0 to 100K Followers in 10 Days with 10 Reels and Millions of Views

When I first came to Dubai, I noticed influencers getting free stays, dinners, spa treatments, and products. I wasn’t one of them, and I wanted to test something: how easy is it to make a social story and get people to trust and engage with it?

So I started an experiment. I created a new Instagram account and a simple rule: for every new follower, I’d send 1 Emirati dirham (≈ $0.27) to my wife - who was abroad. Each evening I posted a reel showing the follower count and a transfer. I showed voice messages from her reacting to the money drops. I spoke broken Arabic, left every awkward moment in, and posted one reel a day - no filters, no polish.

I think it worked because of the following reasons:

• Every follower directly impacted my bank account

• Instant impact (follow today = I send money tomorrow)

• Private conversations

• Daily updates created return viewers

• Non-Arab creator speaking broken Arabic

• Viewers watch my savings shrink daily

• Curiosity: Where is this heading? How long until the money runs out? Where am I from?

• Community involvement in the outcome

• Unpolished filming style and almost no editing

At some point I launched another quick experiment.

I posted a video asking people to guess my exact ethnic background. Whoever guessed it first would receive as many dirhams as there were comments under the post.
The catch: my heritage is complex and almost impossible to guess precisely - and I knew people would be curious to know.

The result: over 7,000 comments and massive engagement.
People weren’t just watching anymore — they were playing.

I was happy with the fast growth and engagement - the account reached more than 100K followers and millions of views in just 10 days, with engagement rates higher than Drake’s or Ronaldo’s.

Communicating with brands was easy too - but I used the collaborations and brand offers for another project, then stopped posting. The experiment had served its purpose. I wasn’t trying to become an influencer - I wanted to understand how attention, trust, and participation can be engineered with a simple, intentional system.

And it worked.