After losing followers on social media for the last two years, I decided enough was enough. I didn’t know why I was losing followers, and I didn’t know how to get new ones, but I knew that something had to change. So I got to work.

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I blew up there recently. One post got 1.7 million views!! And it’s still growing! And it’s all because I let my content evolve into something shareable. And if I can do it, you can do it too. 

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about how to grow on Instagram in 2026. Yes, it is still possible. Yes, you can do it today. Instagram isn’t known for making its users super viral like other platforms are. But if you want to share valuable insights and enrich your community, your follower count will grow just like mine did. Listen to this week’s episode to hear what I did differently and how you can do the same for your content. 

Resources Mentioned:
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Follow Erika on:
Instagram @‌theerikacruz
TikTok @‌theerikacruz
LinkedIn

Website:
http://www.theerikacruz.com

How to work with Erika:

Sign up to join the free training, How I Manifested My First 10K Followers by Building a Personal Brand, on Monday, March 9th 

Join the waitlist for the Courage Driven Latina program here!

Join the waitlist for the Magnetic Mastermind here!

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST, an Afro-Latina-owned boutique podcast production and copywriting studio. 

Episode Transcript:

Erika: Hello. Hello. Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. This week I want to talk about something that I keep [00:01:00] hearing over and over again, and it is this objection around, Erika. You’ve been talking about personal branding, you’ve been talking about creating content. You’ve been talking about showing up.

But I feel like it is too late and the market is too saturated. Maybe you have the belief that the time to grow on TikTok has already passed, or maybe you believe that Instagram is extra saturated and it is just so hard to grow, and unless you started two years ago, you’re all out of luck. Or maybe you’re telling yourself there’s already somebody out there who’s creating content.

About financial literacy for women of color, for example. Or maybe you’re saying there’s already a dating coach for women of color for Latinas, or there’s already a person doing X, Y, and Z, which is what I want to do. Well, all of these are just objections and excuses that are hiding behind fear, and that is the fear of showing up.

Your brain is telling you. The false belief, [00:02:00] it’s not even a fact. It’s telling you that there’s already too many people out there and that there’s no point in doing what you are going to do. Can you imagine if I decided I’m not going to start the Jing Na Revolution podcast because I already know of five Latina podcasters, or can you imagine if I decided, yeah, I’m just not going to start my program, courage Driven Latina, because there’s already a bunch of Latina coaches out there.

I would be depriving hundreds of thousands of listeners of this podcast. The transformation, the stories, the insights that they’ve gotten by just listening to this podcast and the over 300 clients that I’ve been through my program. Would not have experienced the transformation they have. So while our fear is keeping us from showing up, a lot of times when we don’t show up, we’re depriving the person that could be experiencing our transformation.

We are depriving them of transformation. [00:03:00] And the most interesting thing is that. It’s not too late. You’re just negotiating with your fear. And a lot of people will call this being realistic. And if you’re watching the video of this, I have realistic in quotations. People will tell you that you need to be realistic or maybe you’re telling yourself that you need to be realistic, and the truth is that nothing is.

Unachievable. I mean, we’ve seen that with Bad Bunny. He literally, 10 years ago was bagging groceries. Now he has won three Grammys, including Album of the Year, first ever album to do that in Spanish. And then we saw him at Super Bowl, and he specifically said, the only reason I’m here is because I never stop believing in myself, and you shouldn’t either.

So this idea of, oh my gosh, let me just be realistic because. Of all valid reasons, right? Because I maybe have a family because I have bills to pay. Yeah. Nobody’s telling you to go burn your life upside down. [00:04:00] Right? And just go create content and forget about everything else. Stay at your job, do all these other things that you’re already doing that make you feel safe.

But if you have this desire to show up to create content, but you’re telling yourself that it’s too late, I invite you. To challenge that belief. I invite you to think differently because trust me, this is from somebody who has grown on social media, and then I was losing followers for the last two years instead of growing, and I had this belief as well.

