TL;DR: Building a new social media account can be daunting. But with the right strategy, you can achieve explosive growth in no time—and we’re here to prove it. We grew a brand new Instagram account from zero to 15K followers in 30 days, and we’re showing you exactly how we did it so you can, too. Here’s the step-by-step strategy we used to organically grow a faceless Instagram account from scratch.

We grew a brand new Instagram account to 15,000 followers in 30 days. Some people might spend an entire lifetime trying to reach this.

It sounds wild, right? Because for most, growing an Instagram audience is a slow grind. And if you’re starting from zero—with no followers, content, or engagement to build on—it can feel unattainable.

It sounds too good to be true, but my teammate Dominic proved it isn’t. 

When Dominic joined Stan, he had an impressive track record of growing Instagram accounts and was confident he could do it again. His goal? Grow a new Instagram account from zero to 10,000 followers in just 30 days.

He talked about it so casually, so matter-of-factly, we were skeptical. I didn’t believe it was possible—until I watched him do it.

Just one month later, Dominic’s faceless Instagram account had not only hit his 10K goal but soared past it to 15,000 followers. 

Now, as I write this, he’s already crossed 20,000.

And no—there were no shortcuts, bought followers, or paid ads. Just raw, organic growth backed by a repeatable strategy anyone can follow.

So, how did he do it? What’s his secret to growing a large, engaged audience in such a short time? 

I dug into Dominic’s approach to uncover his exact process—from priming your account to analyzing your results. Here’s the full story behind what worked (and what didn’t), plus the step-by-step framework you can use to grow your own audience from scratch.

Why We Started From Zero 

At Stan, our mission is simple—to empower anyone to make a living working for themselves. And for most, that starts with one essential first step: building an audience.

That’s why we launched this account. Sure, we wanted to grow our authority in the Creator education space. But we also wanted to experience the same journey Creators face: starting from zero, navigating the algorithm, and learning what actually works in 2025.

We wanted to live it, then share everything we’re learned so Creators like you could replicate it.

So Dominic started from zero. No legacy followers. No boosted posts. No existing content library. Just one goal: build a high-quality Creator education page in 30 days and document everything.

Why We Built a Faceless Account

Dominic decided early on to make the account faceless. Not because of its growing popularity, but because it’s what he knows. Before @creatorstrategies, Dominic successfully grew accounts like @thoughtsmagnet and @housemusicmagnet to hundreds of thousands of followers without ever showing his face.

Why faceless? Partly because he isn’t comfortable showing up on camera… yet 🫣

But also because creating high-quality content at scale is much more difficult when you’re the central focus. Faceless accounts appeal to a broader audience by design because they aren’t associated with a specific person or personality. Viewers are left to solely focus on the content itself.

“When you show up on camera, you surrender yourself to likeability and people’s personal preferences in a much different way than with faceless accounts,” Dominic adds.

Dominic has only proven this strategy with faceless accounts, but that’s not to say it can’t work for any Creator. An account’s growth trajectory is, at the end of the day, subjective. Creators like Chloe Shih are proving that showing up as yourself has just as much potential for rapid organic growth as a faceless account.

The Pros and Cons of Faceless Accounts

Faceless accounts can be a strategic starting point for Creators who want to focus purely on content quality and account growth, but they come with some trade-offs.

The Benefits:

• They’re lower pressure, allowing you to create freely without worrying about your camera presence or personal branding.
  
• They’re easier to scale because you can create content faster by repurposing visuals, B-roll, or trending footage instead of filming from scratch.
  
• They have a broader appeal, keeping the focus on your idea or message, not the individual behind it.
  
• They give you more privacy and flexibility, which is ideal if you want to keep your personal life separate or build multiple pages for different niches.
  

The Disadvantages:

• They limit personal connections. It’s usually harder to build trust and deeper connections with an audience when you’re not showing your face or personality.
  
• They can result in fewer monetization options. Some Creator opportunities, like brand partnerships or speaking engagements, rely on having a visible personal brand and authentic voice—which is harder to achieve with a faceless account.
  
• They’re more competitive. Faceless accounts are easier to replicate, so standing out demands exceptional content quality or a distinct creative angle.
  

Many Creators start faceless and later transition to showing up on camera once they’ve built confidence or established an audience. You don’t have to choose between one or the other—you just need to decide what supports your goals right now.

