Not a creator, but from a design side, one thing that usually separates the reel that gets 28k from the ones that get 500 (when the conteent itself is comparable) is visual consistency across the profile. Most creators focus purely on the individual reel and treat the grid, thumbnails, and cover frames as afterthoughts. But when someone lands on a viral reel and clicks your profile, what they see in the next two seconds decides if they follow or bounce.
Concretely: consistent thumbnail treatment (same font, same crop style, same color logic across all covers), a recognizable visual identity that carries from one reel to the next even at thumbnail size, and grid layout that reads as an intentional feed rather than a random dump. That singles 28k reel probably got clicks but not follows because when people arrived, nothing else looked like it belonged to the same creator.
Not a magic fix, but way more compounding than chasing the next viral format. Consistent visual identity is what turns one lucky reel into a channel.