This is how I would grow from 0 to 10k Followers on Instagram in just 90 days.

If I only had 90 days to grow my Instagram from 0 to 10,000 followers, this is the exact 90-day Instagram growth roadmap that I would follow.

And since we work smarter, not harder, this strategy will balance old-school, timeless Instagram strategies with AI implementation, so you can keep your authentic voice as a creator while saving time.

As always, if you’d prefer to watch instead of read, click the video below. Let’s jump straight in.

My 90-Day Instagram Growth Roadmap Overview

This is the 90-day Instagram growth roadmap that we’ll follow in this post to help you grow from 0 to 10,000 followers on Instagram as quickly as possible.

• Month 1: Ideation
• Month 2: Creation
• Month 3: Optimization

Let’s get started with month one, ideation.

Month 1: Ideation

First, we need to figure out where your vision and validated post ideas collide. These are probably two of the most commonly asked questions I get from my students inside the BSP Slack Community:

1. How can I get clarity on my personal brand, niche, and content pillars?
2. Where can I find video ideas that will perform well and align with my brand?

To help you answer these questions and get started with growing on social media fast, I’m going to break ‘Ideation’ into 3 steps:

1. Define your brand
2. Set up your profile
3. Build your content bank

To explain each of these, I want to talk you through this process with a real-life example from one of my students. Let me introduce you to Michelle.

​Michelle is a 51-year-old beauty creator, and when she joined the BSP Model, she was sharing content about skincare, makeup, and UGC, with the potential to make and sell digital products someday.

​She was getting overwhelmed trying to manage posting on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. And she told me that her biggest weakness was Instagram because she just couldn’t figure out what her audience wanted.

Now that you know a bit about Michelle, let’s jump into step one by helping her (and you) define her brand.

Step 1: Define your Brand

Defining your brand on Instagram means niching down, and I know that everyone hates that word. But Instagram specifically creates an ‘Account Embedding’ for every profile, which means they categorize your account under ONE TOPIC. So, if you’re posting about makeup, skincare, and UGC, Instagram will never be able to categorize your account properly or show your content to the right people.

​Niching down can give you a huge advantage if it’s something you’re open to.

​This is where Michelle and I started working together. And while makeup was “easier” to post about, she realized that long-term, her true love was skincare, and that’s what she really wanted to focus on.

I always remind my students that it’s important to identify the “why” when they’re choosing a niche.

​Are you choosing it because it’s easy or because someone else does it? Or because you think it’s what you’re expected to do, or what your audience already sees from you? Or is it what you actually want to be known for?

​What lights you up? What could you talk about forever without getting bored? And what do you want to be known for in 3-5 years? These are the things I want you to focus on when choosing your niche.

​After working through this with Michelle, we set her niche to “Simplified Skincare for Women 40+” (Industry, type, and audience).

​Then we picked her content pillars (the subtopics under the umbrella of her niche):

1. Ingredient translation
2. Simple routines that work
3. Myths and misinformation
4. Product testing
5. Makeup for mature skin

And I asked her to work on a mission statement:

“I educate 40+ women about skincare to help them stop wasting money, understand their skin, and follow simple routines that work.”

​Now she has her niche, who she helps, and how she helps them.

Get Brand Clarity in a Day

How can you get clarity on your own personal brand in just a day? I recommend a good brainstorming session with ChatGPT (or another chatbot of your choosing). This is the prompt that I want you to use:

// You are an expert Instagram brand strategist.

Help me define my personal brand specifically for Instagram.

Ask me questions one at a time to help me clarify:

• The niche I want to be known for
• The specific audience I want to help
• 3–5 content pillars I could consistently create content about
• My mission or purpose as a creator
• The type of content I want to focus on (Reels, carousels, educational, entertainment, etc.)
• The type of creator I want to become in the next 3–5 years

​After asking the questions and analyzing my answers, help me define:

1. My Instagram niche (industry + topic + audience)
2. My target audience
3. My 3–5 content pillars
4. My mission statement (who I help and how)
5. A short explanation of what my brand will be known for

Be honest, if my niche is too broad, help me narrow it down so it’s clear, specific, and sustainable for long-term content creation.

​From this brainstorming season, you can get the clarity needed for our next step: setting up your Instagram profile. But before we jump into that, I need you to know that this is just your launchpad. This doesn’t need to be the perfect mission statement and niche that you will use forever without ever changing, amending, or allowing it to grow as you grow.

​This is just your starting place. You’re looking for a direction right now, not perfection. More clarity will follow as you take action.

Step 2: Set up Your Profile

I’m a firm believer that it’s important to have your profile set up BEFORE posting, because you might have an early video or post go viral, and you want to increase the likelihood that people will follow you from the beginning.

Let me show you an example of a solid profile setup:

​

• Profile Pic = niche
• Nameplate = Doodle puppies and doodle grooming tips
• Bio = Teaching you how to groom your doodle at home, judgment-free, my way.
• Email for potential collaborations
• CTA to freebie in Stan Store

If you’re starting your account from scratch and want your profile to guarantee someone will follow you, I want you to work on defining your unique edge.

Unique Edge

What is a ‘Unique Edge’?