The Instagram Growth Playbook at a Glance

Here’s a quick strategy for growing an Instagram account from scratch:

1. Lay your foundation. Define your goals, positioning, and target audience.
2. Verify your account status. Make sure your account is up to Instagram’s standards.
3. Prime your account. Teach the algorithm your niche before publishing.
4. Post consistently. Set a cadence you can stick to, but don’t obsess over volume.
5. Track what matters. Watch time and shares beat likes.
6. Test and learn. Use data to refine your content, experiment, and stay adaptable.
7. Evolve with intention. Once you’ve built momentum, shift from growth to depth.

Your 7-Step Playbook to 15K Follower Growth

We’re going behind the scenes of Dominic’s success—breaking down each step he took, why he took it, and the highs and lows he faced along the way. 

Step 1: Lay The Foundation

Dominic didn’t immediately create an account and start posting. First, he clarified his priorities. Even though he wanted to grow a following quickly, his focus wasn’t on vanity metrics. It was on building an audience that’s truly interested in Creator-Entrepreneurship. 

So before posting a single piece of content, he defined three critical elements:

• His goal (what the account’s purpose is): He eventually wants to use the page to drive traffic to Stan, build a waitlist for Stanley, and share our educational blog content. So his primary goal is to foster brand awareness among the Creator-Entrepreneur community.
  
• His positioning (the focus of his content): He wants the account to become known as an authority in Creator education. By breaking down viral videos and how to replicate them, he’ll teach Creators how to be more successful with their social content.
  
• His target ICP (his ideal customer profile): His goal is to attract Creators who are interested in growth and monetization—the kind of people who could genuinely benefit from using Stan and Stanley.

Defining these upfront helped solidify his strategy, grounding every decision that followed.

Step 2: Verify Your Account Status

When Dominic launched the @creatorstrategies account, the first thing he did was check the account’s status within the Instagram app. This helps verify that his account is healthy, warmed up, and ready to post—and ensures Instagram isn’t flagging it as a bot.

If Instagram believes your account doesn’t align with its standards, it can harm your growth by limiting your reach, features, and monetization capabilities. That’s why making sure your account status is ‘in the green’ is a crucial first step.

If you’re ever unsure or concerned about your account’s performance, you can:

1. Navigate to Settings and activity in the top corner of your app
2. Select Account Status
3. Verify all sections within your Account Status dashboard have a green checkmark. If they don’t, click into each section to learn more about the issues Instagram flagged your account for so you can resolve them

If your account status is green, it means you don’t need to make updates to your account to improve your performance—you just need to iterate on your content.

Step 3: Prime The Account

What Dominic did next surprised me. After verifying @creatorstrategies was healthy, he didn’t post anything for the first few days or follow other accounts. Instead, he spent one hour each day scrolling his social feed. 

But this wasn’t mindless scrolling—he was training the algorithm. 

“I specifically looked for content in our niche—videos about content strategy, Creator monetization, and growing a following. I was liking and saving 10-20 posts per day.”

He avoided engaging with anything else. No random travel clips, memes, or unrelated videos. Just Creator-first content that aligns with the account’s priorities.

“This process ensures that when we finally post, Instagram will place those first videos in front of the most relevant audiences. I always do this when launching a new account.”

Priming the account wasn’t about who Dominic followed (which he says doesn’t play a role in account relevance or growth). It was about the content he engaged with. By the time he uploaded his first Reel, he’d already built relevance that told Instagram’s algorithm the page was all about Creator education. 

And not only that, it started feeding him viral Creator strategies that aligned with the type of content he wanted to post, which he could leverage as inspiration and content for his breakdowns.

Step 4: Build a Repeatable Content Strategy

Once the account was primed, Dominic decided the best way to meet his lofty goals was through sheer volume, developing a strategy that would give his content the best chance of being seen. 

He set an ambitious goal to post three times per day for 30 days. To hit that kind of volume without burning out, he kept his content strategy hyper-focused and repeatable—breaking down proven viral tactics and turning them into short, educational Reels that Creators could learn from.

Of course, posting consistently is only one piece of the equation. Real growth comes from sharing quality content and keeping a pulse on what actually works, so Dominic set strict benchmarks to gauge the effectiveness of every post.

Setting the Bar for Great Content

Dominic outlined specific parameters and key performance indicators (KPIs) to maintain top-quality content and track his success:

Step 5: Create Consistent High-Quality Content

At this point, Dominic was ready to start creating. As a fully faceless page, the content creation process differed from most Creators. Instead of filming himself, he needed to source viral videos. 

