I feel like I’m trying so hard to grow on Instagram but nothing is working and I’m getting overwhelmed

Hi everyone,
I’m new to posting content on Instagram and I’m honestly feeling really stuck and overwhelmed.

I run a page where I share content about my journey as an actor and my screenplay, which is based around ancient Egypt/egyptology. I also sometimes post personal experiences and thoughts from my life and creative process.

The issue is that even though people in real life tell me they like my videos and think they’re good, I’m not getting views or followers online. It feels like my content just disappears into nothing once I post it.

I keep seeing other people grow or go viral and it makes me feel like maybe I’m just not capable of making content that performs well. I know I’m new to this, but it still feels discouraging and kind of unfair because I’m trying really hard and it doesn’t seem to translate online at all.

On top of that, filming and posting has started to make me feel really anxious. I overthink everything, and sometimes I feel panicked before I even post because I don’t know what I’m doing wrong or how to improve fast enough.

I genuinely care about what I’m creating, especially my screenplay and acting journey, but I feel lost on how to turn that into content people actually see.

If anyone has been through this or has advice on what I might be doing wrong, how I should use instagram stories properly for more engagement or how to stop overthinking it so much, I’d really appreciate it. Fore those interested in taking a look at my profile.

@filmedbyteodora

Comments

bolerbox•about 2 months ago•2

the anxiety usually gets worse when every post is treated like a verdict on your talent.

i'd separate creative work from distribution work. keep making the actor/screenplay stuff, but turn each idea into 3 simple formats: one face-to-camera thought, one behind-the-scenes clip, one short egyptology hook tied back to the story. don't judge the account until you've posted that consistently for 30 days.

stories are better for relationship, not discovery. use them for messy process, polls, and replies, but let reels do the reach work.

mydrop_ai•about 2 months ago•2

Did you try simplifying posting instead of increasing output? I'm the founder of Mydrop AI, the Social Management tool with 12k users so I see this a lot Feeling overwhelmed is normal when metrics feel unpredictable Focus one week on a single content format & reuse top ideas Use Content Scheduling to lock a simple weekly rhythm & spend time replying to followers

mydrop_ai•about 2 months ago•2

That burnout is brutal, I was stuck there too so simplify: pick one content format and one audience to test for 4 weeks
Batch content, set small weekly limits so it doesn't eat you, and double down on posts that get saves or shares instead of chasing vanity metrics

AutoModerator•about 2 months ago•1

If this post doesn't follow the rules, please report it to the mods.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Evening_Hawk_7470•about 2 months ago•1

Stop treating the algorithm like a talent scout and start treating it like a vending machine that only accepts specific, high-friction currency.

nobsmentor•about 2 months ago•1

Honestly I think one of the hardest parts about starting content now is that people compare their “chapter 1” to creators who already spent years learning audience behavior, storytelling, hooks, pacing, editing, platform culture, all of it.

And when you care deeply about the thing you’re posting about, low reach feels weirdly personal.

But from what you described, I don’t think your issue is lack of passion or creativity.

It sounds more like the content positioning still isn’t translating clearly to strangers scrolling fast.

“acting journey + screenplay + ancient Egypt + personal thoughts”

can probably feel emotionally scattered to new viewers even if it all makes sense inside your head.

The people growing fastest usually make it VERY easy for viewers to instantly understand:

what the account is about
what emotional experience they’ll get
why they should come back

And honestly, ancient Egypt/acting/screenwriting actually has strong potential visually and emotionally. But the content probably needs stronger framing.

Like instead of:

“here’s my screenplay journey”

“details Hollywood gets wrong about ancient Egypt”
“POV: auditioning for a character from ancient Egypt”
“building an ancient Egypt film universe as an unknown actor”
“things I learned researching Egyptian mythology for my script”
“how movies romanticize ancient Egypt”

That creates clearer curiosity loops for strangers.

Also stories are less about polished engagement tricks and more about building familiarity.

People follow creators they start recognizing repeatedly over time.

And honestly? You’re probably overestimating how “behind” you are.

Most creators look invisible for way longer than people realize before something finally clicks.

