels are still the fastest way to reach new people organically. And your ideal customer is already scrolling on Instagram. It's your job to make sure that you show up on that scroll. And fortunately, the algorithm on Instagram has changed a lot recently to favor great content. So even if you don't have a huge following, if you create something that people like and want to see, it will be shown to other people, regardless of how large your following is, which will then increase your following. But here's the mistake most people make. They use Instagram to get attention instead of giving value. Once I flipped my mindset and started posting content that actually helped my audience with many lessons, insights, actionable tips, my engagement and followers grew quickly. Don't post solely for attention. Post to help, and growth will follow. Now, don't get me wrong, you do want to be able to grab people's attention with your videos. But if it's just attention and it's hollow and there's nothing to consume, people will scroll quickly. So you want to grab their attention and then give them incredible value. So here's the exact system I use to go from 300 followers to nearly 100,000 followers, and how you can do the same. Number one, and this is the most important part right here. Okay. It's actually pretty mind blowing. Once you do this, how much it affects your account and how much you grow. Try as much as possible to post every single day, even if you can, sometimes twice a day. The months I post 50, 60, 70 posts a month, things really start to grow. The thing is that Instagram will reward consistency because you're adding content to their system. And the bottom line is you can't expect growth if you post when you feel like it. You have to have a system where you're creating content and posting it on the regular. Before I was just posting, I would say at best, once a week, twice a week, I would post pictures from an event. I would maybe create a short reel or video that I shot while I was walking from the gym. And it was just not pro. I wasn't really organized, it wasn't intentional. Now, if you go to my Instagram account, Omar Zenholm, you'll see that all the content that's there is super intentional, super created for my viewer. And I understand that I need to deliver value and it has to be consistent. So take a look at how many posts I'm posting on a consistent basis. It makes a tremendous difference. So what kind of content works in 2025? Well, number one, short reels. So we're talking about reels that are around 30 seconds. You want these to be quick, punchy, valuable. Next are carousel posts. These are like step by step breakdowns, or maybe like a blog post broken up into different posts that people can scroll through. Now, these don't perform as well as reels, but they still have value and people really love them and they're worth doing to break up your content on your Instagram feed. And then lastly, single image posts. Simple, engaging, shareable. Try something personal. Maybe an experience you had, maybe a trip you went on, maybe when you were on stage at an event. These things really resonate with your audience because it feels like you're being vulnerable and you're opening up one of the biggest growth levers you can try is mini lessons. These are in the form of carousels. These are practical, value packed. So say for example, you have a blog post explaining something or a podcast episode or a YouTube video. Just break down the content in that video into different steps that you can explain on a carousel with images so people can swipe through and learn as they go. These are very shareable types of posts. Number two Hook people in the first three seconds. I'll be honest with you, it took me forever to learn this because as a consumer of content, I like long form slow types of content. Books, long movies, I'll watch TV series, I like long podcasts. So for me, I didn't really understand the value of the hook. I'm already kind of like bought in. I'm listening to this podcast. I want to watch this video. I don't really need the hook, but a lot of people do need the hook on social media, especially people that love to scroll through content. So the first three seconds of your reel will determine whether people scroll or stay. I would say even less than three seconds. But three seconds is the max. The first sentence you utter makes a big difference and you want to make sure you capture people's attention. Now listen, you don't want to be clickbaity, but you want to make sure that you front load the value or the aha moment at the top. So you could actually just give them the light bulb moment, the sentence that's like the biggest takeaway and then explain it after the hook. Also, the first sentence of the caption of that post is important. It determines if people are going to read the caption or or keep scrolling. If you're an absolute beginner when it comes to crafting a catchy hook to get people's attention, let me give you a few that you can start with. Most people are doing this wrong. Then continue. Here's another example. You'll never grow on IG if you keep making this mistake. Gets people curious. What is this mistake? Next one. Here's how I went from 300 to 100k followers in under a year. Once I started using strong curiosity driven hooks, my reach tripled. When I look at my dashboard analytics inside of Instagram, I am shocked how much those hooks make a difference. Here's the bottom line. If your content doesn't grab people's attention immediately, it won't matter how good it is. And this is kind of sad in my opinion. I actually am upset about this fact, but it's the truth. I can't get around it. I gotta grab people's attention first and then deliver great content. So I know that I have a lot of great content in my archives that never got watched because the hook was lousy. So don't let your great content go to waste with bad hooks or no hook at all.
- [07:52]
Chase Representative
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- [08:20]
Omar Zenholm
JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDSE.
