What makes you think that 10k followers is better than 2k? I would rather have 2k followers that are engaged than 10k followers that don't care about what I do. It's what you post that is important. People only care about themselves. If the stuff you post doesn't help them achieve their goals, they will, at best, follow you and then forget about you.

I’ve had this issue and I’ve had my account for 13 years; I’ve been told straight up to create a new account and repost all of my content as new content, as Instagram just favours new accounts and pushes them. I just haven’t had the energy to do so. ;/

I would rather have 2k of engaging followers rather than 30k - there’s no gain for having lots of followers as not even 2% see your posts. It’s really disheartening as I had more interactions with a smaller following 🙈

Same! 8 years maybe and took this long to go past 1k, gained 700 more in a year and stuck on 1771; YouTube 5 years and 422 when most got to 80k or more in that time - most is teaching and how to do business videos which has the awesome title and thumb but the content didn’t help, yet they have an audience and can sell their art . I don’t want to go down the tutorial and business help route . I wish to just be an artist and share some life philosophy to do with the art .

hm not really seeing anyone talking about ads. unfortunately it’s very hard to grow your ig organically nowadays, unless you constantly post viral reels. it’s a business after all and paying for ads is what they want you to do but I don’t spend crazy money on it. I was just trying it out recently and did a 30€ for 6 days ad and picked audience by myself. I gained around 500 new followers and theese are people that are actually engaging so I’m happy with that.