Stop Using Instagram Growth Gimmicks – Here’s Why They Suck

You ever get a random person liking 10 of your posts out of nowhere? Then a day later, they slide into your DMs telling you how much they “love your work” before hitting you with a sales pitch? Yeah, we’ve all seen it.

It’s the same recycled BS—some digital marketer, some “growth agency,” or someone trying to sell you followers, engagement, or some overhyped service. And let’s be real: it’s annoying as hell. You don’t want to deal with it, and neither does anyone else.

But here’s the thing—if you’re on Instagram trying to grow your business, you might have been tempted to do this exact same thing. And hey, I get it. A few years ago, I did it too. It worked… but it was a brutal uphill grind, and in the end, it wasn’t worth it.

Let’s talk about why.

The Instagram Growth Playbook That Doesn’t Work

So, you start a new Instagram for your business. You’ve got:
✔️ A handful of stock photos
✔️ Some basic posts about your services
✔️ 20 followers (mostly friends & family)

And now you’re sitting there wondering, “Okay… how do I actually get people to see this?”

So, like any entrepreneur hungry for growth, you hop on YouTube and start watching some guru tell you the “best Instagram growth hack” that goes something like this:

1️⃣ Find similar businesses in your niche.
2️⃣ Go to their followers.
3️⃣ Follow those followers, like 10 of their posts, and drop some generic comments.
4️⃣ Repeat.

Maybe even go the extra mile—watch their Stories and throw in a 🔥 emoji.

And guess what? You actually get some followers. Feels like it’s working, right?

Except it’s not.

Because now you’re stuck doing this every single day just to maintain the trickle of engagement. If you stop, people unfollow. If you don’t do enough, growth stalls. It’s like running on a treadmill that never stops.

I know this because I hired people to do this for me. I literally paid virtual assistants to sit on an iPhone all day, manually liking, following, and commenting just to keep up this nonsense.

And yeah, I landed a few clients. But guess what?

They were the worst clients.

• The cheapest, penny-pinching, bottom-of-the-barrel people.
• The type that wanted everything for nothing.
• The kind who ghost you the second they find someone $5 cheaper.

It was all built on fake interactions, empty engagement, and forced networking. And the second I stopped the gimmicks, the whole thing fell apart.

Gimmicks Attract the Wrong People

When you play this game, you’re not building real connections. You’re not attracting quality leads. You’re just baiting people into a temporary follow so they feel obligated to return the favor.

And that’s why this method is garbage.

You’re spending all this time (or money, if you’re outsourcing it) just to break even. There’s no long-term benefit. No real relationships. No loyal audience. Just a cycle of fake engagement that dies the second you stop feeding it.

It’s like sending 1,000 cold emails, hoping a few random people respond. And even if they do, they’re not the people you actually want to work with.

So, What Actually Works?

It’s not about gaming the system. It’s not about tricking people into following you.

It’s about creating content that makes people want to engage with you naturally.

If you want people to care about your brand, your product, or your service, you need to give them a reason to care. And that comes down to three things:

✅ Be relatable – Share the stuff that actually happens in your industry. The funny, the annoying, the everyday moments people get.

✅ Tell stories – People don’t connect with faceless brands. They connect with stories. Show them why your work matters.

✅ Be real – Stop posting corporate fluff. No one cares. Talk how you talk. Share what you know. Keep it 100% you.

Final Thoughts: Ditch the BS, Build Real Growth

If you’re still trying to use these gimmicky growth hacks—stop.

Instagram isn’t a numbers game. It’s a relationship game.

You can either spend months (or years) running around chasing fake engagement, or you can put that energy into real content that makes people want to follow you.

One method forces growth. The other attracts it.

And if you’re ready to actually grow the right way, I’ve got something coming soon—a free training where I’ll break down how to create content that pulls people in, instead of chasing them down.

Until then, keep it real, keep it simple, and stop with the gimmicks.