- [08:22]
Jim
Subject to credit approval and we're back folks. It looks like Jim from Sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.
- [08:29]
Colleague 1
His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking can he get through his expenses in that time?
- [08:34]
Jim
He's going for it.
- [08:35]
Colleague 1
Is that his phone?
- [08:36]
Colleague 2
He's snapping a pic.
- [08:37]
Jim
He's texting around.
- [08:38]
Colleague 1
Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.
- [08:40]
Colleague 2
That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.
- [08:44]
Ramp Representative
On ramp expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.
- [08:55]
Omar Zenholm
Number three engage like a human Engage as much as possible. If somebody writes you a comment on a post, reply, reply to every single comment that you can. You may want to just dedicate some time to do that. Maybe you know, 30 minutes in the morning once a week. You don't have to reply immediately, but even if you just reply a week later, it makes a difference. If you get new followers DM them and start a conversation, say hey, thanks for the follow. What made you interested in my content? Another little thing that I found helps is to comment on other people's accounts in your niche. So say for example, you're in the fitness space. Go to other fitness experts posts and comment. Give value. Give encouragement. If you are a positive member and a contributor to the community, people will notice and will check your account. I used to post and leave. This is a bit of a mistake. So I set aside 30 minutes a week just for engaging on Instagram and I like to do it on my computer. I just do it. I know the desktop app isn't so great or the desktop on the website, but I just do it because I don't want to be on my phone and type. I just kind of take 30 minutes and engage with other accounts and type away. Number four, treat Instagram as a business funnel. Remember, followers don't pay the bills, customers do. So how do you get them to be customers? Well, the first step is to get them on your email list. So your whole goal on Instagram is give great content so that you can then say, hey, join my newsletter, opt into my freebie, take my free course, and then they get on your email list and then you can nurture them, give them more value, and then deliver some offers that they'd be interested in. This is why a lot of people that do this right on Instagram have calls to action on every post. Like fall for more or DM me for a guide or a free resource link in bio, right? Lead people to a link and buy. I like to have just one link in my bio and not a link tree because I want to just get everybody on my email list and that link is to a waiting list or some sort of opt in or some sort of freebie. And you can test things out. You can change that link over and over again to see which actually converts the most. Now, we haven't talked about Instagram stories, but you want to use Instagram stories to maybe do Q and A and start some DM conversations with your followers. You can actually run polls in Instagram stories too, so that you can learn a little bit more about your audience. Once I started directing my followers to some of my free training, my opt ins, my guides, I saw a direct increase in my email list and therefore I have a direct chance of increasing my revenue. Because the larger your list is, the more of those people will buy from you. And you don't need millions of followers to do this. Before we wrap up, we got to talk about something important. What you should stop doing on Instagram. Stop posting once or twice a week and expecting growth. That's just not going to happen. I found that when I just exponentially increased my posting consistency, it made all the difference. If you want to see growth, I say at least 10 posts a week. Stop focusing on aesthetics over value. Yes, it's good to be polished and look professional, but make sure the content, the hook, all that stuff is valuable. First, stop chasing vanity metrics and focusing on engagement and conversions. Good to have followers, good to have people liking your posts. But remember, the whole point here is to get these people that are living on Instagram to go over to your website and get on your email list. Here are my final thoughts. Here's what I've learned in the last year. Growing on Instagram is possible even if you're starting from scratch. Secondly, you don't need luck, you just need a system. And lastly, you don't need viral videos. You need consistency. The thing with consistency is that the more you produce, the better your content gets. But first, you need to get out of your own way. Just like I did a year ago. If I never changed my mindset about social media, I would have missed out big time. I would have missed out on growing my audience, making connections with my potential customers, growing my email list, and just growing my business in general. So if you're ready to start growing, implement Implement what I share with you today. If this episode helped you in any way, the best thing you can do, the best thank you can give me, is to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast, appreciate or on YouTube and feel free to share it with someone who needs to grow their Instagram in 2025. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast, hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. Whether it's Apple or Spotify or ever you listen to podcasts by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.
- [13:48]
Employee
Got a 7am meeting on a Monday expensing breakfast because it's in policy wasting all afternoon submitting an expense report for that breakfast.
- [14:01]
Omar Zenholm
Boo.
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Employee
If your company used Ramp, you could submit expenses with just a text.
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Omar Zenholm
Yay. Free your team from expense reports today.
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Ramp Representative
Switch your business to ramp.
- [14:14]
Omar Zenholm
Com.