I had this belief that I, it was, nobody cared anymore. It was just too late that I missed my boat because I didn’t stay consistent. On TikTok and that Instagram was just so difficult to grow, and the only time I was really able to grow my Instagram was when my TikTok was growing and people were coming from my TikTok to my Instagram.

I mean, I had all the thoughts, and this year I decided that I literally made the decision. I said. This is the year that I really give content [00:05:00] creation my all. Because when I was consistently creating content, I was connecting with so many amazing people. Opportunities came my way. I would get so many dms from people saying that that piece of content was exactly what they needed to hear.

So this wasn’t even coming from this place of like, I wanna be the star. It was totally coming from this place of. I know that I have a message to share, and I want to make sure that I don’t let my own limiting beliefs get in my way. When it comes to sharing and this idea of being realistic, it usually can show up in many different ways.

It shows up in comparison. So maybe you’ve been following somebody for a while and you’re comparing your content to their content, but. They’re on chapter 30 and you’re just on chapter one. Or maybe you’re telling yourself, oh my goodness, I need to have all of this equipment. I need the perfect mic.

I need the camera. Well, guess what, friends? I’m recording this podcast episode on my iPhone, and my iPhone is three years old at this point, and the quality of the video [00:06:00] is well. It records in 4K. As long as you wipe your lens, that’s all you need. I do have a little mic that I got for $99 on Amazon, and I’ve been using it the entire time that I’ve had 

 this podcast show. And sometimes when I’m traveling, you know what I use. I just use the wired apple headphones that go into my computer because it works better than wireless. Start with what you have. Remove any obstacles that stop you from feeling like you’re not ready to start just yet. And don’t compare your chapter one to somebody else’s chapter 15 or 50.

That would be like me comparing myself to Mel Robbins or to Jay Shetty, who are people I admire. But I also understand that we’re at different stages. They literally have entire productions, a production teams supporting them. I’m recording this podcast episode on my iPhone in my childhood room that I moved back into when I wanted to start this business.

So I’m letting myself be where I’m at. Another way that this be realistic can show up is through scarcity of like, [00:07:00] oh, somebody already followed those people so they’re not going to follow me. Friends, there is enough abundance in the world for us all. Think about how many new people you follow a day.

You’re probably finding new people to follow every single day. People are consuming content. That’s a whole nother topic, whether that’s good or bad, right? But people are on social media, and I truly believe that when women of color, when minorities, when individuals who are drawn to this podcast create content, we do make the world a better place because typically we want to come at it as a form of service.

We want to provide value, we want to maybe share the lessons that we’ve learned. And that is beautiful, and that creates so much, so much impact. Andthis lack and scarcity mindset stops us from sharing our magic. And you know, I told you not long ago, I was believing this because I grew pretty quickly on TikTok.

I grew on Instagram, and then over the [00:08:00] last two years it has been very hard to be consistent. What happened was, I can tell you, looking back now, what occurred for me. I ended up building a business because of my personal brand, which I’m so grateful for. And then I started running the business, and then the content creation was an afterthought.

The content creation was not my priority anymore because I li I had all these paying clients that were now. Waiting on me. I had the content here for the podcast, which is the free version of my content, and I also was figuring out, okay, how do I hire, how do I restructure certain things in my business?

How do I do my own accounting? How do I do my, I mean, there’s so much to learn when it comes to running a business. And when that, when my business grew so much, I then started working in the business and I neglected creating new content. I neglected the marketing. I neglected my personal brand, not because I didn’t care anymore, because my attention shifted elsewhere.[00:09:00] 

And this the end of last year, the end of 2025, I said, Nope. This is the year that I create content again, because content used to be so fun for me and I loved doing it, and I’m now making it a priority again. And I did. I totally dropped the ball in January because I was in Mexico almost the entire month.