More like this

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE INSTAGRAM ALGORITHM IN 2026

When you post, Instagram doesn't evaluate your content all at once. Distribution is continuous and adaptive. The system is constantly re-ranking your post based on signals it collects over time. Early engagement matters a lot, but posts can pick up hours or even days later, especially Reels. It's not a single batch test. It's an ongoing one. What you need to understand is that the algorithm is always watching the same core signals, and most people are optimizing for the wrong ones. **What actually moves the needle** Instagram's CEO confirmed this year that three signals are driving distribution more than anything else right now. Watch time is number one by a significant margin. Viewers decide within about 1.7 seconds whether to keep watching. If people are dropping off in the first 3 seconds, your post dies. If they make it past 50%, that's a strong signal. If they rewatch, that's explosive. Your retention curve is more important than your like count, full stop. Second is likes per reach, meaning the percentage of people who actually liked your post out of everyone who saw it. This matters more for reaching your existing followers than for growing to new audiences. Third, and this is the one most people are underestimating, is DM shares. When someone sends your post to a friend, Instagram treats it as a stronger endorsement than a like or even a comment. It signals that your content is worth recommending to strangers. Every post should have a built-in "send this to someone who needs it" moment, intentionally. If you're still optimizing primarily for likes in 2026, you're behind. **The format breakdown** Reels are for reaching new people. Carousels and photos are for your existing followers. Stories are for keeping those followers from leaving. They're not interchangeable. They serve completely different purposes in the algorithm. Carousels are underrated right now. Instagram does re-rank posts over time, which means a carousel that didn't land on the first impression can get another shot. The takeaway: make every slide worth stopping on, not just the first. Stories aren't optional if retention matters to you. Accounts that post consistently to Stories see meaningfully fewer unfollows. Stories keep your existing audience warm while your Reels pull new people in. **What you should actually be doing** Forget posting volume targets. Quality is the prerequisite. High frequency with low quality lowers your retention metrics and actively hurts your distribution. Run this instead: Every day: one high-quality Reel with a hook in the first 2 seconds and a clear share trigger built in, plus 3 to 5 Story frames to stay visible and keep your audience connected. Three to four times a week: a carousel optimized for saves and shares, something educational, useful, or worth returning to. Every single post should pass three checks before it goes out. Does the hook land in under 2 seconds? Is there one clear idea? Is there a reason someone would send this to a friend? **On niche consistency** Your last 9 to 12 posts define how Instagram categorizes your account. The algorithm rewards tight topic focus and punishes accounts that drift between unrelated content. Whatever angle you've built your account around, stay in it consistently. It's not about being in a broad niche. It's about having a distinct point of view within one. A hundred fitness creators exist. Only a few have a perspective that's immediately recognizable. That's the real differentiator. **Where I've seen this work** I grew from 100 followers to 360k using these principles. Grew 10+ accounts from 0 to 10k and sold most of them. The process was the same every time: understand what the algorithm is currently rewarding, make content that earns retention and shares, stay consistent for months not weeks, and adjust based on what the data tells you. It's not exciting. It's a system. Systems win. **TLDR** This post blew up last time so I'm bringing it back with answers to the most common questions I got. Before anything else, few things I wish someone told me earlier: 1. **Consistency** is the only thing that actually matters. I know everyone says this and everyone ignores it. That's literally why most people fail. The people winning are not smarter than you, they just didn't quit. 2. Video quality matters more than most people admit. Drop CapCut, get Adobe Premiere or hire an editor. Skip Fiverr, find editors in **Discord communities** instead, way cheaper and actually good. 3. Stop wasting hours on scripts, hooks, and hunting for content ideas manually. I use **SocialHunt** for all of that. You can train it on viral content in your niche and it handles the research and scripting side so you can just focus on filming. 4. Use **Superflow** to handle distribution, workflows, and repetitive ops. If you’re doing things manually, you’re capping growth.

3 months ago

255

Any people that runs 100 to 10k followers pages (any social media)?

