Growing on Instagram advice

Hello guys! This seems like a fun great community and I'm glad to be a part of it now.
There have been some requests both on Instagram and here to share how I'm doing it, so I thought some of you may be interested.
For the introduction, I've got a gaming/lifestyle based account with 19k followers as of now. I'm experiencing a steady growth since I started using it about half a year ago, and it's only going better lately, so I honestly believe all this algorithm panic is just overblown. I thought of sharing some tips now, and if I see you're interested I'll post more. I'm part of lots of Instagram communities and I tried researching it as much as possible, but some tips will work better than others on your account, depending on how you're building it.

For the start, PICK A THEME. I see so many accounts complaining about their engagement, and then when I check them out they're all over the place. You must have a specific theme your posts are based on and talking about, and then stick to it like your account depends on it. Because it does.

There will be people telling you that they love your random shots of kids or pets or food or makeup, and the best thing is not to listen to them. Not if you want more followers who aren't your relatives or close friends. This is written in accounts like mine in mind, so if your theme is food, of course you'll post pictures of food. But calm down with random architecture shots then.

And of course, if you're just doing it for fun and to share your personal life with people you're close with, you can do whatever you want.

The thing is, people will subscribe more if they know what they're signing up for. If I follow a model, I'll be seeing her modelling pictures. A Suicide Girl will have more nsfw themed ones. Foodie accounts have food. But if a Suicide Girl posts a food pictures, people will undeniably unfollow. They signed up for nsfw, got a potato salad. Wouldn't you be negatively surprised too?

Pick few themes, I'd say 3 at most, and roll with them. I do gaming, geeky fanart and selfies. You can be mom blog with food and outfit, or a foodie who travels a lot. Just make it consistent. When other mom bloggers follow you, they want to see how you're dealing with your life as a mother, what you're cooking or wearing maybe, but probably not memes and random politically themed posts.

That doesn't mean you can't share other content. I'm sharing memes in my stories and saving them in my highlights reel, it's just important they're not on the feed clogging it up.

Also, for the love of Jesus, don't shoutout people with a permanent post. Especially if you're doing a screenshot of their feed or if their content is not related to yours. Do it only in your stories, everything else is way over the top.

Well I went way into writing there, tell me if you're interested since I don't really know how many of you use Instagram at all. Thanks!