A lot of stuff happened. A lot of stuff came up for me and I said I was going to be consistent and post almost every day. I think I posted a total of eight times, and those eight times were just like, whatever posts, they didn’t even do well. It because it was so just like whatever, like there was no intention in them. So when I got back from Mexico. Was, I believe February 2nd, maybe February 3rd, I was walking my dog Paloma on the trail. If you follow me on Instagram, then you see that Paloma and I go to the trail pretty consistently, and I recorded a video that I was going to edit and post that evening, and then I ended up getting busy with other things.

But the video pretty much talked about how [00:10:00] my goal is to reach 30,000 followers on Instagram, and it’s not even for the follower count. It was more that I wanted to prove to myself. That I can show up consistently, that I can create content, that I do have the manifestation power to serve and create demand, and all of those different things.

And I recorded that video and I said, you know, my goal is 30,000. I was currently at 24,000 followers. And I said, this may not seem like a big goal, but when I’ve, when you’ve been losing followers more than gaining followers. It feels like a stretch goal, and that is why I chose 30,000 because I did believe I could achieve it within this year, and I also was losing a ton of followers, so my belief was low.

I was like, nobody cares about my content anymore. I’ve lost my spark. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore. I mean, I had all the thoughts and this was just last month. So I made the decision, like I was very clear about making the decision. And [00:11:00] if you wanna create content, you literally have to decide.

But what’s happening with a lot of you is, yeah, you’re saying that you need to, that there’s, that there’s already too, that it’s too late. That’s one of the excuses that’s coming up. But the other thing that’s coming up for a lot of you is that you haven’t actually decided. You’re like, yeah, I want to, and then you get busy and you’re like, oh, I’ll get to it later.

I guess maybe. Maybe it’s not that big of a deal for me. Maybe I don’t have to do it just yet. And you’re almost negotiating with yourself. But the first step in manifesting is making a decision, deciding that you’re going to do it. And I want you to think about a time in your life in which you maybe were struggling with something, and then you finally were like, you know what, I’m gonna figure this out.

And then how quickly did you figure it out after you made that decision? And it’s the same thing with content creation. You have to decide that the market’s not saturated. You have somebody who’s in the market right now telling you it’s not saturated and you may wanna create similar content to mine, and guess what?

I need you to do it. [00:12:00] I’m not sitting here thinking, oh man, if somebody goes another Latina goes to go create self-development content and talks about mindfulness, then they’re gonna take people away from me and I don’t want them to come. No, that’s not what I believe at all. We live in an abundant world.

There are so many people who need to hear your story, your perspective, just like there are so many people who needed to hear mine when I had thoughts about showing up. [00:13:00] [00:14:00] 

So let’s go back to my story. I’m walking Paloma. I record this video, I make that decision, and a couple of days later, the Grammys occurred and I decided to share [00:15:00] Bad Bunny speech because he talked about how the only thing more powerful than hate is love. And if we wanna fight this fight, we have to do it differently, and we have to do it in in a more intelligent way. Pretty much what he was getting at was that, and I think I said this on maybe not last week’s episode, but the week before, I don’t know, one of the previous episodes I shared this, but you can’t find a solution to a problem at the same level of consciousness that you created the problem.

So in other words, we can’t meet violence with violence and then expect peace. You have to elevate from violence, which what he was saying was go from hate to love ’cause it’s the only thing that’s more powerful and lead with that. And when he said that I felt such, I felt like I was reignited. Something reignited in me because I’m a very spiritual person.

If you’ve been following this podcast, you already know this. I truly believe in manifestation. I’m a deep [00:16:00] person. I believe in consciousness. I believe in vibes. I believe in all that different stuff. I believe in energy and his speech moved something in me energetically. Where I was go, I was in this place of, it’s hard for me to show up.

All these ice raids are going on. This is so difficult. And after bad bunny speech, I was like, wait, I get to talk about my community in the way that I want to, and I’m gonna talk about it from this place of celebration and I’m gonna demonstrate what it’s like to be Latina. And that just switched everything for me.