Hey all, I own a business that involves many clients that promote their product, art or website with TikTok (also Instagram, Youtube and Facebook). I want to offer them a way to post their content, or to get content created and posted for them on existing TikTok pages. Basically you got pages in a specific theme (sport, anime, cinema, culture, memes...) and you rent it for a specific period of time. You get paid every month, and all you have to do is basically connecting the account once to our system. You can opt-out anytime you want, you keep the full ownership of the account. That's basically a way to monetize your pages passively. For now I'm doing it myself with my own pages (3 tiktok pages with 500 to 3k followers, and 1 6k subscribers Youtube channel), I made around $800 renting these for less than a month. If someone is interested, please comment or DM!

3 months ago

222

Everything dying at 300 views for so long before I finally caught the problem

I've been absolutely obsessed with short form content for the last two years. Like people have staged actual interventions about my health level of obsessed. I'm talking 11-14 hour days breaking down what separates successful videos from failures, experimenting with different hook variations, rewriting scripts until my brain hurts, testing every editing approach I could possibly get my hands on. Why this level of obsession? Because I'm absolutely certain short form video is the backbone of everything right now. Growing followers, selling anything, generating opportunities, creating brands from nothing. Every part of it depends on whether you can hold someone's attention for 30 seconds. But here's what nearly made me quit entirely: despite the constant daily grind, nothing was hitting. I'd pour 7-8 hours into crafting one video only to watch it crash at 300 views. Tried every tactic from every person claiming to have figured it out. Bought their courses. Applied their "proven" methods. Still going nowhere. I seriously started thinking maybe I'm just not the type of person who can make this work. Like maybe there's some fundamental ability I'm completely lacking. Then something clicked. I'm grinding constantly, but I'm operating completely blind. I don't actually know what's broken. I'm essentially just trying random things hoping something eventually works. So I stopped hunting for some mythical viral code and started analyzing actual data. Analyzed my last 50 videos second by second, documented every retention drop, and discovered 5 consistent patterns that were systematically killing my performance: 1. **Vague mysterious hooks are totally invisible** "This will transform you..." gets scrolled past every time. But "I used resistance bands for 55 days and my shoulder mobility actually decreased" stops people mid scroll. Specific concrete details destroy vague teasing without exception. 2. **Seconds 5-7 are where everything gets decided** Most viewers leave between 4-7 seconds if you haven't proven it's worth watching. I was creating slow buildups like a complete amateur. Now my strongest visual or most compelling number arrives exactly at second 5. That's where the hook that genuinely holds people. 3. **Any gap beyond 1 second absolutely kills your retention** Tracked this obsessively, anything past 1.2 seconds makes people think the video stopped. What feels like natural comfortable pacing to you reads as complete dead time to someone scrolling. Cut significantly tighter than feels normal. 4. **Visual variety is absolutely critical** If nothing changes on screen for more than 3 seconds, attention vanishes without warning. I started constantly rotating camera angles, cutting to b-roll, moving text placement, literally anything to maintain constant visual movement. Went from losing 50% at the halfway mark to keeping 70%. 5. **Rewatch rate is dramatically more important than most people realize** Videos people watch more than once get pushed exponentially harder by the algorithm. Started planting subtle details that aren't obvious first viewing, editing faster, adding elements worth discovering on rewatch. Rewatch percentage jumped from 8% to 31% and reach went completely through the roof. Honestly the biggest shift was abandoning all guesswork and actually measuring what was happening at every second. Came across this one app that goes way beyond showing where people drop off, it literally tells you why and exactly how to correct it. That's when everything transformed. Went from averaging 300 views to hitting 18k in about 4 weeks. Regular analytics show you people are leaving. This one shows the exact second, the actual reason, and what to adjust before your next post. If you're uploading consistently but stuck below 1k views, your content isn't the problem. You just don't know what's genuinely working versus what you assume is working. Listen, I'm sharing this because breaking through was honestly one of the hardest things I've tackled. I really wish someone had just explained exactly what needed fixing when I was stuck there. Would have saved months of confusion and doubt. So that's what I'm doing now for anyone who needs it.

4 months ago

221