Progress on the Lemon Project

I have been attempting to post an Instagram post at least once a week however this hasn't been my top priority recently due to both the dissertation enquiry and degree project proposal deadlines. Since these have been handed in, I have decided to re-evaluate my lemon project and marketing strategies to gain more followers.

I noticed that my follower account had plateaued at approx 60 followers after asking friends and family to follow my account on my main Instagram account and promoting this on my Snapchat story. Although I have 320 followers on my main Instagram account, I believe some of the users are either inactive or simply uninterested in a lemon page.

(Promotion on Snapchat and my main Instagram account, own images)

(Promoting posts on Instagram to the followers on my main account, own images)

Another avenue I used to gain a few followers was to promote my lemon page on the Digital Media Design Instagram account, which currently has 119 followers. I originally started populating this account with content about the course during my second year and thought I would use this to my advantage.

(Promoting posts on Instagram to the followers on the dmdherts account, own images)

Muhammad also has access to this account, he saw what I was posting and decided to copy this method by promoting his own lemon account - which I found interesting.

I decided to post more content in the hope of gaining the following of a niche group using specific hashtags such as #houseofcommoms #brexit #lemonmemes however, I only witnessed a tiny increase in my follower account. As this is a competitive assignment, I assumed that others in the class may have reached around 150 - 250 followers and therefore knew that I had to use another method to gain followers. 

The biggest first success I had was by following specific hashtags rather than accounts to see posts that other accounts have posted under those hashtags. I decided to follow the hashtags, #followforfollow #followforfollowbackinstantly #followforfollowback. I noticed when scrolling through my feed, posts instructing you to follow/like accounts to gain more followers. Another method I am using is liking and commenting, ‘follow for follow’ on posts that are advertised to give you more followers.

(Successful hashtags and 'gain followers' posts, own images)

One of the most successful posts was a ‘gain train’ specifically set-up for the reseller community so that others can follow each other. Although I am not a reseller, the organiser of the post welcomed me to the community. The main task for this gain train was to like the post, then follow everyone who has liked the post. I believe I have gained the majority of my new followers from this post. I regularly check back and add any new accounts that have liked the post. 

By following the accounts that have liked/commented on these specific posts has led to more accounts following my lemon account - my highest liked post currently has 34 likes. By using a combination of the methods above, to date, I have 299 followers and have been consistently gaining followers by using these techniques. I’ll continue to post regularly and use these strategies as this is has been successful thus far, gaining at least 20 - 50 followers a day.

(Reseller gain train, most liked post, total follower count, own images)