And his speech was so relevant that when I reshared his speech and I added my own thoughts to it, that video ended up blowing up. And then I created another video. I’m like quickly looking up my, my Instagram here so that I can tell you exactly what I did. And then the next morning I was feeling so inspired that I ended up sharing a carousel post. Of all of the different screenshots I had screenshotted over the last 72 hours and I posted it as a Monday motivational post. And one of ’em was just [00:17:00] how what Bad Bunny’s quote was. The only thing more powerful than hate is love and just a lot of relatable stuff.

The next one said, I love being brown. Shit. Kind of dangerous, but it’s lit. Which I thought was so funny ’cause it is dangerous right now. Right? But we’re using comedy now. We’re using comedy to talk about this. And I started just sharing a lot of relatable stuff and a lot of like celebrating being Latina.

So my audience started to pick up a little bit and I was like, oh my gosh, maybe I’m gonna reach my 30,000, do 30,000 followers, I don’t know, by like summertime or something. And then I shared a whole carousel about how 10 years ago bad Bunny was working in a, in a supermarket. But today he’s one of the biggest artists in the world.

And this wasn’t luck. It was actually manifestation and here’s what we can learn from it. And then it was very informational, very on brand with my type of content. Well, long story short. I went from only posting eight times in January, and then when February came around I posted 1, [00:18:00] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and it’s only February 10th, so that means I was posting like two times a day.

And this wasn’t me hustling. This was me having so much fun with my content and knowing that I wanted to celebrate being Latina, and it just came from this whole different energy. I ended up creating memes. On my own in Canva 

The meme said things like, so I heard there’s a football game at the Bad Bunny concert on Sunday and just a bunch of different memes around Bad Bunny. And the Super Bowl and that got over, um, 1.7 million views. I’ve never had anything in the millions on Instagram, and from there, things just took off.

Then once bad Bunny’s performance occurred, I added my own thoughts to that. I added some subtitles to it, some, some close captions to it, and within 48 hours, I went from having 25,000 followers to 31,000 [00:19:00] followers. It’s insane how quickly it happened. So I wanna break down what occurred. Like what is it that I did?

One, I changed who I was energetically because in January I was feeling angry. I was feeling this is so unjust and that’s valid. Right? Our community definitely has been under attack. The government is not in favor, the government in power is not our ally. We, we’ve already been very clear about that. And I was stuck in that energy.

And I’m not saying it’s not valid, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be mad, I’m not saying that at all. But if there’s anything we can take from Bad Bunny, it’s that the only thing more powerful than hate is love. And I was like, how can I not worry about them? And he even says this in his Grammy speech.

He says, don’t we don’t hate them, but we do love us. We do love our culture, we do love our people. And I was like, that is the way to transformation, like through Unity. Through celebrating our culture through giving back to organizations that are helping immigrants. All of those different [00:20:00] ways are so much more effective than being pissed and sharing an Instagram post about how mad I am at the government.

Make sense? So one, it was an energetic shift. Two, I decided, I decided that I was going to create content. I decided I was going to have fun with it, and I decided that the way I was going to do it was celebrating Latino culture. So those were all the different actions I took. And between those actions, I just kept getting ideas.

I even shared a video, an old video, of when I went to the Bad Bunny concert in Puerto Rico to the residency and where I was dancing salsa with a stranger, and that video blew up. It has 36,000 likes. I mean it. Feels crazy, but it doesn’t feel crazy ’cause I can tell you why this happened. I suddenly was in alignment and how did I get in alignment?

Well, one, energetically, like I just mentioned, two, I made the decision and then three, I took action. It wasn’t like I made the decision and I just like stayed at home and didn’t do anything. As I [00:21:00] mentioned, I’ve already posted 14 times in the time of recording this. It’s February 10th, so it’s not like I was just hoping around wishing.

It is that when you are in the feeling of wanting to create, wanting to serve and you start with momentum, more momentum leads to more momentum. It’s almost like imagine a little like stone rolling down. A hill. The more it goes, the more it goes. And that’s kind of what happens. And a lot of us are, we wanna get momentum from nothing.

