From Sarah Stacke’s article “Instagram Takeovers, and How They Work” for Photo District News:
When Marc Yankus (@marcyankus on Instagram) took over the Smithsonian account in February, he posted images and video he had made on a recent trip to Antarctica. Yankus began the takeover with about 670 personal followers and ended with just over 1,000. Then an email from Instagram arrived, telling him that he had been put on the coveted Instagram Suggested User list. Since that email, Yankus has been adding about 1,000 followers a day to his account. As of mid-March he had reached nearly 30,000.
Apart from bringing him followers, Yankus says, the daily posts allowed him to get feedback from, and respond to, readers. He says, “I looked forward to posting every day. I loved the dialogue, the back and forth. I felt like I took people on a journey and that was a really cool thing to do.”