Instagram Success: Reaching 300K+ Followers in 10 Days

Feb 25 BY Hawaiian Host Group

Instagram Success: Reaching 300K+ Followers in 10 Days
Objectives 

In today’s crowded social media landscape, finding ways to break through the noise can be challenging. Hawaiian Host Group, the employer brand behind Hawaiian Host, Mauna Loa, KOHO, and Kapua Orchards, turned a fun idea into a full-blown phenomenon with its ‘Disneyland Challenge.’ This campaign not only increased its Instagram followers from 1,400 to +300,000 in just 10 days but also showcased the internal culture—one that celebrates collaboration, exceeding expectations, and the spirit of aloha. The challenge aimed to increase brand awareness and attract top talent.

Click here for the Campaign Summary Video.

Strategy and Execution

The campaign started like many great ideas: with a challenge and a looming deadline—reach 10,000 Instagram followers by May 1st. As the date drew closer, the pressure was on. During a team meeting only days before the deadline, our intern walked in wearing a Disney-themed shirt. That small detail ignited an idea: What if we tied our goal to something universally loved, like Disneyland? The concept clicked and our boss declared he’d take the team to Disneyland if we hit the target.

Timeline & Milestones

  • Day 1: We kicked off the challenge with a reel: “Help us hit 10k followers so our boss will take us to Disneyland & we can stop dancing.” (Video here)
  • Day 2: Within two days, we surpassed 10,000 followers. Leveraging this momentum, we raised the stakes: if we reached 100,000 followers in the remaining 8 days, “Boss Man” would wear a princess dress during our Disneyland trip. (Video here)
  • Day 4: Surpassing 100,000 followers now, we invited our brand new social community to vote which princess dress they wanted “Boss Man” to wear. The result: Rapunzel! (Video here)
  • Day 5: Now, having over 200,000 followers, our community rallied for “Boss Man” to do a princess dress reveal. (Video here)
  • Day 10: Reached +300,000 followers and cemented the campaign as one that led to one of the fastest-growing Instagram accounts of its time. (Video here)
  • 2 weeks later: We went to Disneyland and hosted the dress reveal, with hundreds of people waiting in line three hours before the event started – after only announcing the exact event location (near Disneyland) on the day of. (Video here)
  • 4 weeks later: The crowd stayed entertained with daily content about different Disneyland rides (video here) and how Boss Man’s pockets were hurting (video here), we finally started monetizing the campaign. For this, we launched “Boss Man’s Favorites” and “Comms Ladies’ Favorites” product bundles with custom campaign tote bags (video here).

Strategic Factors Contributing to Our Success:

  • Sense of Urgency: A 10-day deadline inspired immediate action.
  • Social Proof: Regular updates showcasing the growing number of followers provided social proof and encouraged more people to join in.
  • Global Community Engagement: The universal appeal of Disney assisted in amplifying our reach.
  • Consistent, Engaging Content: Having a great foundation of entertaining employee-focused content before this campaign not only convinced more people to follow us during the campaign, but they continued to follow us well beyond the campaign too.
  • Strategic Follower Conversion: Following the Disneyland Challenge, we strategically refocused our efforts to convert our global audience (a lot of which were from countries we unfortunately don’t ship our products to) into a more robust local following of potential talent and customers.
The Results

Web Traffic

After the campaign, the average monthly traffic to our Careers webpage soared from 835 to 10,826 monthly viewers – a 1,196% increase. As an employer brand, this was one of our key KPIs to further grow interest in joining our company. 

Sales Impact

The “Boss Man’s Favorites” and “Comms Ladies’ Favorites,” product bundles with custom tote bags sold out in a matter of days. This initiative engaged customers effectively, driving a significant e-commerce sales increase and demonstrating strong market penetration and consumer interest on a global level.

Social Metrics

  • Follower Growth: Increased from 1,400 to 300K+ in just 10 days
  • Engagement Rate: Increased by 925% within the first two days 
  • Average Views Per Video: +5 million
  • Most Watched Video: +23.2 million views, +788K likes, 10K shares
  • Princess Dress Voting Poll Participation: +198K responses
  • Reach: +12 million unique users globally

Event Attendance

The final dress reveal event in Anaheim, CA, featuring ‘Boss Man’ in a dress, was a major hit, drawing +250 people in-person and +70K people joined the event livestream.

Favorite Comments

Our audience loved the humor and authenticity of the campaign, flooding our posts with comments including:

Looking Ahead

As we close this chapter, we are immensely grateful for the overwhelming community support. A big mahalo to everyone involved in making our journey to Disney a landmark success for our Hawai’i-based company.

Stay connected and see what’s next by following us on Instagram @hawaiian.host.group

Appendix: Media Coverage

The Disneyland Challenge evolved from a social media trend into a community-driven movement, sparking widespread engagement across platforms. 

Instagram & TikTok Mentions:

LinkedIn Engagements:

Campaign Influence: Our success inspired similar campaigns nationwide:

  • @Haehawaiimovement: click here – “Stoked for you @hawaiian.host.group – Mahalo for the inspiration because WE WANT TO GO TO DISNEY TOO.“
  • @Hawaiikaivetclinic: click here – “Help us SPLASH into @disneyaulani. We have 6 days to reach 100K!”
  • @Trū Bowl Superfood Bar: click here – “Trying the @hawaiian.host.group disneyland challenge with our CEO Zack! GET US TO DISNEYLAND. 🏰”
  • @clawplanetlv: click here – “Who likes waking up and going to work on Monday? This is day 4. Road to Disney 10k in 10 days.” 

News Coverage: Our campaign received significant attention from both local and national news outlets:

Local: 

National:

Articles Referencing Our Campaign:

  • Rogerwilco: click here – “Going Viral: A Step-by-Step Guide to Social Media Success”
  • OH Partners: click here – “O.H. Influencer Series, Part 4: The Rise of Social Media as a Search Engine”
  • Lingo: click here – “Maximise your chances of going viral on social media”
  • Chatter Blast: click here – “Gen Z Marketing Is All About Smashing the Rules”

Category: News