Some people ask why they have to follow so many people to grow their account. We approach this in the same way we do with business. Basically, if you don't "connect" with people initially they will likely not know you exist. Until you grow to the point where your influence greatly increases and there's a tipping point, i.e., you get more featured posts on Instagram, you are a recommended profile to follow, your website traffic is in the hundreds of thousands or you get mentions in the press and other publications), it's likely necessary to have a focused effort in connecting with individuals in your industry and in the beginning as we kick-start your growth. Hopefully this makes sense, but no, we do not following thousands of people unless it is for the purpose of growing your account. And in which case we are strategic about this and have a process to unfollow those who do not want to be connected.
Over time, you'll see more people follow you without our service because as your popularity grows, so will your influence and it will ultimately have that effect. For example, people usually have to decide whether they want to follow someone who has 400 followers, but if they see someone with say 12.3k+ or 70k+ followers it becomes a lot easier to make that decision to follow them with everything else being equal (gorgeous feed, beautiful photos, etc.).