grew a gaming account to 12k in 4 months with zero ads. here is the exact playbook

my niche is narrative-driven video games (stuff like Detroit: Become Human and Beyond: Two Souls).

here's the playbook in order:

step 1: i used a dummy account so i could research outlier videos in the gaming niche without messing up my main feed's algorithm.

step 2: i found the videos that performed way better than expected like 5x the creator's follower count.

step 3: this was the idea that changed everything, we stopped posting pretty gameplay clips and started posting the lore questions players actually search for. stuff like "what would you do if..." or "why did this character...?”

every reel opened with a visual hook + text overlay of a common question in the first 2 seconds. no "hey guys," no intro. if the hook didn't land, we scrapped it. we posted 4x a week and deleted any reel under 40% watch time after 3 days. replied to every comment in the first hour.

that was it. nothing fancy. just consistent and cut the stuff that didn't work.