Like we won’t even take the first step because maybe you have this belief that it’s too late for you to grow. Maybe because you have this belief that there’s already too many people out there, or maybe you’re comparing yourself to other people, or maybe you haven’t decided. These are all possible reasons why you haven’t taken the first step and gotten started.

so what I did, I’m going to share three strategy tips. That you can implement today. So the first thing I did [00:22:00] correctly is that I used something that was culturally relevant and timely. So I jumped, uh, you can even call this a trend, right? Like when you see a trend, whether this is a trend that’s happening on social media or just a big pop culture event like the Grammys, like the Oscars, like, uh, let’s see, what else is something big like the Super Bowl, right?

These are all big events. That you know your feet is already going to be full of. So how can you take that existing event or celebrity or thought leader who’s in your field and leverage that to get more visibility with your content? I did this with the Grammys, with Bad Bunny and with the Super Bowl halftime show.

I mean, all of them kind of worked together, and then I added my own take to it, right? I talked about. How bad Bunny has actually been manifesting his personal brand, how he started by putting his stuff up on SoundCloud and making [00:23:00] himself visible. So that is the first strategy. Always look for pop culture events or big events that are occurring that you know your, your audience is already gonna have on their feed and get in on that, have your opinion about it. The second strategy I used was. Shareability. So you want to create content that’s shareable. The reason that my memes did so well was because they were easily shareable and I’ll, I’ll tell you exactly what they were. I mentioned one of ’em, okay? The first one is, so I heard there’s a football game at the Bad Bunny concert on Sunday. So many people shared that one. The next one says, who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl? And then next line says, me Bad Bunny. So many people shared that one as well. Another one I wrote is, I don’t Understand Football Bad Bunny, which is so funny because the whole talk about Bad Bunny being the Super Bowl halftime artist was that people weren’t gonna going to understand him.

So I actually flipped it around and I was like, well, I don’t understand football, but I sure as hell [00:24:00] understand bad bunny. And those did so well because they were shareable. That is why the post ended up with more than 1.7 million views. And then last but not least, timing, I was very quick with it. I did not delay.

I didn’t overthink. I posted. Bad bunnies. Halftime performance. When he talked about, the reason I’m at Super Bowl 60 is because I never stopped believing in myself, and I don’t think you should stop believing in yourself that I posted before. The game was over, literally 10 minutes after the, the halftime show as soon as the NFL posted the video because they’re the ones that capture like the best video.

As soon as that I was, was posted and I was able to capture film. Or footage and I posted that within a few moments of it being over. That is why this went mega, mega viral. So this is where I got most of my followers from. I ended up with 23 i I am [00:25:00] still like blown away by these numbers.

Y’all. 23.4 million views. The amount of likes it has is 1.8 million. That’s how many likes it has, how many people followed me from just this3,522 people. So those are some of the strategy things that I did. If you want to learn more about my strategy, more around my framework, more about how I grew.

Over 6,000 followers in 48 hours, and how I grew my TikTok account from no followers to over a hundred thousand followers in just four months. I am sharing my signature manifestation method in my next webinar. It’s all about how I manifested my first 10 K followers by building my personal brand. You don’t wanna miss it.

The link to register is down below, and if you are like, you know what, Erika? I’m making a decision. I am ready. This is something I definitely want to do. Then I encourage [00:26:00] you to look into my personal branding intensive that is a 90 minute, one-on-one intensive where we work together and I help you identify your niche, your personal brand identity, as well as content types, how to create the content.

What content to create and how to make it more vulnerable, more shareable. And I have a few more other tips, strategy tips that I would share with you there as well. So I only have two spots left for that. It had sold out, but there’s been such a big demand. I decided to open up two more spots and you can find the link for that down below as well.

Okay, friends, thank you so much for tuning in to Chingona Revolution podcast. If you took anything away from this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend and I will see you. Next week, and I will also see you at my training, which is happening on March 9th at five o’clock Pacific Time, FYI. That is daylight savings time, so make sure you add it to your calendar.

I don’t want anybody to miss it because I do have free stuff I’m giving away at the training. All right, [00:27:00] y’all talk to you soon.