And since our content relies on narration layered over borrowed clips rich in educational value, he had to repeatedly:

1. Find and download a viral video, which is much easier thanks to account priming. Now, the algorithm feeds Dominic new viral videos in our niche daily. And once he finds a video he wants to share, he uses a free tool called cobalt.tools to seamlessly download it.
   
   
2. Analyze its mechanics to figure out why it performed well so he can break it down.
   
   
3. Write a script that clearly explains why the video works as a Creator strategy and how to create your own.
   
   
4. Generate custom audio using ElevenLabs, ensuring it aligns well with each video. Dominic used the $22/month Creator Plan, which gave him everything he needed to customize a pre-made voice and use the text-to-speech feature, turning his scripts into voiceovers. ElevenLabs makes it easy to export pre-made voices or create your own, with sliders to adjust the voice’s pacing, exaggeration, and similarity (how closely the voice mimics the text’s written style).
   
   
5. Edit the video so that it feels authentic and original—not just a simple voiceover of someone else’s content. Dominic uses CapCut’s desktop app for simple video editing and Canva to create Reel covers, so everything looks consistent.
   

This process took Dominic 1-2 hours on average per post. Once he created his first few videos and landed on a high-performing style for the page, he was able to speed up content creation by using a rinse-and-repeat format that allowed him to produce multiple videos at a time.

Step 6: Test and Learn

Like any great approach, Dominic kept his strategy adaptable—using real-time data and experiments to inform his next move. 

He regularly referred back to his KPIs, primarily looking at the:

• Watch time % so he knew how long people were viewing his content
• 3-second retention %, which told him whether his video hooks were resonating
• View-to-follow ratio to understand if his content was successfully reaching a high volume of non-followers and driving them to follow the account

Dominic’s go-to app for tracking performance is Meta’s Edits app, which gives a deeper look into analytics than Instagram’s native tools. With the Edits app, he can quickly see his 3-section retention rate (also known as ‘skip rate’) and the metrics needed to calculate his watch time percentage and view-to-follow ratio.

For example, here are the analytics behind one of Dominic’s Reels. His skip rate is 24.68%, indicating that over 75% of viewers watched the first 3 seconds of his video, and his hook successfully held their attention.

To calculate the video’s watch time percentage, he uses a simple formula:

Average watch time / Total video length x 100 = Watch time %

The average viewer watched this video for 17.29 seconds, and the video was only 39 seconds long, so his watch time percentage was 45.5%. This indicates that his video successfully engaged viewers, with most watching roughly half of it before scrolling away. 

Finally, he calculates how well his content is reaching non-followers with this ratio:

Total number of views / Total new followers = View-to-follow ratio

Dominic received 614,966 views and 11,634 new followers from this video alone, so his view-to-follow ratio for the video is 1 follower for every 53 views (a crazy high ratio compared to average!)

To put these learnings into practice, Dominic leaned heavily on Instagram’s Trial Reels feature.

Real-Time Experiments with Trail Reels

Once the @creatorstrategies account hit 1,000 followers, Dominic unlocked Trial Reels—an Instagram feature that allows you to try new content with non-followers to see what performs best. It’s an incredibly powerful, low-pressure testing environment, especially when you’re just starting and are learning what resonates with your audience.

The beauty of Trial Reels is that they don’t appear in your profile unless you want them to, so you can consistently use them to test fresh ideas without impacting your profile’s appearance or followers’ experience.

“I feel strongly that everyone who has Trial Reels unlocked should use them daily to try new hooks or formats. We posted five Trial Reels over 30 days, each getting around 2,000 views. If a Trial Reel performs well, you can choose to promote it to your actual feed later so your followers can see it.”

Step 7: Decide When to Pivot

Although rapid account growth is his short-term focus, he’s always looking for opportunities to make adjustments for the account’s long-term success. 

For Dominic, that meant:

1. Improving the content’s branding by swapping out the original black color palette used in his first videos with a warmer Stan-branded appearance.
   
   
2. Changing the username from @shortformstrategies to @creatorstrategies so he can use the page to cover a broader range of Creator education, which is crucial for driving long-term impact.
   
   
3. Archiving older posts that no longer aligned with the voice or style he landed on—he wants content to feel consistent.

The Challenges We Faced

Of course, growth wasn’t without its challenges. Over the course of the month, Dominic felt constant pressure to keep hooks and breakdowns fresh—with an extremely limited pool of videos with over 100 million views to choose from.

