The Instagram hack that saw an influencer go from 25k to 446k followers in 2 weeks

23 March 2018
By Fashion Quarterly

Would you be game enough to try it?

Lifestyle blogger The Sunday Chapter went from a respectable Instagram following of 25K to a colossal 446K  a mere 16 days later thanks to a clever tool that got picked up by some big players in the influencer space.

There was no foul play, no dodgy scam, no pay to play or boosting. So how did Angela of The Sunday Chapter pull it off?

Turns out, the fashion, beauty and travel blogger picked up on an existing formula and made it her own: using an IG story template.

Angela created a Q&A style template that followers would fill out and repost to their own stories. Much like a domino effect, with every repost, the template would reach more unique followers bringing @thesundaychapter to their attention.

Suffice to say, the template went viral and was shared by thousands.

Among those who posted included the likes of Something Navy (1.1m followers), Maddie Ziegler (11.2m followers), Kenzie Ziegler (9.6m followers), Ohhcouture (1.6m followers), Jessica Barden (873k followers), iluvsarahii (3.8m followers) and Samantha Maria (592k followers), and Sydney Fashion Blogger (1.1m followers).

According to an interview with Husskie, Angela admitted that her expectations were modest ones. “I thought it would be a fun way to connect with my audience and learn more about them – but I never thought it would blow up the way it did,” says Angela.

But it wasn’t all roses. The viral template may have garnered a serious inflation of followers, but also attracted a lot of cynicism.

“I’ve had more cynics in the last five days than the last five years, but I think it’s just part of the job,” Angela told Husskie. “At first they really got to me – but I’ve learnt the best approach is to block, delete and move on. You’re never going to be able to please everyone, so I’ve kept my focus on all the positive, supportive people that have come out of this.”

Reckon you’d give it a crack?

Photos: Instagram @thesundaychapter

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