how do you lot grow your instagram following?

Agree with that. To see whether it's working, check the insights on each post for how much of the reach came from non-followers - if that number never moves, the content isn't getting tested on new people at all and posting more often won't fix it.

growth comes down to whether the platform is showing your posts to people who don't follow you yet, and that's decided by how people behave on the content itself - watched to the end, saved, sent to someone. one post a month that people send on does more than thirty nobody finishes.