And certain aspects of growing a faceless account made the technical side of content creation incredibly challenging, like creating an AI voice that sounded natural. In fact, Dominic ended up archiving his first few videos because they used a different, less appealing AI voice.

His first videos struggled to gain traction, averaging a mere 200-1,000 views. “There’s a certain level of patience required before Instagram starts pushing your content harder,” he shared candidly.

But the biggest challenge Dominic faced? Staying consistent when life got busy. 

Like many Creators, Dominic mapped out his initial strategy with the intention of dedicating plenty of time and effort to it throughout the month. But then life happened—he got pulled into other projects and had to juggle content creation with competing priorities.

It suddenly became hard to stick to his initial goal of three posts per day. In reality, he never exceeded two posts per day—and his average was one post every other day.

Despite posting less frequently than he’d hoped, the account continued to grow.

🚀 Dominic hit 15,000 followers with just 20 posts.
🤯 And 20,000 followers with just 28 posts.

It’s proof that growth isn’t just about quantity—it’s about the quality of what you’re posting and the strategy behind it.

The Result: 15,000+ Followers in 30 Days

Thirty days and over 15,000 followers later, Dominic successfully tackled exactly what he set out to do: rapidly scale an Instagram account from scratch.

In the account’s first week, he gained 2,000 followers and 125,000 total views, with his first video reaching nearly 100,000 views. His lifetime view-to-follow ratio remains incredibly high, bringing in 20 followers for every 1,000 views. 

And this is just the beginning. Week after week, the account’s growth continues to compound with no signs of slowing down.

What’s Next: Evolving Beyond the First 30 Days

After a month of rapid growth, Dominic’s focus is shifting from pure momentum to strategic refinement. The first 30 days were all about reach, attracting as many aligned followers as possible through simple, shareable content. 

And that approach worked as a starting point. But as the page continues to grow, the next phase is all about building depth. Here’s where Dominic is focusing his efforts next and how you can apply the same mindset to your own account when it starts gaining traction.

Balancing Audience Demographics

One of Dominic’s first priorities is rebalancing the account’s audience demographics by diversifying the AI voices and Creators he features. Right now, the demographics skew heavily male, likely because our most viral content featured male Creators and a male AI voice. So he plans on experimenting with a new AI voice in ElevenLabs.

When a page isn’t balanced demographics-wise, you run the risk of accidentally filtering out great ICPs, so our goal is to achieve as close to a 50/50 gender split as possible. 

Doubling Down on Quality and Value

Once an account gains traction, volume alone isn’t enough. That’s why Dominic plans to gradually reduce his posting frequency to 1-2 posts per day while increasing its quality and value density. 

For Creators, this is the moment to slow down to refine your systems, strengthen your storytelling, and ensure you’re creating the highest quality content possible. At the end of the day, building an audience that genuinely aligns with your goals is much more valuable than chasing surface-level reach.

Expanding Our Content Focus

Dominic wants to gradually rebrand the account from simply focusing on short-form strategies to a broader range of Creator education topics. So as the account grows past ~50,000 followers, he’ll start layering in topics like digital products, monetization, and email marketing—helping Creators not just grow their audience, but build a business around it.

Turning Reach Into Relationships

Over the next few months, Dominic will start introducing more educational carousels and personality-driven content that humanizes the brand and establishes the account as a true educational hub for Creators.

That means shifting away from solely producing faceless content and Reels, introducing a wider variety of content formats, voices, and styles.

“The first 30 days were about proving what’s possible. Now it’s about building something sustainable—something Creators can actually learn from, not just watch.”

The Big Picture

Dominic’s growth wasn’t an accident. It was the result of proven strategy, consistent execution, and a willingness to adapt fast. He followed the data, refined his process, and treated every post like an experiment. That’s how he went from a brand-new page to 15,000 followers in one month.

Not by posting every day or perfectly sticking to his strategy, but by being intentional about every single post. It’s proof that you don’t need an existing audience or perfect conditions to grow. You just need to start with a plan, track what works, and evolve when it doesn’t.

Because growth isn’t random—it’s strategic.

That’s why I’m sharing this story. Not to say that everyone will grow to 15,000 followers at the same pace, but to show that the same principles can help any Creator build momentum faster than you’d think.

So whether you’re starting from zero or looking to reinvent how you create, let this serve as your reminder that success isn’t always linear. With the right strategy, mindset, and persistence, you can achieve extraordinary results on your own timeline.