​Your ‘Unique Edge’ is a one-sentence, follow-worthy promise that differentiates you from other Creators in your niche and explains the immediate value you provide (aka: why you’re worth following).

​Personally, I love it when a unique edge promises a result or transformation within a specific timeframe. For example, on my profile, I have “helping you become a full-time content creator in 12 months.”

​Here’s a before-and-after transformation from my student, Kira. Her original bio looked like this:

But after working together to create her Unique Edge, her bio became:

After creating her unique edge, her bio said: “helping women manage chronic illness with just 15 minutes a day.” And then she had a CTA to her Stan Store.

How to Create Your Unique Edge

How can you create your own unique edge? This could be an entire post in itself, so instead, I have another prompt for you. Make sure to add this prompt to the Chatbot conversation that you’re already having. And if you don’t want to use AI, role-play as if you were talking to AI or have this conversation with a friend.  

// Knowing what we’ve defined for my personal brand (niche, content pillars, audience, etc): You are a high-level brand strategist and positioning expert.

Your job is to help me define my “Unique Edge,” a clear, follow-worthy brand promise that makes my content instantly understandable and compelling.

​Guide me step-by-step.

​First, ask me the following questions one at a time and wait for my response before moving to the next:

1. What are the 3–5 major struggles this audience is currently facing?
2. What tangible result or transformation do they want most?
3. What makes your approach different? (Experience, background, method, philosophy, constraints, personality, or angle.)
4. Is there a realistic timeframe involved in your transformation? (Optional.)

After I answer all the questions:

• Analyze my responses deeply.
• Identify patterns in my strengths, positioning, and differentiation.
• Suggest 5 different “Unique Edge” statements using this structure:

“I help [specific audience] achieve [specific result] through [unique method] [optional timeframe].”

​Be brutally honest. If my positioning is too broad or generic, call it out and force me to narrow it.

​Do not give surface-level advice. Think strategically.

Once you have your Unique Edge:

• Ask yourself:
  • Does this Unique Edge help me stand out from similar creators?
  • Is it clear to a stranger in 3 seconds?
  • Can I create at least 100 pieces of content from this?
  • Does it connect clearly to how I want to make money?

• If yes:
  • Put it in your bio
  • Create content around it

Step 3: Build Your Content Bank (Research)

Alright, now it’s time to start discovering what type of content you’re going to create! For this 90-day Instagram growth roadmap, if you want to hit 10k followers as quickly as possible, every piece of content I post will be strategic. For the next 90 days, you won’t be posting “whatever you want.”

During a ‘rapid growth phase’, you have to put aside what you think you know for a bit. That means any of those ‘raw ideas’ that come naturally to you, put those on a list for later.

I’ve seen this time and time again with my students, when you want to grow very quickly, you need to put aside what you want to post and instead focus solely on your audience and what THEY want.

In other words, we want to find what’s proven to work in your industry and apply it to your content.

If you’ve already been posting content in your niche, or in alignment with the direction you want to grow as a Creator, you have a slight advantage here. That’s because the simplest way to get proven Instagram ideas unique to you, your profile, and your niche is to use an AI Coach that specializes in Instagram.

Introducing Stanley for Instagram

There is only one tool that I know that does this incredibly well, and that is Stanley for Instagram. Start by downloading Stanley from the app store. This tool is like your own personal AI coach or partner for daily sustainable audience growth on Instagram.

The reason Stanley works so well is that it analyzes your Instagram profile to better understand you and the strategy you need to grow YOUR audience.

Here are some of the ways that I’ve been using it (if you want to see this in action, watch this YouTube video starting at 15:20):

​On ‘Home’, Stanley will show you 6 high-performing videos in your niche so you can see right away what’s working. Then, if you resonate with any of the posts, just click “Make it yours,” and Stanley will script a version for you in YOUR VOICE that you can film and post.

​Not only is Stanley a researcher and scriptwriter, but you can also use it to generate fresh ideas. Once you have Stanley connected and you’ve created your account, you can ask:

// Based on Outperformers in my industry, can you generate 10 new Reel ideas for me that will help reach NEW viewers and grow followers?

Then Stanley gets to work on bringing new ideas to the table. Now, to be clear, this should never replace your creativity. It replaces the blank page feeling and the “oh my gosh, what am I even supposed to post?” spiral.

​So if you’re a content creator who loves having that spark of inspiration to help you get started with creating content, you can download Stanley and try it for yourself today.

Build Your Content Bank (Continued…)

However, if you’re starting from zero, we’re going to do content research the tried-and-true way. I still do this all the time (if you’d like to watch a walk-through of this, watch this YouTube video starting at 18:10)

​Open Instagram, go to ‘Search’, and type in one of your content pillars, your niche, or industry. When looking at these top results, we will focus on which one has the best view-to-follower ratio.

​When you find a video that has a solid view-to-follower ratio, you’re going to create a new album on Instagram and save those ideas. These are the posts that you’re going to start creating during month one of this 90-Day Instagram growth roadmap.

​You can also plug this prompt into your preferred Chatbot:

// You are an expert Instagram Reel strategist.

