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u/Genitypic

▲ 1 r/creators

Has anyone found a safe place to buy 10k Instagram followers?

Hello, has anyone here actually tried to buy 10k Instagram followers just to test if it works? 

So you see, my page has been sitting at the same number for weeks now and organic growth just hasn't been doing much for me lately. I keep hearing 10k is the point where brands actually start noticing you and reaching out for paid collabs, and that's also when Instagram opens up the monetization tools and a few other features. I've seen UGC creators talk about how hitting that number is what got them their first paid deals, and some even buy their way there just to look established enough to land bigger partnerships. That's got me thinking of just running a small test and buying my way up to that mark. Not really planning to make a habit of it or anything, just curious to see if hitting that number actually opens the door to earning from my content the way other creators seem to be doing.

Although what's making me hesitant is not knowing what to expect from it. Buying 10,000 followers on Instagram could go totally fine or it could end up backfiring, and I'd rather have realistic expectations going in before I spend money. Does Instagram actually treat your account differently once it crosses the 10k mark, even if the followers were paid for? Do brands even check how you got your followers or do they just look at the count and move forward? Do the followers stick around long enough to matter or just drop off within a few days? And how real is the chance of getting your profile locked over it, or is that mostly people on Instagram overreacting?

For anyone who's tried to buy followers before, what stuff did you actually look at before picking one? Things like if the accounts look real, how fast the followers come in, the pricing, and whether the service actually replies when you have an issue. Just trying to make a smart call on this before I commit to anything.

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u/Genitypic — 2 days ago
▲ 2 r/creators

Looking to start a YouTube channel

I'm looking forward to creating a YouTube channel where I post gaming videos and I'm wondering what editing software to use?

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u/Genitypic — 3 days ago
▲ 40 r/GrowthHacking

Apollo data quality dropping in 2026? Our bounce rates jumped to 13% so we tested a few alternatives

Been noticing something off with Apollo lately and wanted to sanity check with others here. We’ve been using it for ~2 years (small B2B agency, 5 people, running outbound for a handful of clients). It used to be pretty reliable, but earlier this year our bounce rates started climbing. Started around 8%, then 11%, and one batch even hit ~13%. That didn’t feel like a deliverability issue, looked more like the data itself was outdated. My assumption is it’s just saturation at this point. Same contacts getting scraped and hit repeatedly, people switching roles, emails not getting refreshed fast enough. So we ran a small test across a few tools. Same ICP (US B2B SaaS, mid-market, director+), ~500 contacts each. Here’s roughly what we saw:

  • Cognism had very solid data quality. Probably the cleanest overall, especially if you're targeting outside the US. Just way too expensive for a small team.
  • Lusha was decent, but we kept getting smaller lists than expected. Felt like coverage wasn’t as deep for our use case.
  • Tried SalesTarget as well what stood out was that it pulls from multiple data sources instead of relying on a single database. That seemed to help with accuracy. Bounce rates were noticeably lower compared to Apollo.
  • Also experimented with a Clay + API setup (Prospeo, Dropcontact, etc.). Best results in terms of accuracy, but too time-heavy to maintain without a dedicated ops person.

We ended up moving off Apollo a couple months ago. Since then, bounce rates have been sitting around ~2–3%, which is a big improvement for us. Not saying Apollo is dead, but it definitely feels less reliable than it used to be. Curious if others here have seen similar issues recently or if it’s just our datasets?

u/Genitypic — 5 days ago