How do I grow a local Instagram account for free?

The simplest free tactic I know: follow 20 to 25 local businesses a day. It grows followers and puts you in front of business owners at the same time. It doubles as soft business development.

The bigger reason Instagram works for free is the algorithm. It puts good local content in front of people for free. Nobody watches local TV anymore, so a good local account becomes the new local TV station.

What should a local account post?

The news people are already talking about. New stores like a Costco or a Trader Joe's are the most talked-about stories. Even news that's still just dirt counts. If a taco place was announced on a road everyone drives, make a video about it.

Legacy outlets get the press release, but they don't post on Instagram. You can own that channel.

"Owning the information on a specific channel doesn't mean you had to get it originally."

A few formats that keep working:

• Local tied to national. Find a local angle on something happening nationally, timed to it. One creator had AI make an image of his city upside down for a big streaming show's season premiere and got a lot of views. A Texas town of about 30,000 posted a guy dressed like Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation saying he'd come to town. It got about a million views.
• Engaging questions. If you had $100, what restaurant would you spend it at? Which closed restaurant do you miss most? What restaurant do you wish we had? These work as static posts, without anyone on camera.
• Events with a voice. Instead of just a top-five-events graphic, talk through them: this one looks super fun, I might take my family.

Don't make it all ads, even if sponsors would pay for that. Post local news and openings so people like the channel, then make every third or fourth video an ad, as fun as you can make it.

What formats save time?

You've probably heard of the Instagram green-screen video. I really believe it's the path to real success on Instagram. A guest on my podcast got nearly 500 new followers within days from one green-screen reel. My local creator makes about one a day.

• The desk video. One creator I showed a client just sits at his desk, flips between a couple of web pages and talks about what's going on in town, repurposed from the newsletter. About 20 minutes each. Sometimes they just pop off.
• Batching. Take four hours once every two weeks, film nine places, and that's your content for the next two weeks or more.
• The weekly mix. One or two in-person videos a week, like a restaurant opening or a giveaway, then fill the rest with carousels made from home.

Locally, you don't need to be great. Almost nobody makes decent short video about your town or its business community, so you just need to be competent and get better later. One operator I know hired a local video creator and hit 3 million views in two months with content I'd call not great, but definitely good. His result, not mine.

How do you get engagement when you're small?

Giveaways. When you're starting small, engagement is hard, so get businesses to donate prizes. I talked to about seven businesses (concert venues, restaurants, hotels) and every single one was up for giving us free stuff, because it's basically advertising for them. Then promote it: share our page with three friends and you're entered to win.

Tagging helps too. Another guest's tip: tag the business, invite them as an Instagram collaborator, and tag the physical location. That helps neighborhood reach and gets the business to reshare.

Stunts can work. I learned about cash drops (hide cash, post clues) from a company in Austin, and a newsletter owner in Baltimore went nuts with them. When we tried one, it was found within 15 minutes, even though we'd hidden it in a weird place on purpose.

When an organic post takes off, boost it once with about $30. Not a daily spend, just a one-time push behind something that's already working.

How long does it take?

Maybe fast, maybe not. I know people who get 2,000 followers in a day from one post. I only have about 6,000 after two years, but we also don't post very much.

Follower count matters less than it used to. The platforms want to push local content, and they push whatever gets engagement. Locally that's easier, because there's way less engaging content to compete with.

You can't predict which post pops off, so take more shots on goal. Someone I talked to threw together a copycat local joke post in two minutes and gained over 2,000 newsletter subscribers. He had about 4,000 at the time, so that's a 50% bump from one silly post.

My advice: give yourself 30 days of one quality post a day and see what happens. If there's no traction, bail. I bet you'll get some.

One account or several, and what about Facebook?

If you have to pick one, focus on Instagram. Meta Business Suite lets you post to Facebook and Instagram together, but it blocks tagging and direct messages, so someone still needs direct Instagram access.

Fewer accounts is usually better, because the algorithm finds people for you. When I worked through a national-plus-local setup, the answer was to keep separate newsletters but run one Instagram. Post the national stuff daily, add one or two local posts a week, and the algorithm will show those to local people. Once the local newsletter is crushing, launch a local account. It's easier to go from a big audience down to a smaller one.

Facebook is still worth it for groups. So many people are on Facebook for groups, and that's the reason I'm on it. But don't start a Facebook group without a real seeding strategy. An empty group feels dead and hurts the brand. One local operator told me her moderated 7,000-member group removes agent spam, unlike a competing 2,700-member group that isn't moderated.

Be careful who gets logins. One partner of mine lost Meta access for two months after an overseas virtual assistant logged in.

Why does Instagram matter for a newsletter?

Two reasons: subscribers and ad sales.

Get attention on Instagram, then push people to the newsletter's subscribe page, not just the website. A tool like ManyChat can turn followers into subscribers.

For ads, views are proof. That Texas town brand can now tell advertisers it got 1.5 million views last month, and that's why a business should pay $300 for a reel. Will their reel get a million? Probably not. The point is you've shown you can make content people watch. The operators I talk to who are doing well on Instagram all say it's important for selling ads. And what works in one town usually works everywhere.