Help me generate content ideas based on my Unique Edge, content pillars, and successful accounts in my niche.

First ask me for:

• My Unique Edge
• My 3–5 content pillars
• Links to 3–5 Instagram accounts in my niche
• (Optional) links to a few Reels I like

After I respond:

1. Briefly analyze the niche accounts and identify patterns in:
   • hooks
   • outlier reels
   • storytelling angles
   • pacing/structure
2. Generate 15 Reel ideas aligned with my Unique Edge.

For each idea, include:

• Hook (first line)
• Video format (rotate between: face-to-camera, voiceover, b-roll, reaction, trending)
• Basic structure (3–4 beats)

Highlight the 5 strongest ideas for growth and engagement.

Be specific, strategic, and avoid generic ideas.

​If you love these AI Prompts and want more of them, I’ve created a free download with 20+ AI prompts to help you grow as a creator. You can download that here.

​For this first month of this 90-Day Instagram Growth Roadmap, I’m not even getting into the nitty-gritty of the millions of strategies out there. If you’re starting from 0, the whole point of this first month is to take messy action.

​I want you to give yourself permission to not have the perfect strategy in place, because the point is to just START.

​Start to get into the habit of filming, editing, and posting. This month, I want you to figure out what consistent posting looks like for you.

​In month one, be deliberate about what you are creating and draw on validated sources for ideas and inspiration. But most of all, just start posting so we can adjust your strategy as needed next month.

Month 2: Creation

For month two, the goal is to be 1% better during EACH part of the creative process: ideation, filming, and editing. This is when you are going to start leaning into ‘Intentional Creation.’

For month two to work well, you really need to lean into the messiness of month one. Post as frequently as possible and post as many content ideas as possible, so you have plenty of data to refine and grow from.

​So how can you be more intentional?

• Double down on what’s working with analytics: If you don’t know how to read your analytics, just use Stanley (for example, watch this video at 23:18). Stanley will even give you a 30-day growth roadmap, which means you won’t have to guess what to post for the next 30 days.
• Content research: leaning into those ‘Outperformers’ Stanley suggests, paying attention more to different hook styles and TRYING THEM (angles, format types, etc). I have a whole deep dive on hooks that you can watch here.
• Planning: Be intentional about your hooks when you’re planning your videos. Know what you’re going to say, know what the hook text is going to be, and know what visual element you’re going to use to grab a viewer’s attention. Make sure that you’re also planning your CTA, what action do you want someone to take from this piece of content?
• Filming: every time you film, work on one thing, for example:
  1. Better lighting
  2. Set up your shot
  3. Clean up your background
  4. Leave enough headspace for vertical videos
  5. Play around with different content types
  6. Experiment with gear
• Editing: some of the ways that you can get 1% better with your editing might be:
  1. How was the pacing of the video?
  2. Can you lean into the AI aspects of editing? (Gling, Submagic)

You don’t have to get better at all of these at once, but with each video, you can pick one of these things to get better at each time you post. This is what month two is all about: I want you to improve your content creation process.

​Use this month to get better at your craft. This is something that you’re always going to be working on when you’re a content creator, but hopefully, at the end of this month, you have around 20 pieces of content, which means you’re 20% better than you were at the start of the month.

Month 3: Optimization

Now it’s time to learn from all of your data. During this month, I want you to get very comfortable and familiar with your analytics (if you want a visual walkthrough of this, watch this video at 30:22). Pay attention to:

• Retention (rewatches + average watch time)
• Saves
• Shares / sends
• Follows from this Reel (if you want rapid growth, you need to repeat the ideas that are getting you the most followers)

Don’t just ask yourself if a video went viral. Instead, ask yourself if it created a repeatable result. Ask yourself these questions when analyzing your data in month 3:

• Did this create a specific result?
• What result did this video achieve?
• Can I make that achievement repeatable?

While looking at the top performers is important, it’s equally important to examine what’s not working.

Cut what’s not working (The ruthless filter)

When you want to grow very quickly on Instagram, you need to be ruthless and very honest with yourself about what’s working and what’s not.

​For example, if a content format consistently gets low retention, stop forcing it. Even if it’s a video or format that you love. You can always come back to that later, when you have time to refine the idea.

Being consistent doesn’t equal being repetitive in the wrong direction.

Double down on the top 2 formats.

When you find out what content is working for you, I want you to double down on it in month 3. If talking-head, educational content, and relatable text reels are winning, keep creating those content types. Anything else you could start posting to Trial Reels. If you want a deeper dive into Trial Reels, I’ve recently shared a blog post that you can read next.

​If you see a specific video topic or type of content that’s becoming an outperformer for you, consider turning it into a signature series that keeps people coming back week after week.

​I truly believe the right signature series would be the icing on the cake to help you hit 10,000 followers on Instagram as quickly as possible. And if you need help brainstorming a signature series, Stanley can be a great resource.

​I’ve been having a lot of fun brainstorming with Stanley; this tool helps me come up with ideas that I’ve never had before.

​This 90-day Instagram growth roadmap focuses on helping you grow as quickly as possible by creating content that drives growth. If you want to get started with monetizing content, read this post next.

I’ll see you in the next one, follow your joy!